Joseph León Helguera was born in the Greenwich Village of New York City and spent part of his childhood in Mexico City. After graduating from high school and serving in the United States Army, he returned to Mexico City, earning a B.A. from Mexico City College. Returning to the United States, Helguera was briefly engaged in antiquarian book selling before entering the graduate history program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. After earning his M.A., he moved with his wife and children to Colombia for a year of research for his dissertation on the Colombian military figure General T.C. de Mosquera. He obtained his Ph.D from the University of North Carolina, and then taught at North Carolina State University. In 1962 he joined the faculty at Vanderbilt University. He later became Emeritus Professor of History, Vanderbilt University. He died April 20, 2015.

Dr. Helguera published extensively on Latin American topics and received many academic honors. In his retirement he continued to be active in speaking and writing on Colombia and other Latin American topics. Because of his knowledge of Colombia, he was instrumental in the preparation of the first group of Peace Corps volunteers to be sent to that country. He taught and mentored these young men in their training conducted at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey during the summer of 1961.