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Eye on the Florida Primary : Mirror on the Wall, Who is the Most Anti-Immigrant of All?

27 Jan 2012

I’m feeling a little dazed from the seemingly endless stream of GOP debates and the incumbent President’s non-statement statement on immigration policy during the SOTU. With the Florida primary just days away, both political parties are targeting the Latino vote that the state allegedly represents. Both parties are playing a spin game, ready to crown an opponent as the most anti-immigrant on one hand, while claiming that the Latino electorate in Florida doesn’t really care about immigration.

In last night’s GOP debate, on again off again front runner Newt Gingrich took a page from the Democratic National Committee, targeting Mitt Romney as the most anti-immigrant. Certainly this attack is related to Romney’s statements earlier this week touting “self-deportation” as a good solution to current problems. Romney, offended by Gingrich’s characterization, demanded an apology. As I pointed out in a piece I wrote for El Diario La Prensa last month, we are heading into dangerous territory when we try to find the “worst” among bad choices. Gingrich’s allegedly kinder, softer approach to immigration amounts to what the current Obama policy is on paper, allowing “non-threatening” immigrants with family ties and a long history in the U.S. to stay in a permanent limbo status.

A new/old Latino target is being pushed by one organization. Today, Presente.org launched a campaign targeting potential GOP Vice Presidential pick, Senator Marco Rubio. The campaign wittingly named “No Somos Rubios” (We are not Rubios/We are not Blondes), hones in on Republicans using a brown face with a brown name to earn Latino votes. This right wing strategy is being called into question not just based on Rubio’s anti-immigrant positions but also because Rubio represent such a specific facet of the Latino electorate. Rubio appeals to Cuban-American anti-Castro demographic. Rubio probably will not appeal to other Latinos, especially in the South West, who according to polls, played a critical role in Obama’s getting elected in 2008.

Miercoles Movie ( y History Lesson) – Isabel Rosado : Nacionalista

7:01 am By Maegan La Mala · history|Puerto Rico · Comments Off

26 Oct 2011

Filmmaker Melissa Montero is working on a film about Puerto Rican Nationalist Isabel Rosado and is requesting the help of the community. I woke up this morning thinking about “Occupy Oakland” , police violence and tear gas. This got me thinking about the years of resistance in U.S. occupied Puerto Rico and the work of women in that struggle.

Please watch the preview and if you can, contribute to the finishing of this film.

Isabel Rosado, a centenarian, who at 30 years of age joined the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and dedicated her life to the Puerto Rican independence movement. Through her story– as a Party member Isabel collected funds, sewed flags, delivered messages, cared for the stricken leader Don Pedro Albizu Campos, and took up arms in the fight for independence. We learn about the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States and Puerto Rico’s struggle for independence. Isabel, spending approximately 12 years in prison, has become a revered symbol of colonial resistance in Puerto Rico. Her life is a testament to the island’s unresolved conflict with political status, economic development, and a century-long struggle for independence. Isabel Rosado: Nationalist, chronicles the life of a woman of humble means who risked it all, endured persecution, and had her civil rights violated. Not only does her story highlight the central problem of colonialism but it also represents a marginalized community who for many years struggled for their nation’s right to self determination and sovereignty.

Las Mujeres de Lares : The Women of Lares

7:10 pm By Maegan La Mala · history|Puerto Rico · Comments Off

23 Sep 2011

There are times when I don’t believe in coincidences. I don’t believe it is coincidence that Palestine just put in a bid at the United Nations to be recognized on the same day that in 1868 a group of Puerto Ricans made a declaration of independence. El Grito de Lares was a revolutionary call against Spanish colonial rule in Puerto Rico and is recognized as a stepping stone for the modern struggle for Puerto Rican freedom as it remains a colony, now under the United States.

