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Oral histories are intimate conversations between and among people who have generously agreed to share these recordings with BHS’s archives and researchers. Please listen in the spirit with which these were shared. BHS abides by the General Principles & Best Practices for Oral History as agreed upon by the Oral History Association and expects that use of this material will be done with respect for these professional ethics.

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[Last name, First name], Oral history interview conducted by [Interviewer’s First name Last name], [Month DD, YYYY], [Title of Collection], [Call #]; Brooklyn Historical Society.

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Sister Carmelita Bonilla

Oral history interview conducted by Pedro Rivera and Tomas Rivera

May 12, 1973

Call number: 1976.001.007

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Interview Description

Oral History Interview with Sister Carmelita Bonilla

Sister Carmelita Bonilla was born in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico in 1908. She journeyed to Brooklyn in 1923, becoming the first Puerto Rican Roman Catholic nun in New York City. During the height of the Great Depression of the 1930s, Bonilla ran a community center on Gold Street in the Vinegar Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn; organizing clubs and activities for impoverished residents - many from European immigrant backgrounds - and providing vital social services, both for existing ethnic enclaves as well as the fledgling Puerto Rican community. She was stationed at Saint Peter's Church at 117 Warren Street in Brooklyn's Columbia Waterfront District, where she offered religious instruction to parishioners, including many new arrivals from Puerto Rico. In 1967 she was assigned to St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church on Pacific Street in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. By that time, she had completed a bachelor's degree from the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras, and a master's degree from Santa María in Ponce. In 1991 she moved into the motherhouse of the Blessed Trinity Mother Missionary Cenacle in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She remained a member of the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity until her death in 2003.

In the interview, Sister Carmelita Bonilla describes conditions for the residents of Brooklyn's waterfront during the 1920s and 1930s. The interview pays particular attention to the various personalities - including police, politicians and gangsters - she had to deal with in order to accomplish her social and religious work with the Catholic community at large, with the narration focusing on Bonilla's work with newly arrived migrants from her native Puerto Rico. She discusses neighborhood life and some local institutions, such as the Cumberland Hospital, and their relationship with the community. Bonilla also recalls details from her initial training and decision to join a religious order, her education, as well as her personal role in helping the poor and needy, particularly among New York's Puerto Ricans. Interview conducted by Pedro Rivera and Tomás Rivera.

This collection includes recordings and transcripts of oral histories narrated by those in the Puerto Rican community of Brooklyn who arrived between 1917 and 1940. The Long Island Historical Society initiated the Puerto Rican Oral History Project in 1973, conducting over eighty interviews between 1973 and 1975. The oral histories often contain descriptions of immigration, living arrangements, neighborhood ethnicities, discrimination, employment, community development and political leadership. Also included are newspaper clippings, brochures, booklets about Brooklyn's Puerto Rican community, and administrative information on how the project was developed, carried out, and evaluated.

Citation

Bonilla, Carmelita, Oral history interview conducted by Pedro Rivera and Tomas Rivera, May 12, 1973, Puerto Rican Oral History Project records, 1976.001.007; Brooklyn Historical Society.

People

  • Bonilla, Carmelita
  • Kelly, James
  • Tapia, Carlos
  • Weber, Louis

Topics

  • Education
  • Emigration and immigration
  • Ethnic identity
  • Ethnic neighborhoods
  • Navy-yards and naval stations
  • Puerto Rican women
  • Puerto Ricans

Places

  • Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
  • DUMBO Historic District (New York, N.Y.)
  • Puerto Rico
  • Vinegar Hill (New York, N.Y.)

Finding Aid

Puerto Rican Oral History Project records
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