Posts Tagged ‘Puerto Rico’
Puerto Rico’s Unemployment Numbers : So How’s that Colony Thing Working Out For Ya?
10:25 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Labor| Money| Puerto Rico| economy · 15 Comments
26 Aug 2009
For as long as I have believed in self-determination for Puerto Rico, I have thought that talk about the island becoming the 51st state was just that, talk. This is partially because of issues of race and identity. Despite the post-racial times the U.S. finds itself in (allegedly), the U.S. will not accept a brown, Spanish speaking nation as a state. I also think though, that annexation isn’t attractive because economically, Puerto Rico isn’t attractive. Claro, the island has been exploited economically, pero statehood would require the U.S. to invest more than it would get back from the island. Just take a look at the unemployment numbers coming out of la isla del encanto:
The unemployment rate in Puerto Rico stands at 16.5 percent, the highest of all U.S. jurisdictions, and the government is announcing even more layoffs of public employees.
Puerto Rico is a Natural Resource that Should Determine It’s Own Fate
7:24 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Puerto Rico · 1 Comment
25 Jul 2009
Ah the politics of colonization. I shouldn’t be surprised that The Natural Resources Committee of Congress, a committee that deals with fisheries, wildlife, Native Americans and possessions of the U.S. (aka colonies), approved a proposal Wednesday that would let Puerto Ricans decide their island’s political status. What are Puerto Ricans and Indigenous people if not dehumanized things that need protecting and caretaking?
Voters would choose between keeping the island’s commonwealth status, adopted in 1952, or to opt for something different. In the latter case, a second plebiscite would let them decide whether they wanted statehood, independence or independence with a loose association to the United States.
Action Alert : Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Being Denied Medical Treatment
3:18 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Activism| Puerto Rico · 1 Comment
14 Jul 2009
It’s easy to get caught up in the “all american success story” of Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Latinos, specifically Puerto Ricans are glowing with pride at the historic achievement. However, in the shadow of this “American Dream” is the reality that there are Puerto Ricans in U.S. Federal Prisons for defending the sovereignty of the island nation that Sonia Sotomayor parents came from.
From my amigos at ProLibertad:
Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Avelino Gonzalez Claudio is being denied medical treatment! Since his incarceration, he has developed a neurological condition. In November 2008, Avelino requested, several times, medical attention receiving only a “I do not know”, “I will read some books” answer from the Doctor assigned to his facility.
Not to get all conspiracy theory-like, but it is a fact that the United States has historically conducted experiments and tortured political prisoners. Take for example the case of Pedro Albizu Campos who was given intense radiation against his will.
We cannot let our brother suffer! COPY AND PASTE THE FOLLOWING LETTER AND MAIL or FAX IT TO JEFFERY E. MCGILL! SHOW HIM AVELINO HAS THE SUPPORT OF THE MOVEMENT!
After the jump you will find the text of the letter. We cannot let Sonia Sotomayor’s story be the only story of Puerto Rican identity shown. justice isn’t about making it to the top. It’s about community.
Paquito Cordero is Dead
4:52 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities| Media| Puerto Rico| TV · Comments Off
2 Jul 2009Puerto Rico lost a television pioneer this past Tuesday, when Paquito Cordero passed on at the age of 77. The Puerto Rican government has declared 3 days of mourning for Cordero. EFE reports:
“The people of Puerto Rico start the day in mourning for the sad loss of one of the greats among our artists and a man of the people,” Fortuño said in a press release.Francisco Cordero was born in 1932 in San Juan’s Santurce neighborhood, and after attending the Central Upper School, began his artistic career as an actor when television arrived in Puerto Rico in 1954 on the program “Mapy y Papi,” together with his aunt Mapy Cortes (1910-1998).
His greatest legacy as a producer was the program “El Show de las 12” (12 O’clock Show) for Telemundo Channel 2, which aired at midday.
The program was transmitted for the first time on Jan. 11, 1965.
In addition to his work as a producer and comedian, Cordero is often credited with the international success of Menudo.
