Part of Speech: verb

Definition: Not pay proper attention to; disregard.

Source: Oxford Dictionary

Found in the line 5  of stanza 15 on “Puerto Rican Obituary” by Pedro Pietri

The word “neglect” in that stanza shows that those Puerto Ricans give up the time of  studying their own culture to get used to the society. In order to be employed, they spent more time on learning English.