Iris Morales

Iris Morales (born 1948) is a American activist for Latina civil rights based in New York. She is best known for her work with the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican community activist group in the United States.[1][2]

Early life and education

Iris Morales was born in New York in 1948 to Puerto Rican migrant parents.[3][4] Her father worked as a hotel elevator operator, and her mother worked as a sewing machine operator.[5] She went to Julia Richman High School, where she attended meetings of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the NAACP.[6]

As a teenager, she became a tenant rights organizer in her East Harlem neighborhood and protested the Vietnam War. She studied political science at City College, where she joined the Black student organization.[7][8][9] She also co-founded Puerto Ricans Involved in Student Action (PRISA), the school's first Puerto Rican student organization.[10]

The Young Lords
The Young Lords logo.

The Chicago-based Young Lords, a leftist group of Puerto Rican youth activists inspired by the Black Panthers, established a branch in New York in 1969. Morales joined the group that year, after meeting Young Lords founder José Cha Cha Jiménez at a conference in Denver.[8]

Her work as a leader in the Young Lords spanned five years in the 1960s and 1970s. She served as deputy minister of education and co-founder of its Women's Caucus.[11] She also served as minister of information for a period.[12]

Morales worked on political education and literacy efforts, as well as attempting to change the machista culture of the organization.[8] She advocated for women's inclusion in leadership and helped co-found the Women's Union and its corresponding publication, La Luchadora. Her work on women's representation in the Young Lords paved the way for the organization's pioneering lesbian and gay caucus.[1][13]

In addition to her fight for the feminist cause within the Young Lords, she also used her position in the organization to advocate for abortion access and against forced sterilizations.[13][14] Among the causes that the organization undertook during this period included establishing a free breakfast program for New York's youth, creating a lead poisoning prevention program, founding a daycare so Latina women could seek employment, and advocating for decolonization of Puerto Rico.[8]

Morales resigned from the Young Lords, which was struggling with infighting and targeted by the FBI's COINTELPRO program, in 1975.[15] The party effectively disbanded the following year.[10]

Further education and career

After the dissolution of the Young Lords, Morales continued her Latina feminist activism and pursued a law degree from New York University School of Law.[11] At NYU, she became the first Puerto Rican to receive the highly competitive Root-Tilden-Kern Scholarship, a full-tuition public service scholarship.[8]

As a lawyer, she worked as an attorney and director of education at the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.[16][7] She was also a co-founder and the executive director of the New Educational Opportunities Network, a media nonprofit serving young people of color.[12] She later worked with Manhattan Neighborhood Network's community media center in Spanish Harlem[10][17] and served as director of the Union Square Awards, a city government project recognizing grassroots activists.[12]

Morales returned to school again and earned an MFA in Integrated Media Arts from Hunter College.[11] She subsequently founded Latino Education Network Services, a documentary filmmaking nonprofit.[12]

In 2020, she was honored as a Latina Trailblazer by LatinoJustice PRLDEF.[18]

Writing and documentary film

With the founding of Latino Education Network Services, Morales created her first film, the 1996 documentary ¡Palante Siempre Palante! The Young Lords.[1] The documentary aired as part of the PBS series POV.[19]

Morales has contributed to recent scholarship on the history of the Young Lords, writing forwards for The Young Lords: A Reader in 2010 and Palante: Young Lords Party in 2011.[8][20][15]

In 2012, Morales founded her own small publishing house, Red Sugarcane Press.[11] In 2016, the press published her history of women in the Young Lords, Through the Eyes of Rebel Women: The Young Lords 1969-1976.[1][21]

Red Sugarcane subsequently published the anthology Latinas: Struggles and Protests in 21st Century USA, edited by Morales, in 2018.[22] She also edited the 2019 bilingual anthology Voices from Puerto Rico: Post-Hurricane Maria, in which Puerto Rican activists discuss the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.[23][24] Morales appeared in the 2021 New York Times documentary Takeover: How We Occupied a Hospital and Changed Public Health Care, about the 1970 Lincoln Hospital takeover through which the Young Lords requested proper funding and infrastructure to respond to overwhelming health care needs, a local tuberculosis epidemic, and other issues.[25]

