Rosa Elena's father, Nieves, was a merchant who owned a cafetín (a small grocery store), and her mother, Doña Salud, owned a fonda, a restaurant. The youngest of five children, Rosa Elena first started learning mundillo at the age of four from her mother. She had always wanted to learn because she loved the sound of the bobbins clicking against one another as her mother worked on her mundillo loom. From then on, mundillo was always part of Rosa Elena's life.

Her sister and three brothers also remember learning from their mother as young children, but they never kept up with it. In other island towns it was common for girls to learn sewing or smocking (pinching little pleats to form a geometric design), but in Moca middle class girls learned mundillo instead.

Rosa Elena remembers hearing a story from her grandmother, the "origin tale" of how lacemaking started in Moca: "My grandmother told me that her mother told her that two españolas (women from Spain) came to live in Moca. They lived in a house in front of the plaza, across from the Catholic Church. When they started teaching girls to make lace they were paid 25 cents for a class. Back then if a person was able to pay a quarter they were considered well-to-do. Girls taught other girls and it [lacemaking] spread."

When she was a little girl, Rosa Elena and her friends would "play house" on her patio, and she would imagine making lace. "I walked to the lemon tree and I took the leaves and the thorns and started making patterns on the leaves using the thorns." She also remembers that while sitting in church during Mass, "I would look at the designs on the floor of the church and think of them as patterns. I saw squares and I was making mental holes and margaritas—just in my mind, making designs."

Doña Salud liked to make lace by the yard to use on her daughter's dresses—this edging is called puntilla. She didn't like to make set pieces like zapatitos (baby booties) but loved to sit and create yard upon yard of lace. "She said, 'I don't care how many yards and feet I have. Yo sigo y sigo." Rosa Elena learned this from her, but she also received instruction from older girls to make other pieces. For example, her friend Marina taught her to make handkercheifs.

As she grew older, during the summers, she would gather with friends of all ages on the balcony of one of their homes to talk, watch the boys pass by, and make mundillo. Rosa Elena never remembers working on mundillo alone, it was always a group activity.

A purse and glove set Rosa Elena created using claro, brusela, mosca, margarita, cardoneta, and pellisco stitches. Photo: Martha Cooper

The creativity in lace making is very impotant to Rosa Elena. Although one can buy books of patterns, she likes to design her own. In these patterns, used as a guide in creating the lace piece, a sense of geometry and artistic sensitivity are required to create a balanced and aesthetically pleasing pattern. Rosa Elena comments, "For me mundillo is an art, because, like the painter who has in his imagination what he wants to create on the canvas, so it is for us: we create, invent, and design what we want to make in lace." Like any artist, she finds that creating involves a process of give and take.

To make a pattern or different stitches, she drafts designs, figures out if something doesn't work, then must undo it and start again. "I have to be able to think as the painter or the writer does." Many lacemakers don't make their own patterns but rely on patterns from friends or books. Not only does Rosa Elena create her own patterns, she invents new stitches.

Rosa Elena's mother only made lace to decorate the clothes of her children and grandchildren. Likewise, Rosa Elena does not sell her work. For her it is a work of art without a price tag, but she does make pieces for family and friends for special occassions. Not all tejadores are averse to selling however and in some places in Puerto Rico mundillo pieces can be purchased. However in New York City, mundillo is not easy to find because there are so few practitioners.

Of the handful of tejadores in New York City, Rosa Elena stands out for the quality of her work and her tireless work in upholding the tradition. Although she doesn't sell her work, she regularly presents her work and process at public festivals and exhibits around New York State. Her efforts to promote awareness of mundillo as a Puerto Rican folk art are important for Nuyoricans because unlike the vejigante carnival masks of Ponce (see sidebar), mundillo is not an art many Puerto Ricans are familiar with—unless they are from Moca or Isabela.

Rosa Elena instructs a student during her weekly mundillo course at City Lore. Learning mundillo is a way for Nuyoricans to not only connect creatively to their heritage but also to connect socially—the group classes are a constant buzz of gossip, stories, and laughter. Photo by Elena Martínez

Teaching has always been important to Rosa Elena. She remembers, "I've loved teaching since I've been in the first grade. What we learned in the morning I would teach to my classmates in the next class in the afternoon." As an adult Rosa Elena became an English as a Second Language and Spanish teacher for high school and college courses.

Rosa Elena also has a long history of teaching the art of mundillo. She first taught mundillo professionally through the university in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. When she was president of the cultural center in Moca (Centro Culturla Mocano), which she co-founded, she traveled throughout the island giving lectures on mundillo. The Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP), the principal arts and cultural agency on the island, nominated the Centro Cultural Mocano as the best on the island thanks to her hard work.

Rosa Elena also organized the Feria de Artesanías, a summer festival of art, music, and poetry. After she left her position at the cultural center, this festival gradually became the Festival de Mundillo to celebrate the city's distinctive legacy. In the early 1990s, a statue, La tejedora de mundillo, was erected in Moca's plaza to memorialize mundillo and its makers. Rosa Elena is a certified artisan of the ICP, founded in 1955 to study, conserve, and enrich Puerto Rican culture. From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s she taught mundillo at many places in Puerto Rico.

"Zurcido-Torcido," Rosa Elena's original design Photo by Elena Martínez

In 1986, Rosa Elena moved to New York City. Her children were attending colleges in New York and New England and she wanted to be closer to them. Additionally she says, "I love New York. I always came in the summer to see museums; bringing my children here to meet people and expand their knowledge. Maybe I loved it because I had not lived here a long time. Before I came I thought to myself, maybe I should go to a warmer place, but . . . . I love New York."

Rosa Elena continues to teach lacemaking and to exhibit her work in New York at places such as New York University, the American Museum of Natural History, El Museo del Barrio, Brentwood International Ladies Garment Union, and the Office of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. She enjoys teaching her craft because she likes to see her students appreciate how from a little thread and a piece of wood, a beautiful pattern can emerge. She also feels it is truly important to preserve and present her culture. She wants her students to take pride in what they do and to strive to become, not just a lacemaker, but a lacemaker who always tries to make the best work possible, with beauty and love.

Whether in New York or Puerto Rico, her students learn in the same manner—starting with basic stitches and then learning more sophisticated stitches—because, she says, "Everyone must learn to crawl before they can walk." Through an apprenticeship grant funded by the New York State Council on the Arts she continues to work with mundillo apprentices in Manhattan.

Puerto Rican trovador Eddie Rosa and his musicians sing a décima in honor of Rosa Elena's People's Hall of Fame Award. Photo by Martha Cooper

In November, 2001, Rosa Elena was presented with a People's Hall of Fame Award by City Lore, for her work in promoting mundillo in New York. In honor of her award, Puerto Rican trovador (a singer of improvised verses in decima form), Eddie Rosa, sang her a song written in décima (a verse form composed of 10 lines, each line having 8 syllables, in an accepted rhyme scheme) to the tune of seis, a traditional musical form in Puerto Rico. What more fitting way to honor this master traditional artist than with the words of another traditional artist?:

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