Caridad de la Luz

Caridad de la Luz (born January 21, 1977), a.k.a. "La Bruja" (The "Good" Witch), is a Nuyorican (a New York-born Puerto Rican) poet, playwright, actress and activist. She is considered one of the leading spoken word poets in the world. In 2005, El Diario La Prensa, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in New York City, named De la Luz as one of the "Fifty Most Distinguished Latinas in the United States".

Early years De la Luz's parents moved to New York City from Puerto Rico. She was born, raised, and received her primary and secondary education in the South Bronx. As a child she was surrounded and influenced by the sounds of salsa music. Her great-grandmother, Adelaida Cataquet Montalvo, "the original poet" of the family, served as an influential factor in De la Luz's literature aspirations. On Thanksgiving and Christmas days, Adelaida would share with De la Luz a poem – then ask her to recite it back to the entire family.

In 1992, while in college, De la Luz became a sister of the Omega Phi Beta Society and a chartering member of its Delta chapter in SUNY Binghamton.

From 1996 to 1998, De la Luz worked as a community organizer in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx: focusing on issues like drug abuse, dropout prevention, teenage pregnancy and AIDS. During those years, initially in poetic form, she began to formulate the characters who now inhabit her work. After the Producers Club, Boogie Rican Blvd. sold out an eight-week run at the LATEA Theater in New York, was featured prominently in the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe, and made a four-week run in the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (PRTT) in 2009. In a second article, The Times noted that throughout the show, De la Luz portrayed seven different characterstwo of them maleas well as singing, rapping and dancing.

In a press interview, the theater and film veteran Míriam Colón, who was also the founder and executive director of the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, said this about De la Luz: "I was flabbergasted when I saw her performance...That is a gigantic undertaking that only the most skillful and experienced actresses dare to do...She interprets these very recognizable barrio types with a lot of compassion and tenderness."

Film and theater

De la Luz was a dancer in the 1998 movie Dance with Me, starring Vanessa Williams and Chayanne.

De La Luz's other theater performances include Ubu Unchained, El Spanglish Language Sandwich by Pedro Pietri, and Women Like This, and a hip hop festival held in Switzerland.

In 2004, she played the role of "Lucy" in the film Down to the Bone.

On Netflix, De la Luz and her music are both featured in the film Gun Gill Road. The show ran for five months.

In 2019, De la Luz starred in the role of "Sally" in the feature film Release.

Poetry and writing

In addition to writing Boogie Rican Blvd. De la Luz's poetry, essays, and dramatic writing have been widely anthologized.

Voices in First Person, Reflections of Latina Identity; We Got Issues, A Feminist Perspective; Me No Hable with Acento, A Collection of Spanglish Poetry; and Breaking Ground/Abriendo Caminos, Anthology of Women Writers in N.Y. 1980-2012, have all published her writing. De la Luz also self-published The Poetician, a collection of 52 poems and lyrics. De la Luz appeared on HBO's Def Poetry Jam, hosted by Russell Simmons. She also performed her poetry at the Apollo Theater, Lincoln Center, Gracie Mansion, the Joseph Papp Public Theater, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, City Hall in New York City, the American Museum of Natural History, the Bronx Museum of Art, El Museo del Barrio, and many international venues.

The content of De la Luz's poetry explores social justice and Nuyorican identity. Its tone is urban, raw, empowering, and is sought by inner-city communities and universities alike.

She wrote and recorded vocals with Afrika Bambaata, Fat Joe, Jadakiss, B-Real of Cypress Hill, Tony Touch, Vivian Green, Jungle Brothers, Dan Zanes, Hurricane G, Joell Ortiz, Chingo Bling, and Black Ice. The struggle and social injustice she witnessed during her community organizing left an indelible imprint on De la Luz. The daily issues were serious: including teen pregnancy, low educational attainment, drug use and STDs. De la Luz believes that many of these difficulties stem from the complex and often bewildering balance of two cultures, diverse family roots, and an increasingly elusive "American" identity.

“I worked with youth before becoming La Bruja," she said. “But once I saw the statistics of Latinas in particular, I felt the need to create something to bring awareness about these issues from a Latina perspective." For this reason she founded Latinas4Life: an organization which runs high school workshops around the city with a focus on positive role modeling, constructive introspection, cultural awareness, and self-respect. In 2025, De la Luz was honored by the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater as part of its "48Hours in..." series, entitled 48Hours in El Bronx.

Honors and awards De la Luz's combination of poetry, theater, music, dance, and lifelong community activism has not gone unnoticed. In 2005, she was selected by the New York Spanish-language newspaper El Diario La Prensa as one of the "Fifty most distinguished Latinas in the United States".

2019 Jerome Foundation Artist Fellowship Puerto Rican Women Legacy Award Edgar Allan Poe Award from The Bronx County Historical Society Bronx Living Legend Award the Bronx Music Heritage Center Godmother of the Youth in the National Puerto Rican Day Parade Beauty of Survival Award from the Violence Intervention Program, Inc. Citation of Merit from the Borough President of the Bronx Top 20 Puerto Rican Women Everyone Should Know

Currently De la Luz is cultivating her own art space called El Garaje (The Garage) in the Soundview area of the Bronx, where she lives with her children.

She led a workshop called "How Can I Change the World" for the East Harlem Tutorial Program, which evolved into her current writing workshop "Write Your Way Representing Voices UnBroken," which she teaches at YAFFA Cultural Arts, Voices UnBroken, and through her own organization, Latinas4Life.

During her spare time she enjoys singing, dancing and traveling to Puerto Rico. She regularly hosts an open mic show at the Nuyorican Poets Café.

She is also a spokesmodel for Levis Jean's in a nationwide print campaign which runs in Glamour, Entertainment Weekly, US Weekly and Marie Claire magazines. De la Luz was selected as a 2019 Artist Fellow by the Jerome Foundation. This will enable her to expand her knowledge of Indigenous practices, by visiting artists and healers of First Nations along the Northwest Coast of North America, Peru and Africa. Her long-range intent is to create transformation via art and Indigenous worldview healing practices.