Bernardo Vega: an enlightened cigar maker, 1885-1916

Abstract

This article follows the formative years of Bernardo Vega, a tobacco worker, labor leader and political activist from Cayey. Self taught, he read widely on socialist history, theory and action, becoming and effective organizer and propagandist during the early decades of the Twentieth Century. In 1916 he migrated to New York City where he continued fighting the socialist, labor, social and cultural causes he always espoused. During the 1940‘s he wrote "La familia Farallón", an 800 page memoir describing the travails of the Puerto Rican diaspora. The book was never published.