Reading Luisa Capetillo

Abstract:"Nonconformist" is one of several ways to describe Puerto Rican feminist Luisa Capetillo (1882–1922). As a transnational figure who synthesizes a unique fusion of diverse influences such as anarchism, spiritism, and syndicalism, Capetillo presents a distinctive reader-writer persona as well. This essay explores how reading Capetillo invites one to listen to her like the workers at the tobacco factories where she was a lectora would. It focuses on Capetillo's first essays—published in Ensayos libertarios (1907) and La humanidad en el futuro (1910)—in which she conveys an urgency for getting her message across in order to actively resist colonialist paradigms of exploitation.