The Puerto Rican Literature Project

Carlos Mario Fraticelli, also known as “Don Carlos” and “el maestro” within the Puerto Rican community in Hawai’i, was born July 1863 in Yauco, Puerto Rico. He grew up on his father’s coffee plantation, “La Rubia.” While in Puerto Rico, he received an education, which included French, after which he proceeded to study medicine in Paris. Fraticelli migrated to Hawai‘i in 1901. He arrived on the island of Kaua‘i to work at a sugar plantation. In 1913, he left the plantation to work on his own through “homesteading,” which involved leasing land at an affordable price to grow sugarcane or pineapple to sell back to plantations. Between the 1920s and 30s, he returned to plantation work and secured employment as a general supervisor and chief of carpenters. He also worked in road and highway construction. He died in 1945 while living with his son Charles. Benjamin Fraticelli, Mario Fraticelli’s grandson, published two books on his grandfather: Carlos Mario Fraticelli, Puerto Rican Poetry - English Edition: Spanish Originals with English Translations (Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018), the poems of which he translated, and Carlos Fraticelli, como se ve a través de los ojos del nieto que nunca conoció (Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017).

Works Cited

Dias, Austin. “Carlo Mario Fraticelli: A Puerto Rican Poet on the Sugar Plantations of Hawai’i.” Centro Journal, vol. 13, no. 1, 2001, pp. 96-109, The City University of New York New York, www.redalyc.org/pdf/377/37711309007.pdf.

Fraticelli, Carlos Mario. Carlos Mario Fraticelli, Puerto Rican Poetry. Translated by Benjamin Fraticelli, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018.