See also

References
  1. Isaad, Virginia (2018-07-27). "Latina Reads: 12 Puerto Rican Writers Whose Books You Need To Add To Your Reading List". Fierce. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
  2. Latinas in the United States : a historical encyclopedia. Ruíz, Vicki., Sánchez Korrol, Virginia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 2006. ISBN 0-253-11169-2. OCLC 74671044.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  3. "Iris Morales". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
  4. Hobson, Janell. "Women Creating Change: 1950-Present". University at Albany, State University of New York. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
  5. Leonard, David J.; Lugo-Lugo, Carmen R., eds. (2010). Latino history and culture : an encyclopedia. Armonk, New York. ISBN 978-1-78402-829-9. OCLC 891677645.
  6. Thomas, Lorrin R.; Lauria-Santiago, Aldo A. (29 September 2017). Rethinking the Struggle for Puerto Rican Rights (1st ed.). Milton. ISBN 978-1-351-67872-8. OCLC 1097153817.
  7. Gonzalez, David (1996-10-16). "Young Lords: Vital in 60's, A Model Now". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-09-28.
  8. Estevez, Marjua (2018-10-11). "The Revolutionary Latinx Who Brought Feminism to a 60s Leftist Group". Vice. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
  9. Thomas, Lorrin (2010). Puerto Rican citizen : history and political identity in twentieth-century New York City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-79610-9. OCLC 655231527.
  10. "Through the Eyes of Rebel Women with Iris Morales". Five College Consortium. 2017-03-22. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
  11. "Iris Morales". Red Sugarcane Press. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
  12. Cruz, Jermaine (1999-03-05). "Iris Morales, former minister of information for the Young Lords Party, will speak and show film at Cornell, March 13". Cornell Chronicle. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
  13. Nadal, Lenina (2017-04-17). "Lifting Up the Struggles of the Mujerxs of the Young Lords Party: Reflections on Iris Morales' Book". Mijente. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
  14. Martinez, Jael (2019-08-06). "50 Years Later, the Young Lords' Legacy Remains in East Harlem". Remezcla. Retrieved 2020-09-28.
  15. Parra, Daniel (2020-06-24). "Former Young Lords Reflect on Protests, Racism and Police Violence". City Limits. Retrieved 2020-09-28.
  16. "The Puerto Rican Civil Rights Movement". Democracy Now!. 1996-10-18. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
  17. "Iris Morales: Through the Eyes of Rebel Women: The Young Lords: 1969-1976". Carolina Women's Center. 2017-01-31. Retrieved 2020-09-28.
  18. "2020 Latina Trailblazers Honoree: Iris Morales". Latinojustice PRLDEF on YouTube. 2020-09-11.
  19. "Film Screening, Q&A with Educator & Latina Activist Iris Morales | Obermann Center for Advanced Studies". University of Iowa. 2019-12-04. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
  20. "The Young Lords". NYU Press. 2010. Retrieved 2020-09-28.
  21. Morales, Iris (2016). Through the Eyes of Rebel Women: The Young Lords 1969-1976 (First ed.). New York. ISBN 978-0-9968276-1-4. OCLC 963865160.
  22. "LATINAS: Protests & Struggles". Red Sugarcane Press. Retrieved 2020-09-28.
  23. "50th Anniversary of the Young Lords: Iris Morales With Vanessa Valdes". The City University of New York. 2019-10-23. Retrieved 2020-09-27.
  24. Morales, Iris, ed. (2019). Voices from Puerto Rico : post-Hurricane María / Voces desde Puerto Rico : pos-huracán María (First ed.). New York. ISBN 978-0-9968276-6-9. OCLC 1103335560.
  25. Takeover: How We Occupied a Hospital and Changed Public Health Care | Op-Docs, retrieved 2021-10-14
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