Rosa A. Gonzalez
Puerto Rican Nurse Activist, Author, and Leader
Thank you to Latino Nurses Network and Dr. Gloria E. Barrera for their shared knowledge on this nurse leader.
Rosa Angelica Gonzalez was born to a small merchant family in Lares, Puerto Rico in 1889. Lares, significantly remembered as a site of revolt for independence from Spain almost two decades earlier, unknowingly would shape one of Puerto Rico’s most prominent nursing leaders. While Rosa was still a child, Puerto Rico was ceded to the U.S. as an agreement in the 1898 Treaty of Paris, which signified the end of the Spanish-American War.
With the passing of her father, Rosa and her family faced financial vulnerabilities pushing them into the lower class. Despite her uncle’s opposition and the idea that “nursing was the lowest thing a woman could do”, Rosa responded to the Presbyterian Hospital’s call for nurses, and began nursing school in 1907 with the help of local Masons. In 1909, she graduated from Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing in San Juan, Puerto Rico with a certificate in nursing. Upon graduation, Rosa continued to work at Presbyterian Hospital slowly climbing the ladder from head nurse, convincing her colleagues to try new and unaccustomed vegetables from the Americas, to the first Puerto Rican superintendent of nurses, a position that was only available to women in the U.S. Sponsored by the Woman’s Board of Home Missions (W.B.H.M) in 1914, Rosa had her first trip to New York City where she worked and studied at New York City’s Presbyterian Hospital. This trip inspired Rosa’s promotion of involvement in mainland nursing organizations. When she returned to Puerto Rico, Rosa co-founded the Association of Registered Nurses of Puerto Rico (A.R.N.P.R.) in 1916, which lobbied on behalf of nursing issues. The following year, Rosa authored her first book, Diccionario Medico para Enfermas (Nurse’s Medical Dictionary). Through A.R.N.P.R. Rosa founded the organizations’ journal Puerto Rico y su Enferma which sought to develop the nurses’ code of ethics in Puerto Rico and provide information to mothers to care for their children.
Rosa’s vast experience contributed to the growth and Americanization of nursing in Puerto Rico. She served as Director of Puerto Rico’s Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing and also attended Columbia University in New York. While later serving as Director of Nursing at a missionary hospital in Ponce, Hospital Episcopal San Lucas (St. Luke), she finally published Diccionario Medico para Enfermas. Rosa remained not only committed to the “professionalization” of nursing, but also the education of nurses and community members as she worked as an educator in the Sanitation Department of Puerto Rico. In this role, Rosa was designated as the Director of the American Red Cross dispensary in the barrio of Puerta de Tierra and she was able to supervise visiting nurses. Long before this position, Rosa established a connection with the American Red Cross and the A.R.N.P.R. to establish a visiting nurse program where she was also able to observe public health problems in Chicago.
As an activist, Rosa ensured to speak out on behalf of nurses in Puerto Rico, often times landing her in conflict with medical leaders and local government. In a magazine title Puerto Rico and published in1926, Rosa criticized the conditions of the municipal hospitals while serving as the Executive Secretary of the Association of Graduated Nurses of Puerto Rico. This public criticism ultimately led to her being fired by the mayor of San Juan, Roberto H. Todd Weels. Two years later, Rosa published her second book Los Hechos Desconocidos (The Unknown Facts) which exposed and critiqued the unhealthy practices and political corruption in the municipal hospitals. In this book she also states,
“To this day the ‘Medical Class’ has not accepted nurses who have the same goal as doctors: the well-being of the patient. Both professions need each other in order to be successful.”
With the support of A.R.N.P.R., Los Hechos Desconocidos convinced the interim Governor James R. Beverly to pass Ley 77, which A.R.N.P.R. had been fighting for since 1917. Ley 77 which was opposed by the Medical Board, established the Nurse Examining Board, which ultimately set the standards for nursing education and practice in Puerto Rico. Rosa’s influence and leadership contributed to her involvement in the construction of multiple medical institutions such as the Amarosa Sanitorium and nursing school at the School of Tropical Medicine in San Juan, Puerto Rico. As a prominent nurse leader in Puerto Rico Rosa was also one of two nurse leaders recruited to lead a birth control program under the guidance of Dr. Clarence Gamble, an American physician who led the eugenics and sterilization movement in Puerto Rico. Rosa established and led the first maternal health clinic in her childhood hometown from 1936–1940, but it was also closed for financial reasons.
Up until her passing in 1981, Rosa continued to provide free medical services in her neighborhood. In 1978 she was award the Garrido Morales award by the Governing Board of the Association of Public Health in Puerto Rico. Rosa A. Gonzalez. Rosa’s nursing leadership displays a unique story of the Americanization and professionalization of nursing and efforts of activists who fought to improve conditions and opportunities for those in medicine.
Sources
Unless otherwise linked, the information above was sourced from the PhD thesis “Advancing the Kingdom”: Missionaries and Americanization in Puerto Rico, 1898–1930s” by Ellen Walsh and Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico.
Please submit any additional sources or information to us to add via social media or email us at nursesyoushouldknow@gmail.com.
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Know Your History
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Examine Bias
- NurseManifest offers live zoom sessions with fellow nurses on nursing’s overdue reckoning on racism and a page to sign their pledge.
- Breaking Bias in Healthcare is an online course created by scientist Anu Gupta, to learn how bias is related to our brain’s neurobiology and can be mitigated with mindfulness.
- Revolutionary Love Learning Hub provides free tools for learners and educators to use love as fuel towards ourselves, our opponents, and to others so that we can embody a world where we see no strangers.
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- Critical Conversation on Health Equity and Racism Toolkit from the American Academy of Nursing
- National Coalition for Ethnic Minority Nurse Association to stay engaged with topics relevant to nurses of color.
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