In response to my previous articles author Nelson Denis resorts to slander. Rather than discussing the facts, events and historical topics he disputes with convincing arguments and presenting the required evidence, Denis chooses to make this personal and accuses me of having received a “two-year sabbatical” from the government and a trip to Paris, as a reward for publishing my book Pedro Albizu Campos y el nacionalismo puertorriqueño in 1990.
I have no idea where he got that false information from. Now instead of an enlightening discussion on the tumultuous times and events surrounding the towering figures of Albizu and Muñoz, we have Denis distracting the reader’s attention with insignificant details of the ordinary life and times of Luis Ferrao.
In order to refute Denis’ false statements against me and set the record straight, I state the following:
- From July 1990 to June 1993, I was given an unpaid leave of absence (Licencia sin sueldo) from the University of Puerto Rico in order to continue post-doctoral studies and research in France and Spain. (See attached letters from the Universidad de Puerto Rico’s Administrative Board.)
- During that time, I was awarded two important grants: one from the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES) in Washington DC and the US-Spanish Joint Committee for Cultural and Educational Cooperation in Madrid (see letters from CIES and the Joint Commission and grant authorization documents herein attached); the other grant was from the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the French Republic through its Centre Regional des Oeuvres Universitaires et Scolaires CROUS (See attached letters from CROUS and grant authorization–ATTESTATION DE BOURSE in French–)
- In addition to those two prestigious grants and in order to make ends meet, during those three years, I took a personal loan and used my own savings.
I hope the above information makes it clear to the reasonable reader that my research is unbiased and no Puerto Rican “government reward” was bestowed upon me for writing my book on Albizu.
Personal documents of Luis A. Ferrao:
El autor es catedrático de Ciencias Sociales en la Universidad de Puerto Rico en Río Piedras. Ha publicado Pedro Albizu Campos y el nacionalismo puertorriqueño (1990), Historia de los seguros en Puerto Rico(2003), Puertorriqueños en la guerra civil española (2009), y prologó los dos tomos de las obras de Luis Muñoz Marín Palabras 1931-1935 y 1936-1940 (2005).
Posee un Doctorado en Ciencias Políticas de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, un Diplome d’Etudes Approfondies (DEA) de la Universidad de París 1-Sorbonne, y una maestría de la Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales FLACSO-Sede México. Obtuvo la Medalla de Historia de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, por ser el más alto promedio en su concentración.
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