Joseph P. Fitzpatrick, Puerto Rican Man of the Year

Today marks the death of Father Joseph P. Fitzpatrick (1913-1995), Jesuit sociologist and advocate for the Puerto Rican community. Born in Bayonne, New Jersey, he joined the Jesuits in 1930. During his formation he ran the Xavier Labor School in Manhattan, an organization designed to help workers learnt their rights and to apply Catholic socisl teaching. After his ordination, he was one of the first American Jesuits sent to Harvard, where he earned a doctorate in Sociology. In 1959 he established an independent Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Fordham University, where he taught for several decades. His specialty was migration studies, particularly as it pertained to Puerto Rican immigration to the United States in the 1940’s and 1960’s. In his writings on the subject, Fitzpatrick tried to draw parallels between the way the Irish were treated in nineteenth century New York and the experience of Puerto Rican immigrants in New York a century later. Ultimately his goal was to promote a immigration policy that would support “the quintessentially American experience of allowing access to opportunity.” Father Fitzpatrick was active in many community organizations, including the Puerto Rican legal Defense and Education Fund and the Puerto Rican Family Foundation. In 1978 he was named Puerto Rican Man of the Year, the only Irishman to be so honored. As one historian writes, “His was one of the earliest and most eloquent voices to call the attention of the Catholic Church in the United States to the pastoral challenge of an expanding Hispanic population in this country.”