José Mancisidor Ortiz was born on April 20, 1894, in Veracruz, Veracruz, Mexico, the fifth of eleven children to Jorge Tomás Mancisidor Oyarzábal (1860-1921) and Catalina Ortiz Alpuche: Jorge, Rodolfo, Catalina, Esperanza, José, Anselmo, Carmela, Raimundo, María, Emilio and Francisco [REF].
In April 1935 he traveled to New York City as the Mexican Delegate to the First American Writers Congress which eventually founded the League of American Writers.