Evelina antonetty biography

Antonetty’s early school experiences in New York City were difficult and left scars that lasted for decades. But they also motivated her to become an activist. In a later interview, she recalled that “The Hispanics from Central America, the Haitains, the Blacks from the South and the Puerto Ricans all have problems with language and customs. They experience rejection like I did. They feel like outsiders!”³

As a child, Evelina López lived in “El Barrio”—East Harlem. The vibrant community provided her with a political education. During the Great Depression, she saw that many in her community were unable to find work, but that they were too ashamed to ask for help in public. She decided to help her neighbors by gathering their food vouchers, collecting their food, and delivering it to them in the privacy of their homes. As a high school student at Wadleigh High School in Harlem, she and three classmates staged a boycott. A student had become ill at school, and there was no nurse available to help. López and her peers took action to draw attention to the lack of adequate medical care.⁴

Antonetty later had the opportunity to expand her political vision as union worker, where she met Puerto Rican labor leader Jesús Colón. She also learned from her experience as parent. Her first two children entered school in the South Bronx in the late 1940s, while she was home taking care of her youngest child. She increasingly became involved in her daughters’ school. She got to know the needs of other Puerto Rican families in the area and began to organize parents to push for the education their children deserved.

Antonetty’s organizing work led her to found United Bronx Parents (UBP) in 1965. UBP organized and supported Puerto Rican and Black parents in the Bronx in pushing for better education. UBP attacked how racism, ableism, and bias against Spanish-speaking students and families together limited opportunities for Black and Latinx students.

The organization’s early focus was on bilingual education. Many neighborhood youth came from Spanish-speaking families, but the Board of Education failed to provide the education they deserved and needed. Instead, teachers and administrators frequently labeled students as disabled because they spoke Spanish rather than English.

Under Antonetty’s leadership, United Bronx Parents advocated for a range of issues, from childcare, to parent power in school decision-making, to school lunches. Antonetty also became a mentor to a younger generation of activists, including the Young Lords Party, who were fighting for justice for Puerto Ricans in New York and independence for those on the island.⁵