Norberto James Rawlings was born on the sugar plantation of Ingenio Consuelo, San Pedro de Macorís, and grew up in an English-speaking minority community descended from African slaves, known pejoratively as cocolos by the Spanish-speaking Dominicans. His early years were marked by daily struggles as well as exposure to American culture in an impoverished cocolo village of sugar cane workers. In the sixties, Norberto James moved to Santo Domingo to complete secondary school at Liceo Unión Panamericana where he excelled in track and field.[4] His growing political militancy sent him into political exile under the guise of foreign study at the University of Havana, Cuba where he earned his Licenciatura in Language and Literature.