El Grito de Lares, with it’s strong abolitionist roots, is most often credited to Dr. Ramón Emeterio Betances and Segundo Ruiz Belvis. Not to take anything away from the valiant men of the movement, but history, even revolutionary history tends to focus on the role of the heroic men while shoving aside the women who played critical roles in the same struggles. Puerto Rico’s National anthem, La Borinqueña, the original version with lyrics of machetes and canons, not the colonized version of flowers, sun and sea – was penned by poet Lola Rodriguez de Tio and written in the year of Lares and inspired by the activities of Betances. De Tio’s revolutionary beliefs forced her become an exile in Cuba, where she was also involved in the liberation struggle against the Spanish. She died and is buried Cuba. Many Puerto Rican events that I have been to open or close with de Tio’s words and it’s one of the first songs I ever sang to both my daughters as a lullaby.

Puerto Rico, Policing, and Colonial Politics

1:28 pm By Maegan La Mala · Police Violence|Puerto Rico · 2 Comments

15 Sep 2011

Earlier this month the United States Department of Justice issued a report accusing the Police Department of Puerto Rico of engaging in a pattern and practice of civil rights violations including suppressing free speech, using excessive and even deadly physical force when it was not warranted, and engaging in unlawful searches and seizures in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

From the report :

Indeed, the marked disconnect between residents and tactical officers, who routinely enter neighborhoods en masse with high-caliber rifles drawn amid children, seniors, and other bystanders, reveals PRPD’s reliance on law enforcement strategies that run counter to widely accepted models of community-oriented policing. Distressingly, an officer assigned to one of these units told us openly and without objection from his supervisors that officers need to violate civil rights to fight crime and meet the goals set by government officials. This conduct deprives the people of Puerto Rico of their rights guaranteed by the Constitution and federal law.

The report also points to ethnic profiling against Dominicans on the island, which is is important considering that Puerto Rico is a Secure Communities jurisdiction, meaning police officers check the immigration status of those they arrest.

In a police state, women are especially vulnerable, not just because of direct physical and sexual assault by law enforcement itself, but also by not acting when called to cases of sexual and physical assault. The Puerto Rican police are accused of failing to adequately police sex assault and domestic violence cases including spousal abuse by fellow officers.

Happy Belated Birthday Don Pedro

6:46 am By Maegan La Mala · history|Puerto Rico · Comments Off

13 Sep 2011

Don Pedro Albizu Campos, born 1891, considered by many as the father of the modern Puerto Rican independence movement, would have celebrated his birthday yesterday. The Afro-Puerto Rican Nationalist was a graduate of Harvard, spoke eight languages, and was a member of the U.S. Army. That army experience is actually credited with deepening Albizu’s understanding of U.S. colonialism. His work in Puerto Rico led to his arrest and torture by the U.S. government, including human radiation experiments, corroborated by the US Dept of Energy under Pres. Clinton.

I first learned of Don Pedro as a high school student, when a classmate of mine, upon learning that I was Puerto Rican, gave me a book, written by her father, on the life of Albizu Campos. This was the start of a long and sometimes painful awakening politically and personally. (Thanks Guale).

I think in struggles for liberation we have a habit of forming cults around our leaders from the past. Let us remember that those who have come before us were human and imperfect as they moved the important work we strive to continue in our own imperfect ways.

Late to the Civil Disobedience Party (Again)

2 Aug 2011

Last week, Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill) was arrested in front of the White House protesting the over one million deportations that have happened under President Obama and as a push for President Obama to use his executive power to stop the deportations of at least some undocumented.

While there was some media coverage of the event that created a short term buzz, the overall response from many in pro-migrant circles was a collective, non-impressed yawn. Especially given the fact that while Gutierrez was getting arrested “for show”, a young man was getting deported for real.

Civil disobedience is important. I feel it is a tool like street protests, like voting, like not voting but civil disobedience in a vacuum, and a divided one at that smells of opportunism. For a while now, DREAMers have been getting arrested, risking not just a few hours in jail (and usually getting little to no mainstream media coverage- hell Fox News covered Gutierrez’s arrest), but risking their very existence in the United States. At first their campaign was to push the DREAM Act when it was before Congress, lately to push for more equal access to educational opportunity and executive action. Gone on the days when bodies participating in civil disobedience needed to represent, be symbolic for something else. Young people have been and are standing as themselves, confronting a system that wants to disappear them, their families, and their opportunities.