Via / Latin American Herald Tribune
SPEAK! In Puerto Rico
10:34 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Culture| Events| Puerto Rico| Women| media justice · Comments Off
23 Jun 2009I am so excited that this is happening. Gente in Puerto Rico should represent and support this amazing project that yes, I am a part of.
UN Committee Approves Text Calling on U.S. to Expedite P.R.’s Self-Determination
7:30 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Politics| Puerto Rico · 1 Comment
17 Jun 2009
On Monday afternoon, The Special Committee on Decolonization approved a draft resolution calling upon the Government of the United States to expedite a process that would allow the Puerto Rican people to exercise fully their inalienable right to self-determination and independence.
The above news that came into my inbox (gracias Jo Boriken) comes from Puerto Rico’s pro-independence party (PIP). A few thing right away caught my attention. One, the fact that this happened in a Committee on Decolonization, formally known as the Special Committee on the Situation with Regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, reasserts what many have refused to say or covered up through semantics. Puerto Rico is a colony.
Second, I can’t be the only one who finds in strange that one country needs to request action from another in order to determine it’s own future. Pero maybe that’s just the radical in me.
By the terms of that text, which the Special Committee approved by consensus, the decolonization body… requested that the President of the United States release all Puerto Rican political prisoners serving sentences for cases relating to the Non-Self-Governing Territory’s struggle for independence -– including two who had been imprisoned for more than 28 years. It expressed serious concern about actions carried out against Puerto Rican independence fighters and encouraged rigorous investigations of those actions, in cooperation with relevant authorities.
The Special Committee, also known as the “Committee of 24”, urged the United States Government to complete the return of occupied land and installations on Vieques island and in Ceiba to the Puerto Rican people; respect their inhabitants’ fundamental human rights to health and economic development; and expedite and cover the costs of decontaminating the areas previously used for military exercises.
Introducing the draft resolution, Cuba’s representative said Puerto Rico was a Latin American and Caribbean country with its own national identity, and its long struggle for independence was deeply rooted in a sense of identity. Notwithstanding 27 resolutions and decisions approved by the Special Committee and the General Assembly, the people of the Commonwealth were still unable to exercise their legitimate right to genuine self-determination and independence due to continuing economic, political and social domination by the United States, the colonial Power.
It’s Viernes! A Mover el Culito Rican Weekend Edition
10:25 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Culture| Events| Music| New York City| Puerto Rico| dance · 1 Comment
12 Jun 2009I’m really exhausted of being spoken to as if I were an idiot, and of debates as to who is more down, more Rican, more this more that. So, in honor of Rican Weekend, which is the Festival de la 116 tomorrow and the Puerto Rican Day Parade Sunday, here’s some Pleneros de la 21, who have a whole series of events this weekend that you can read about after the jump.
Puerto Rico en la Marcha : Over 100,000 March Against Layoffs, Form New Coalition
6:00 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Activism| Justice| Labor| Politics| Puerto Rico · 5 Comments
8 Jun 2009On Friday, June 5th, more than 100,000 persons marched in San Juan to protest the recent firing of some 10,000 workers by pro statehood Governor Luis Fortuño and his Law 7 which would privatize every remaining bit of the public sector economy.The law also allows the government to disregard contracts already signed with labor unions. The march and protest was called The People’s Assembly. The People’s Assembly declared that it was in permanent session and would start organizing activities in the 78 municipalities.
Wapa TV has a video report here.
At the head of this movement are Labor organizations. The pro independence and Left organizations created an alliance called All Puerto Rico With Puerto Rico. It includes the Independence Party, Movimiento Independentis Nacional Hostosiano, Socialist Front, Movimiento socialista de Trabajadores, Communist Refoundation, Movimiento Al Socialismo, and the Popular Democratic Party.
Pero artist and actors also represented, including Calle 13 and Cultura Profetica.
For me it’s really interesting to see all of these somewhat unlikely forces working together against Fortuño and under the banner that Puerto Rico as a nation, with it’s own distinct culture, deserves better than what the pro-statehood governor is bringing.
