José "Pepe" Amor Y Vázquez, a native of Ribadeo (Galicia, Spain), was a beloved scholar of Hispanic literature and history who made Brown University and the John Carter Brown Library (JCB) his second home. His life and career took him from Spain to Cuba to Venezuela and finally to Providence, where he arrived to begin his PhD in Hispanic Studies in 1951—later becoming an assistant professor in the same department in 1958.

Professor Amor y Vázquez’s experience of transatlantic migration informed his scholarship, which bridged the study of Spanish peninsular, Caribbean, and Latin American literatures. He was also one of the founders of Brown’s Center for Latin American Studies.

In 1998 he formed the José Amor y Vázquez Endowment Fund to underwrite programs and projects related to Spanish and Spanish American subjects, including fellowships, lectures, acquisitions, publications, cataloguing, and the like.

Finally, upon his death, Pepe made a significant bequest to further increase his endowment fund at the JCB as well as support for the University libraries.