06/28/2021
Obituary: Graciano Matos Santiago
Graciano Matos, age 72, resident of East Harlem - El Barrio, New York City, passed away on
June 13, 2021.
It is with profound sorrow that we announce the passing of our beloved Graciano Matos. After a fourteen-year battle with cancer, Graciano died peacefully in the company of his wife of 44 years, Carmen Vásquez, and his sons Graciano Emil and Camilo Ulis Matos.
Graciano Matos was born in East Harlem, New York City to Graciano Matos and Luz Belen Ramos. He was raised in the Bronx, New York and in Puerto Rico. During his youth he lived for a brief period in Chicago, Illinois. In Puerto Rico, Graciano attended primary school in Naranjito and graduated from the high school Escuela Superior Central in Santurce. He studied briefly at the Universidad Inter-Americana, Recinto de San German, before migrating back to the Bronx, NY.
Graciano worked many odd and labor-intensive jobs before pursuing and obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree in Occupational Health and Safety from the Van Arsdale School of Labor, State University of New York and a Master of Science degree in Environmental Health from Hunter College, City University of New York. As an Industrial Hygienist he worked to protect the health and safety of all workers for the institutions that employed him. He served as Laboratory Hygiene Officer at the City College of New York, CUNY from 2001 until his passing.
Graciano Matos was proud of being Puerto Rican and a passionate activist who took on many struggles in the name of justice. Believing in the unalienable right of a nation to self government, in the 1970s and 1980s, Graciano was a member and local leader of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, fighting for the independence of Puerto Rico and for improving the living conditions of Puerto Ricans on the island as well as those who lived in the diaspora. Graciano Matos understood the injustices committed against our political prisoners and prisoners of war for aspiring for the independence of Puerto Rico. He was active in the struggles to free the five Puerto Rican Nationalists, whom had been in prison since the 1950’s, and later for the Puerto Rican political prisoners released in the 1990’s, and most recently in the campaign to free Oscar Lopez Rivera.
Graciano fought for many community level improvements, including those for environmental justice, better housing and health conditions, the right for minorities to obtain good paying jobs in the construction industry and other movements to improve people’s lives. For several years Graciano worked as a union organizer and during his later years he served as a union delegate at the Professional Staff Congress – CUNY union to help improve working conditions for all CUNY employees.
Graciano was in solidarity with many international struggles. In his youth he protested the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa. Until his passing he stood in solidartiy with the right of Palestinians to their homeland and with the campaign to end the illegal U.S. blocade against Cuba, among other movements to improve people’s life world wide.
Graciano was passionate about his family. He loved his wife, sons, granddaughter, sisters, brothers, mother-in-law, sister-in-laws, brothers-in-law, nieces and newphews and the youngest generation of grand nieces and nephews. He brought joy to their lives with his music, dancing, great food and his fun sense of humor. He was known as ‘tio lindo’, a name he created because as he often said, he was “the cutest uncle in the world.” He served as a mentor, a guide and an inspiration to his family, as well as to many friends and colleagues.
Graciano Matos had many interests and talents. He enjoyed playing and teaching chess, participating in political and philosophical discussions, and hiking; he loved nature and horses. Graciano cherished his visits to his homeland, Puerto Rico, where he enjoyed the mountainsides as well as the beaches and spent endless hours planting and working the land to grow and cultivate. Graciano was an advid reader and he loved to write. He has published two books in Spanish. La pequeña abeja is a children’s short story and Antonio Cruz Colon Mis Memorias y La Verdadera Historia de la Revolucion en Jayuya, which he edited along with his son, Camilo U. Matos Vásquez, is about the 1950 revolution in response to U.S. forces attempt to suppress the Puerto Rican independence movement. His third book, Cuentos de mi Barrio, short stories, is currently being published in Puerto Rico. He has left many unpublished stories and poems, most in English, some in Spanish.
Graciano Matos will be remembered as a compassionate, pro-active and strong person who cared about those closest to him as well as those he did not know personally. Working to make this a better world gave him great joy and statisfaction.
Now you can subscribe to the DJ Mellow G Party list and find out about all the hottest events right away.
