123 Years Later, the Unfinished Business of Self-Determination for Puerto Ricans
123 Years Later, the Unfinished Business of Self-Determination for Puerto Ricans
Juan Declet-Barreto, Climate Vulnerability Social Scientist | March 10, 2021, 11:00 am EDT
“[E]ven were Puerto Rico given each and every one of the freedoms, and the powers that such [freedom] begets, the development of such a system will be thwarted because the Union would have violated the principle upon which that system rests, which absolutely requires the will of the people to organize representative institutions.”
One of the prized possessions I brought with me to the United States is a Puerto Rican flag. Not a flimsy, cheaply-made flag on a plastic straw-like stand, the kind that you get on your way to a rally and wave around. It’s a cloth flag, water-stained and frayed by time around the edges of its white and red stripes:
The 1954 Attack On The Capitol And The Woman Who Led It
By Marina Manoukian/Jan. 10, 2021 9:22 pm EDT/Updated: Feb. 15, 2021 4:50 pm EDT
In the middle of the 20th century, one woman became the face of the movement for Puerto Rican self-determination. Her name was Lolita Lebrón, and in an effort to draw the world s attention to Puerto Rico s colonial subjugation by the United States, she and a handful of men opened fire in the U.S. House of Representatives.
After the United States Capitol was stormed by insurrectionists on January 6th, 2021, Amarilis Rodriguez questioned how long the domestic terrorists would serve in prison, considering that Lebrón and her fellow pro-independence activists served 25 years (after being sentenced to even more.) Will the United States legal system punish insurrection as harshly as it punishes anti-colonialism?