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The Role of the Artist

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By Luis Cordero Santoni luiscorderosantoni@gmail.com Ever since relocating to Borikén I have tried to connect with art and artists. Borikén is the best place for that. Here you can find museums, galleries, public art, arts and crafts fairs, local shops that sell handmade crafts, and artists that set up galleries wherever they can. So far, I’ve been lucky to have found some great craft fairs here on the west coast. Every town seems to have a fair every week from up in Isabela to down in Cabo Rojo. The Puerto Rican artist plays an important role in maintaining our culture alive. Their role falls right in line with the mission of The Institute for Puerto Rican Culture: ...research, preserve, promote, and disseminate Puerto Rican culture in its diversity and complexity. With the memory and promise of culture, the different levels, sectors, ages and interests of the community create the set of ways of life, customs and artistic manifestations that identify us as a country. I dare to s
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New York Puerto Rican Community in Solidarity With Workers in Puerto Rico

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From New York City, Frente Independentista Boricua (El Frente) sends a message of solidarity to the Puerto Rican people who are struggling and protesting in the streets right now, expressing their right to a dignified quality of life.  Today in Union Square, New York City, we march in solidarity with our people in Puerto Rico to say stop the abuse of workers and families.  "The people of Puerto Rico resist the dictatorship of La Junta imposed by Washington. A dictatorship that has, by its mere existence, unmasked a false democracy in the colony and is relentlessly vicious against the working class, whom it intends to bear the burden of paying an illegal and illegitimate debt generated by unscrupulous and corrupt politicians and Wall Street opportunists," said John Meléndez Rivera, Secretary General of the Nationalist Party, Junta de Nueva York, a member organization of El Frente.  For her part, Professor Ana López, from El Pais Posible and spokesperson for El Frente affirm
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We Still Here/Aquí Estamos

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Wednesday, Nov. 10 th was the opening of the International Puerto Rican Film Festival, IPRFF for short, at El Museo del Barrio in one of New York's Puerto Rican communities. One of the two films to open the festival is called We Still Here/Aquí Estamos and one of the producers of the film, Kahlil Jacobs-Fantauzzi was there to introduce the film and take questions from the audience.  We Still Here/Aquí Estamos is a short documentary that focuses on the rebuilding and recovery process in Puerto Rico which in 2019 was devastated by Hurricane Maria. The effect of the devastation was to put into high gear a recovery process that continues to this day. It brought neighbors closer and forced a unity that was unseen on the island.  We Still Here introduces the incredible youth of the town of Comerío, located just south of San Juan and towards the center of the island. Everyone in town is forced to navigate the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, a disaster that brought an unprecedented level
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Reflections of the Defeat of Trump

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  By José E. Velazquez Luyanda Jevche@aol.com In September 2020, I called on Puerto Ricans in the Northeast to focus their energies on defeating Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, where a Biden victory was not guaranteed.  Many joined those on the ground in PA, despite few resources being dedicated to the Latino community by the Biden campaign, seemingly taking the Latino vote for granted. However, the class and national interests of the Puerto Rican and Latino electorate led to an overwhelming anti-Trump vote in these communities, helping to cement a Biden victory.  At that time I also emphasized Bernie Sanders’ call for a historic massive voter turnout, particularly from those who traditionally voted in lower numbers.   The Biden victory owes a lot to Bernie Sanders, who understanding the need to defeat the greater right wing enemy discontinued his campaign for the Democratic nomination.  I believed then, despite criticism from some on the Left, that only a “Center-Left” campaign could de
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50th Anniversary of the Founding of El Comité-MINP

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By Luis Cordero Santoni & Victor Quintana Originally published in Comite Noviembre's 2020 Puerto Rican Heritage Month Journal . This year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of El Comité-Movimiento de Izquierda Nacional Puertorriqueño, one of the main organizations of the Puerto Rican left in the 1970s in New York City.  The people’s struggles of the 60’s and early 70’s for civil rights and against the Vietnam War spawned many grass roots organizations. El Comité was one of those organizations. El Comité was born on the summer of 1970 in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, what was then the Urban Renewal Area. In that summer, a group of 200 families took over various buildings slated for demolition on the West Side. The courageous action of these squatters to secure decent, affordable housing motivated a group of young people, led by Federico Lora, from the community to take over a storefront on 88th Street and Columbus Avenue. Their goal was to convert it into an office and es
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Puerto Rican Activists Tell Brock Pierce:
We Don’t Want You or Statehood for PR

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  November 2, 2020 New York City . Members of the Puerto Rican community in New York today confronted longshot presidential candidate and bitcoin billionaire Brock Pierce at an event in Manhattan to oppose his support for Puerto Rican statehood and his bitcoin dreams for the island. Pierce did NOT come to Puerto Rico to save us. He moved to Puerto Rico to avoid paying taxes under local laws known as Act 20/22. He's been attracting like-minded bitcoiners and Wall St. vultures to the island in an effort to create a “Puertopia.” A Puerto Rico in their image. The disaster capitalists have been buying properties (and politicians) all over the island, displacing long-term Puerto Rican residents and gentrifying our island. Also, Pierce is an accused pedophile with ties to racist Steve Bannon, Jeffrey Epstein, and has even called Trump "a patriot". Puerto Rico will also be going to the polls on Tuesday, November 3rd. The ruling party (PNP) cynically placed a statehood question on
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Message to Washington, D.C. - NO to Statehood and Independence for Puerto Rico

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 Washington, DC, October 26, 2020 In the early hours of the morning of Sunday, October 25, Puerto Rican independence  organizations projected images on walls of emblematic places in Washington DC, the capital of the United States, with messages of NO to Statehood and claiming Freedom and Independence for Puerto Rico. One of the buildings onto which images were projected was the Trump International Hotel, located on Pennsylvania Avenue. The messages of "Free Puerto Rico", "No to Statehood", as well as "Independence for Puerto Rico", among others, could be clearly read. “The activity served a dual purpose. First, it is part of the Day of Celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Nationalist Revolution of October 30, 1950, a historical event where the Republic of Puerto Rico was declared for the second time. This event was the result of a one-sided struggle carried out by the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, led by Don Pedro Albizu Campos, against the Unite
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