Nancy Mercado (born December 1959) is an American writer, editor, educator and activist; her work focuses on issues of injustice, the environment, and the Puerto Rican and Latino experience in the United States.

In 1989 she was accepted into the School of Drama at Yale University but had to leave toward the end of the first semester due to her financial situation.

Of her work, Dr. Marilyn Kiss writes, "if the personal is political, then such verses as, "He was forgotten/before he could be remembered/by the heads of state/he provided sugar for," written about her grandfather, Don Portolo, "Director of the Sugar Cane Field Workers", and "Milla can speak of/The turn of the century land reforms,/Of the blinded enthusiasm/For a man called Marín..." about her grandmother, Milla, and "Juanita, Providing food from soil,/Creating homes from ashes,/Teaching tolerance by living..." about her aunt in Puerto Rico, offer testimony to the power of this type of poetic vision.

[5] Latino Leaders Magazine's 2007 issue profiled her as "one of the most celebrated members of the Puerto Rican literary movement in the Big Apple.

[7] Mercado's film, video and radio features include the 1990s Poetry Spots video series directed by Bob Holman, the documentary film, Yari, Yari Pamberi Black Women Writers Dissenting Globalization[8] directed by Jayne Cortez, the 2011 PBS NewsHour documentary special; America Remembers 9/11.