Walking Duermevelas with Luisa

Luisa Capetillo's revolutionary power was recognized in her time by allies and detractors alike, both in Puerto Rico and abroad. The scarcely examined archive of Puerto Rican and US-based newspaper coverage between 1911 and 1913 shows the significance of Capetillo's gesta (heroic feat) and gestos (gestures, movements), offering a powerful trace of her subversive walks and an instance of her own argument. Through her deliberately clothed and performed walks-as part of worker-led and anarchist manifestations and, on her own, as a de facto feminist statement-Luisa Capetillo became/was becoming an other woman. Not a single acera (sidewalk) or calle (street), nor any protest in the archipelago taking the form of a walk against power, has ever been the same after Luisa and her faldapantalón (skirt-pant). Attempting to reflect this premise, this essay traverses, on dreamy foot and bilingually, the author's past-and-present walking duermevelas with Luisa alongside the newspaper archive

Argument (complex analysis · Art · Art history · De facto · Gesture · Humanities · Media studies · Newspaper · Political science · Power (physics · Premise · Sociology · Anarchism and Radical Politics · Cuban History and Society · History · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law · Medicine · Philosophy