Ana Irma Rivera Lassén was born on 13 March 1955 in Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico to Ana Irma Lassén and Eladio Rivera Quiñones, who were both educators. At the age of sixteen, she became involved with feminism, joining the Comité de Mujeres Puertorriqueñas and then helping to found the Mujer Integrate Ahora organization in 1972. She attended the Juan José Osuna de Hato Rey High School in San Juan and then began Hispanic studies at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus in 1971. Bored with that course of study, she changed to general humanities and graduated with a bachelor of arts. She was one of the founders of the Poetry Workshop led by Luis A. Rosario Quiles and Joserramón Meléndez at the university. She obtained her law degree at the same university.
Career
In 1974, Rivera co-founded and edited the feminist publication El tacón de la chancleta. Originally it was published as part of the journal Avance, but was independently published the following year. It was the organ of the MIA, but had an independent editorial board. Rivera has published essays, poems, and newspaper articles in various publications, including: Avance, La Hora, Luna Nueva, Poemario de la mujer puertorriqueña, El Reportero, La sapa, Sin Nombre, El tacón de la chancleta, Zse, Zse, and El arte de morir y la pequeña muerte by Nemir Matos-Cintrón. In 1984, she published a regular column in El Reportero entitled "La mujer de siglo XXI" and in 1988 co-founded the magazine Luna Nueva as a vehicle for Feministas en Marcha, for which she had been serving as spokesperson since 1983. Rivera's legal career has focused on human rights law, including discrimination, gender violence, and socio-economic and cultural rights. Having faced discrimination personally, her goal was to protect others. In the 1980s, she had been refused to enter court in pants and was told to wear a skirt. She sued the judge and won. In 1993, her testimony regarding rights violations and police dossiers kept on feminists in Puerto Rico was one of the presentations at the United NationsWorld Conference on Human Rights. This history, which retells the events of the feminist movement in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, was detailed in her book Documentos del Feminismo en Puerto Rico: Facsímiles de la Historia, co-written with Elizabeth Crespo Kebler. In 2012, Rivera ran for and was elected as the third woman to preside as president of the Bar Association of Puerto Rico. She was the first Afro-Puerto Rican and first open lesbian to occupy the post. She defeated her opponent 948 to 341 for the two-year term. After her term ended, she returned to private practice and teaching. In 2015, she was actively involved in the assessment of a bill that proposed the merger of the Commission on Civil Rights and the offices of the Attorneys of Women of Persons with Disabilities, Elderly, Patients and Veterans into a single entity called the Department of Defense of Human Rights. The proposed new department was to cover legal issues on six target areas, including: aging, civil and constitutional rights, disability, gender equality, socio-economic parity, and veterans rights. In 2016 Rivera was appointed to serve on the Advisory Committee on Access to Justice of the Judicial Branch.
Awards and honors
Rivera has been recognized as an expert on gender, race, and human rights by the Gender Affairs Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. She is a member of the Latin American and the Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women Rights. In 2003, Rivera was awarded the "Medalla Senatorial Capetillo-Roqué" from the Puerto Rican Senate for her contributions to women's rights in Puerto Rico. In 2006, she was the recipient of the "Martin Luther King/Arturo Alfonso Schomburg Prize" for her work against discrimination and for civil rights and the following year, received the Nilita Vientós Gastón Medal from the Puerto Rican Bar Association for her legal expertise. In 2009, Rivera was honored as the Collegiate of the Year.
