Josefina Niggli

Josefina Niggli (1910–1983; birth name was Josephine) was a Mexican-born American playwright and novelist. Writing about Mexican-American issues in the middle years of the century, before the rise of the Chicano movement, she was the first, and for a time, the only Mexican American writing in English on Mexican themes; her egalitarian views of gender, race, and ethnicity were progressive for their time and helped lay the groundwork for such later Chicana feminists as Gloria Anzaldúa, Ana Castillo, and Sandra Cisneros. Niggli is now recognized as "a literary voice from the middle ground between Mexican and Anglo heritage." Critic Elizabeth Coonrod Martinez has written that Niggli should be considered on a par with such widely praised Spanish-language contemporaries as Mariano Azuela, Martín Luis Guzmán, and Nellie Campobello. Because of the Mexican Revolution, she was sent out of Mexico in 1913, and spent much of her youth between Monterrey and San Antonio, Texas. As a teenager in San Antonio, and in spite of being an Anglo, she felt that she did not belong, and wished to be back in Monterrey; these feelings formed the basis of her first book of poetry, Mexican Silhouettes, published in 1928 with the help of her father.

Niggli was hired during World War II by NBC International to write Spanish-language messages for Latin American radio. Niggli became active as a writer and producer for San Antonio's KTSA radio station and studied play writing at the San Antonio Little Theatre (now known as the Public Theater of San Antonio), eventually joining the Carolina Playmakers at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she earned her master of arts degree. During this time, she continued to write about Mexican folklore and history, such as her play Soldadera, which depicted women soldiers (soldaderas) in the Mexican Revolution, particularly the tradition of La Adelita. the university now houses a collection of her writings and a theater in her name. In 2009, the university sponsored a year-long, campus-wide theme in her honor: "Josefina Niggli: A Celebration of Culture, Art, and Life". While in North Carolina, she continued to write not only novels—her final novel, A Miracle for Mexico, was published in 1964

In 2005, Western Carolina University named the Niggli Studio Theater in her honor, in the university's newly opened John W. Bardo Fine and Performing Arts Center. She is thought to be the only Mexican-American woman to have a theatre named after her.