Josephina Niggli

Josephina Niggli

Josephina Maria Niggli, one of the first Latina writers to have her work published by the U.S. presses, was born in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico on July 13, 1910. Her fatherFrederick Ferdinand Niggli, whose Swiss and Alsatian forebears immigrated to Texas in 1836, had moved to Mexico in 1893 and found a job as the manager of a cement plant in the village of Hidalgo.Josephina's mother, Goldie (Morgan) Niggli, was a violinist of Irish, French and German descent.
As a child, Niggli's life was greatly influenced by the turmoil of Mexican politics. After the assassinationof Mexico's president, Francisco Madero, in 1913, the then three-year-old Josephina was sent to San Antonio, Texas, with less than an hour's notice. For the next seven years, Josephina and her familyroamed around the southwestern United States, never really finding a home, until they moved back to Mexico in 1920. When the revolution of 1925 broke out, Josephina was sent back to San Antonio whereshe completed her high school education (most of which had taken place under the supervision of her mother) at Main Avenue High School.
At the age of 15, Josephina Niggli began her post-secondaryeducation at the College of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. Although she majored in philosophy and minored in history, it is during her undergraduate experience that Niggli began to considerbecoming a writer. This idea was supported by Dr. Roehl, who was head of the English department, and before Josephina graduated, she managed to take first and second prizes in the National CatholicCollege Poetry Contest, and second prize in the Ladies' Home Journal College Short Story Contest.
After completing her undergraduate studies in 1931, Niggli went on to study at the University of NorthCarolina at Chapel Hill. There, she studied playwriting, working with Samuel Selden, Professor Frederick H. Koch, Paul Green, and Betty Smith. In 1937, after writing a three-act play, Singing Valley,...