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This dissertation studies Jesús Colón's life and works. The title is both a statement and a point of inquiry. As an inquiry, I propose to explore aspects of the Afro Latino condition, which have not received the attention they deserve. My response is to analyze the life and works of the Afro Puerto Rican writer, Jeśs Colón, especially his A Puerto Rican in New York and Other Sketches.
The dissertation is divided into five chapters. Chapter I focuses on Genesis in the Bible, and the Tower of Babel as an origin of time in which men were dispersed and differences created. It also explores another “Tower of Babel,” Harlem during the time of its Renaissance. Chapter II considers Bernardo Vega's Memorias and Spanish Harlem, where Colón lived and wrote after his arrival in New York in 1917. Colón begins to write in Vega's Gráfico in the 1920s, when the Afro Puerto Rican, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, was already a well-known literary figure. Chapter III looks at Colón's epistles of the early years, but especially the series of letters, “Cartas inmorales a mi novia.” Colón's early writings, written in Spanish, with time evolved into English. Chapter IV pertains to Colón's critique of Xavier Cugat's account of the merengue and the tango, both having strong African roots, as Vicente Rossi explains about the tango in Cosas de negros (1926) and Paul Austerlitz's research on the origins of merengue also shows. Chapter V considers the structure and content of Colón's major work alongside the structure of the Catholic Church's rosary. In a comparative reading of A Puerto Rican in New York and Saint Augustine's Confessions, I also suggest that we read Colón's work as apology and his own confessions. The conclusion reflects on the importance of a new millennium for Latino U.S. Literature, but especially Afro Latino Literature, which develops between notions of myths and Afro Latinos as “marginal people.”