Pedro Albizu Campos Readily Spoke 4 Languages, not 6 or 8

Pedro Albizu Campos stated he Readily Spoke 4 Languages, not 6 or 8

Recently, reading an article on Pedro Albizu Campos, it briefly reiterated some of the same wrong information about Albizu that’s mentioned in Wikipedia and Britannica. Besides the fact that the article wrongly stated Albizu’s birthdate as being September 12, 1891, which will be addressed later in another blog post, the article, available here, states that Albizu spoke six languages and that he graduated from Harvard Law School with the highest grade point average, earning him the right to give the valedictorian speech at his graduation ceremony. Let’s talk about the languages Albizu spoke. In his own words and handwriting, Albizu mentions in his Harvard University Appointment Office form, dated May 3, 1916, that he readily spoke four languages: Spanish, French, English, and Portuguese. The May 3, 1916 document can be found here in Albizu’s Harvard College archival documents. To reiterate, Albizu informs us that he readily spoke four languages, not six and definitely not eight, as some other publications, articles, and websites state. Today we know more about Albizu’s Harvard University years. As a policy, Harvard University closes all official university records for 50 years and all student records for a minimum of 80 years.  Accordingly, all of Pedro Albizu Campos’ archival documents became officially available in 2003, considering that his law degree was formally conferred on February 26, 1923.