Today in Puerto Rican History : Nationalists Convicted

1:32 pm By Maegan La Mala · history|Puerto Rico · Comments Off

31 Jul 2011

While today many remain attentive to the debt ceiling theater that is taking place in Congress, in 1936, Puerto Rican nationalists Pedro Albizu Campos, Juan Antonio Corretjer, Clemente Soto Vélez and others were sentenced to six to 10 years in federal prison for for “seditious conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. Government in Puerto Rico.”. This sentence is the result of a second trial against the leaders, ordered because the first trial, where the jury was majority Puerto Rican, found the nationalists innocent.

It is important to note that earlier that year, in the Masacre of Rio Piedras four Nationalists are killed by the Policia Insular de Puerto Rico. The Nationalists avenge the Masacre de Rio Piedras. Hiram Rosado and Elias Beauchamp kill Chief of Police E. Francis Riggs. They are caught and killed in the police headquarters of Old San Juan.

It is important to note that the same charges that imprisoned leaders like Albizu Campos continue to be used against current Puerto Rican political prisoners.

Sources : ProLibertad, PR Dream

NYC : Stop Puerto Rico Gas Pipeline Protest on Thurs 7/14

2:30 pm By Maegan La Mala · New York City|Puerto Rico · Comments Off

12 Jul 2011

The struggle against the Puerto Rican gas pipeline continues on the island and wherever the Puerto Rican diaspora are.

Rally Against Gasoducto Puerto Rico Gas Pipeline:
Demand US Army Corps of Engineers Deny Permit
Thursday July 14 at 5:00PM
26 Fed Plaza at Broadway & Thomas St., near Worth St. & Duane St.

On Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 5 pm in front of 26 Federal Plaza, members of NY Against the Puerto Rico Gas Pipeline will be joined by local activists and supporters of the Puerto Rican people and the environment, to rally and demand that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deny the permit requested by the PR Electric Power Authority (PREPA) in which they propose to construct a dangerous natural gas pipeline over 92 miles long.

Public opposition to the project is strong. Polls indicate that 70% of the citizens of Puerto Rico oppose the construction of the pipeline (El Nuevo DÃa – March 2011). On May 1, 2011, over 30,000 people marched together to protest the Via Verde Gas Pipeline. Different sectors of Puerto Rican society have manifested their opposition to this project, including Casa Pueblo in Adjuntas, church groups, cultural organizations, academics, labor unions, community groups, and Puerto Rican citizens in the U.S. mainland.

Recently all documentation pertinent to the evaluation of the natural gas pipeline project was transferred to US Army Corps of Engineers Offices in Jacksonville, Florida. This disingenuous act represents yet another step to hide from public scrutiny and avoid an open and transparent public discussion of the projects merits and costs. Representatives from Casa Pueblo will be traveling to Jacksonville, Florida on July 15th to meet with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Puerto Rico Electric and Power Authority (PREPA) proposes to construct and install a 24-inch diameter steel gas pipeline approximately 92 miles long with a construction right-of way of 150 feet wide. The pipeline will transverse Puerto Rico from the EcoElectrica/EcoEléctrica Liquid Natural Gas Terminal to the northern thermoelectric power plants that only produces 20% of the total electric energy of the island. To avoid compliance with basic regulatory standards and ignore procedural safeguards for the construction of such a high-risk project, the governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Fortuño/Luis Fortu~no, declared a state of energy emergency designed to maintain secrecy, fast-track the permit process and thwart full public participation in the discussion of the project. The implications of this proposal for the future of Puerto Rico are too detrimental to accept. We need to break the
dependency on fossil fuels while promoting economic development of the island with self-sustaining resources.

WHAT: Rally and Press Conference to demand that the US Army Corps of Engineers deny a permit to build a dangerous gas pipeline in PR

WHEN: Thursday, July 14, 2011

WHERE: In front of 26 Federal Plaza, Manhattan NY
[almost certainly the Broadway side of bldg., opposite corner of Broadway and Thomas Streets, near Worth St. & Duane St.; but also check Foley Sq. side to be sure: J, M train to Chambers (north exits to Pearl St. or Duane St on Lafayette); #4, 5, 6 to Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall (north exits); R (not N!) to City Hall (Broadway & Warren stairs); #2, 3 to Park Pl. (east exit to Broadway); A, C to Chambers (at Church St.); N, Q to Canal (west exit to Broadway); #1, 2, 3 to Chambers (at West Broadway); E to WTC (north exit to Barclay & Church); PATH to WTC (at Vesey & Greenwich & West Broadway); buses via Broadway or Varick St./West Broadway, or via Bowery & Park Row, or via Greenwich St. & Trinity Pl./Church St. or via East Broadway & Worth; MAP: or Bowery & Park Row