El Nuevo Dia has a photo gallery of the rally here.
Could Sotomayor Influence the Puerto Rican Status Issue?
9:00 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Politics| Puerto Rico| Women · 2 Comments
1 Jun 2009
According to an article I received in my inbox Sotomayor has said something on Puerto Rico’s status and sovereignty.
NCM Puerto rico
OBAMA’S STRATEGIC MOVES ON PUERTO RICO
Jesús Dávila (Translation by Jan Susler)SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, May 26, 2009 (NCM) – President Barack Obama named to the Supreme Court a jurist who developed the theory that it is viable to make special arrangements with Puerto Rico if it is annexed as a state of the Union, at the same time that its Government initiated steps to free an independentista political prisoner.
Obama’s two strategic actions on Puerto Rico, taken the same day, refer to events that took place about 30 years ago related to two very different aspects of the colonial case of this Caribbean nation, which the U.S. chief has promised to resolved during his first term in office.
The first took place in 1979 when Sonia Sotomayor, a Puerto Rican born and raised in the Bronx, New York, wrote an essay for the Yale University Law Journal — from which she graduated with honors— in which she argued that the history of Puerto Rico as a colony made it constitutionally viable for the United States to respect Puerto Rico’s rights over mining and petroleum in its territorial waters up to 200 miles. According to Sotomayor, as a colonial power, the U.S. acquired a responsibility over “several poor dependencies” and that “some of them, like Puerto Rico, may seek statehood unless they are accorded a greater measure of self-government,” so that arrangements such as giving them the rights over underwater resources would help the new state of the Union to “overcome its economic problems.”
Read the entire article after the jump
Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Carlos Alberto Torres MIGHT BE HOME SOON!
8:13 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Justice| Puerto Rico · Comments Off
28 May 2009
I’m ok with people insulting my intelligence and discounting my voice because I stand firmly by the fact that Puerto Rico is a nation. One of the reasons I say that is because of people like Carlos Alberto Torres, who has spent 29 years of his life in prison for the “non-nation” of Puerto Rico and it looks like Carlos may be with his familia soon with our help.
Puerto Rican political prisoner Carlos Alberto Torres appeared on May 26th with his attorney Jan Susler at FCI Pekin, Illinois at a videoconference hearing with U.S. Parole Commission hearing examiner Larry Glenn.
The hearing took place after Carlos Alberto had served over 29 years in prison, and 15 years after his initial parole hearing in 1994, when the Parole Commission told him to come back after serving another 15 years.
The hearing examiner opened by saying he would make one of three possible recommendations at the conclusion of the hearing: 1) set a presumptive parole date; 2) tell Carlos Alberto once again to come back after serving another 15 years, at which time he would be considered for possible release on parole; or 3) deny parole entirely.
For some 45 minutes, the examiner posed questions, including some very pointed political questions about Carlos Alberto’s views on the relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico, and whether his thoughts on this issue have changed throughout his years in custody. He reviewed his accomplishments in prison and asked about his plans if he were to be released: to open a pottery studio in Puerto Rico.
Significantly, Glenn noted “the large number of documents showing community support sent to the parole commission.” He was referring to the thousands of letters and resolutions from all of Puerto Rico’s civil society, as well as from supporters throughout the U.S. and Mexico.
After a brief break, Glenn announced his recommendation: a presumptive parole date of April 3, 2010…. which would mark the 30th anniversary of Carlos Alberto’s imprisonment.
The parole commission has 21 days to issue a decision, of by June 16. Should the commission adopt the examiner’s recommendation, Carlos Alberto would be eligible for transfer to a halfway house 180 days before April 3, or on October 3, 2009.
Letters urging the commission to adopt the hearing examiner’s recommendation should arrive no later than June 17 at the office of Jan Susler, Attorney, People’s Law Office, 1180 N. Milwaukee, Chicago, IL 60622, jsusler@aol. com.
Hola!
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