Just Like a Tree Standing by the Water, We Will Not be Moved, Puerto Rico a Nation of Resilience and Resistance!
featuring among the hundreds of Puerto Rican activists and their supporters:
. Elizabeth Yeampierre, ex. dir. of the Latino community-based group, UPROSE, . Naomi Klein, author, The Battle For Paradise: Puerto Rico Takes on the Disaster Capitalists . Caridad de la Luz, also known as La Bruja, Puerto Rican poet . Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York congressional candidate . David Galarza Santa, a Puerto Rican labor and community activist
Its a matter of historical record that capitalism's relationship with the island has always been one of exploitation and plunder. While Hurricane Marias winds roared across the island, destroying Puerto Ricos infrastructure and in its wake more than 3,000 would die, so too are the evil winds of colonialism, in the form of the U.S. Congress imposition of its Fiscal Control Board (a dictatorial Junta) ravishing the island and threatening its people.
However, one year after Maria, the Puerto Rican diaspora is charting a new path forward, vibrantly proclaimed as hundreds gathered in Manhattans Union Square for an event organized by a community-led initiative called #OurPowerPRnyc, created to call out injustices in the U.S. governments response to Maria.
Again and again, speakers at the event called for the islands people to be able to chart their own future " and escape the federal governments grip. They took to the mic calling to drop the debt, eliminate the Jones Act, a transition to renewable energy that leaves no resident behind, a Marshall Plan-type effort to help Puerto Rico recover economically, and for self-determination of the island. In response, a voice in the audience called out, We need independence! Say it! Its the only answer at this point.
produced by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg
please notify us if you plan to broadcast this program - knash@igc.org
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