Behind the University of Puerto Rico Student Strikes

1:19 pm By BiancaLaureano · Education|Internet|Media|Puerto Rico|youth · 1 Comment

27 Jun 2011

As Maegan and I get back into the swing of being back in our respective casitas, here’s a new video that came my wan from Al Jazeera English. They have just posted this video which is a “extra” of Fault Lines. Reporter Zeina Awad discusses how police interaction and violence towards Puerto Rican student protestors heightened when there was less traditional media/press present. Awad shares her experiences being present during demonstrations and police tactics in arresting and isolating some student protestors.

After being at the Allied Media Conference and working online for years, the idea that certain institutions, organizations, and governments think that “press” and “media” are only valid in certain ways is laughable. We knew of these abuses the moment they occurred because of “non-traditional” press and media. Perhaps these are reasons why so many of those institutions/governments/organizations are so against an open internet….

The video is below and in English with no transcript (sorry!)

Fault Lines currently has a story about Puerto Rico and the economy that may be of interest as well.

Te Conozco Bacalao : The Impact of Obama’s Puerto Rican Layover/Campaign Stop

6:48 am By Maegan La Mala · Casa Blanca Camino 2012|Obama|Puerto Rico · 9 Comments

15 Jun 2011

Let’s not call it a visit. Let’s call it a layover/campaign stop. A real visit would have involved at the very least an overnight stay, a visit to a cultural institution that was not a restaurant, and perhaps even a visit with the different sides of the Puerto Rican status issue. But this was not a visit. It was a four hour layover, the majority of which was spent collecting money for his campaign and the Democratic party. As I wrote yesterday, the issues of real importance to Puerto Ricans weren’t really touched. And then people wonder why some burned a United States flag.

The closest President Obama got to touching the status issue was to say that he would support any clear decisions Puerto Ricans would make regarding the status of the island in a plebiscite that according to Pro-Statehood Governor Fortuño, will happen within 18 months. Problem is this is the same way the “status issue” has always been dealt with, with a referendum that amounts to little more than a glorified opinion poll.

Obama did not publicly acknowledge the demand to free political prisoners (although it is being reported that a Puerto Rican Senator did ask him to release Oscar Lopez). The President did not acknowledge the violence and repression against protesters nor the violence and repression against the island’s queer community that in the last year alone has stolen 18 lives. The President did not acknowledge that while he is using Puerto Rico as a litmus test for the Latino vote, Puerto Rico has an active Memorandum of Agreement activating Secure Communities since December of 2010, which no doubt targets the growing Dominican community on the island. Talk about divide and conquer politics at it’s worse. Coming to the island with outstretched hand while continuing to promote the politics of colonization and deportation.

Puerto Ricans are famous for their sayings – their refranes and I can’t help but thinking of Te conozco bacalao, aunque vengas disfraza’o – I recognize you codfish even if you are in costume and that is exactly what this trip was, an affront to the real issues not just of Puerto Ricans but all Latinos. This little Puerto Rican fishy will not be swayed.

Take it away Hector….

Sources : Miami Herald

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Archive for the ‘Puerto Rico’ Category

Eye on the Florida Primary : Mirror on the Wall, Who is the Most Anti-Immigrant of All?

Miercoles Movie ( y History Lesson) – Isabel Rosado : Nacionalista

Las Mujeres de Lares : The Women of Lares

Puerto Rico, Policing, and Colonial Politics

Happy Belated Birthday Don Pedro

Late to the Civil Disobedience Party (Again)

Today in Puerto Rican History : Nationalists Convicted

NYC : Stop Puerto Rico Gas Pipeline Protest on Thurs 7/14

Behind the University of Puerto Rico Student Strikes

Te Conozco Bacalao : The Impact of Obama’s Puerto Rican Layover/Campaign Stop

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