What does the Edificio José de Diego— a National Register listed building on the University of Puerto Rico's Mayagüez campus—indicate about this university’s history and its unsung founder, Ana Roqué Giegel de Duprey? Born in 1853, Roqué came from a family of teachers; her parents and grandmother were also educators. A teaching prodigy, she opened her own school out of her family home when she was only 13 years old.

But as Roqué grew up, she realized that training other people to teach was one of her primary passions. Ultimately, Roqué taught generations of Puerto Ricans, both in and out of the classroom; broke ground as a botanist; embraced science as a tool for social good; and led a powerful movement for women’s right to vote.

Furthering Education in Puerto Rico

After Roqué started her first school as a teenager, she spent years teaching across Puerto Rico. One of her first jobs was in Arecibo, where she juggled her teaching with studying to earn her own bachelor’s degree. Roqué’s passion for learning paid off when she became a director for a teacher’s training program in San Juan in 1899. By 1902, Roqué had started the College of Mayagüez and a teacher’s academy. The College later grew into the contemporary Mayagüez campus of the University of Puerto Rico

Roqué became a founding figure for the University of Puerto Rico, in Mayagüez and beyond. She contributed to the development of the Río Piedras university campus in 1903. Fitting to Roqué’s legacy, the first department at the Río Piedras campus grew out of a normal school—a training school for teachers—the Escuela Normal Industrial. With Roqué’s guidance, this normal school developed into what is now the College of Education at Río Piedras. The first graduating class consisted of thirteen teachers.

Over a century later, Roqué’s passion for teaching lives on at the university. Between 2018 and 2019, nearly 200 students graduated from the Río Piedras campus’ College of Education.

The Edificio José de Diego has adapted over time to preserve older elements while installing new ones. For example, there are original wooden window shutters, but the school installed miami aluminum louvers. A prominent tower now stands from the center of the building, and the floorplan has expanded into a T-shape instead of the original rectangle.

The Edificio José de Diego is one of the few surviving buildings at any of the eleven University of Puerto Rico campuses that was built during Roqué’s lifetime.

Documenting Puerto Rico’s Natural Landscape

In its early days, the Edificio José de Diego hosted science classes. Roqué likely would have been interested in many of these courses. She was voracious for new information, especially science. Roqué studied the stars, and her work left some of the members of the Paris Society of Astronomers starstruck; at a time when few women were permitted into scientific societies like the Paris Society of Astronomers, Roqué earned an honorary membership.

But as interested as she was in astronomy, her specialty was botany. As Roqué traveled and taught around the island, she took notice of the flora around her. She compiled Botánica Antillana, which is an anthology of Roqué’s thirty notebooks describing over 6,000 species of plants and trees in Puerto Rico and across the Caribbean.

After the Spanish-American War, the United States claimed ownership over Puerto Rico. This sociopolitical climate pointed to many changes for Puerto Ricans: the incorporation of more English classes in schools, fears of cultural upheaval, and new legislators running to represent the island. While the 1917 Jones Act named Puerto Ricans as U.S. citizens, only men could vote. Roqué joined other Puerto Rican women to establish Liga Femínea Puertorriqueña, or The Puerto Rican Feminine League. This group made history as the first organization for women’s suffrage in Puerto Rico.

While the 19th Amendment gave white women on the mainland the ability to vote, Puerto Rican women did not have the same suffrage rights. But Roqué continued to fight for women’s right to vote, and she imagined a future in which women could hold public office. In 1919, Roqué argued that women could enrich their families and Puerto Rico as a whole if they could participate in legislation: “When she goes to legislate in the House, she does so in compliance with her divine duty as a mother … she works for the good of all society’s children, whose mothers gave their vote and elected her as their representative to this grand assembly of our people’s government.”