Dr. Ricardo Alegria - 1911 - 2011
On Thursday, July 7, 2011, Puerto Rico lost one of the giants in its history. Dr. Ricardo Alegria passed away from cardiac failure. He was without doubt one of those individuals that defines a nation. His accomplishments were magnificent to say the least. I had the honor to have met and talked with Don Ricardo on a couple of occasions. He impressed me from the first time that i heard about him and his tenure as the director of the Institute for Puerto Rican Culture (ICP) for 18 years beginning in 1955. I came to become acquainted with Puerto Rican culture on my own here in the US. I have been living here since 1966, when my family moved here and I was 10 years old. I was bitten by the Puerto Rico culture bug in the early 1970's and by then Dr. Alegria had left the ICP and it was then that I learned about the Taino Native American and the African heritage of our people. It was then that I also became politically conscious and joined the movement to liberate Puerto Rico from t...