Puerto Rican Obituary by Pedro Pietri (1973)

Pedro Pietri's 'Puerto Rican Obituary' (1973) is one of the most powerful poems in American literature — a devastating portrait of Puerto Rican migrant life in New York that has become a foundational text of Nuyorican literature and a document of colonial displacement.

Excerpt:

They worked
They were always on time
They were never late
They never spoke back
when they were insulted
They worked
They never took days off
that were not on the calendar
They never went on strike
without permission
They worked
ten days a week
and were only paid for five
[...]
They died
They died broke
They died owing
They died never knowing
what the front entrance
of the first national city bank looks like

Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
All died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
passing their bill collectors
on to the next of kin
All five died
dreaming about america
waking them up in the middle of the night
screaming: Mira Mira
your own
your ## beautiful
PUERTO RICO

Analysis:
Pietri's poem documents the colonial cycle of displacement:
1. Puerto Ricans are economically displaced from the island by colonial policies
2. They come to New York seeking the 'American Dream'
3. They work themselves to death in exploitative conditions
4. They die in poverty, never having achieved what was promised
5. The dream of return to Puerto Rico — the beautiful island they were forced to leave — haunts them until death

The poem names its subjects — Juan, Miguel, Milagros, Olga, Manuel — giving individuality and dignity to people the system treats as interchangeable labor. It ends not in despair but in a vision of the island: 'your own / your beautiful / PUERTO RICO' — the homeland that colonial economics stole from them.

'Puerto Rican Obituary' was first read at a rally in 1969 and published in 1973. It remains the most widely read and performed Nuyorican poem, recited at protests, funerals, and cultural events across the diaspora.