Rosa Collazo

Rosa Collazo
Rosa and Oscar Collazo
Born	Rosa Cortéz Fernández 1904 Mayagüez, Puerto Rico
Died	1988 San Juan, Puerto Rico
Nationality	Puerto Rican
Political party	Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
Movement	Puerto Rican Independence

External audio

Newsreel scenes in English of the assassination attempt on U.S. President Harry S Truman on YouTube

External video

Newsreel scenes in English of the attack on the U.S. Capitol by Flores, Lebrón, Cancel Miranda and Figueroa Cordero

Rosa Collazo a.k.a Rosa Cortéz-Collazo (1904 – May 1988) was a political activist and treasurer of the New York City branch of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. She was the wife of Oscar Collazo one of two Nationalists who attacked Blair House in 1950 in an attempt to kill President Harry Truman. She was accused by the FBI of assisting Nationalists Lolita Lebron, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irvin Flores and Andres Figueroa Cordero in their assault on the United States House of Representatives in 1954, She was charged on both occasions with complicity in a conspiracy to overthrow the United States Government and imprisoned because of her political beliefs.

Cortéz-Collazo (birth name: Rosa Cortéz Fernández ) was born in the City of Mayagüez in Puerto Rico to Ramon Cortéz, a merchant marine and Juana E. Fernandez, a seamstress. At a young age she moved to the City of Ponce where she was raised by her father's family after her parents were divorced. There she received her primary and secondary education. She graduated from Ponce High School in 1923 and completed a 6 week nurses aide course. Cortéz-Collazo decided that being a nurses aide was not her calling after she had to deal with the corpse of a suicide victim.

In 1925, when she was 21 years old, she moved to New York City and lived with her father who had moved there two years earlier. There she worked for a hat company but, barely survived with the income that she received. She rented a room from her godmother who lived in an apartment building in Manhattan. Cortéz-Collazo was subject to the racism which was rampant at the time in the United States.

Cortéz-Collazo became politically active and joined the Caborrojeño Club and later joined the Club Obrero Español, radical labor oriented organization. She survived, during the great depression of the 1930s, with the help of the Salvation Army. During this period in her life she met and married Justo Mercado with whom she had two daughters, Iris and Lydia. She eventually divorced her husband.