TEMPORAL

January 11, 2020 Tato Torres Sáez If you wish to help, first identify and connect with local community leadership and organizations on-the-ground. If the cost of your travel and personal expenses is even half of what you'r contributing simply because you "absolutely" have to be the one to deliver it... it's huge Ego-trip!!! 1st and foremost, place yourself in everyone's shoes and proceed according to how you would wish to be respected... ask yourself... why you are coming... and be true to that! If you are a "guest".., who's your "host"...? Are you coming on vacation, to visit someone or w a specific mission in mind and if so..., is your presence absolutely necessary to accomplish it? Voluntourism isn’t particularly helpful or benign and can be quite detrimental; slowing down positive cultural growth and perpetuating the highly problematic colonialist-missionary-styled “foreign/stranger-savior” and "victim" complexes that,...

January 10, 2020 Photos by Manuel Melendez Lavandero

January 11, 2020 Comité Noviembre, a New York City based non-profit that brings together the collective talents and resources of the oldest and most prestigious Puerto Rican organizations in the city, will announce that it will re-instate the Estoy Con Puerto Rico, (I am with Puerto Rico), Relief Effort. This efforts will raise funds to assist survivors of the earthquakes through non-profit organizations working directly with the community in the Southern region of Puerto Rico. Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York will serve as fiscal conduit for this effort. The recent earthquakes have weakened further the already fragile infrastructure of the island. There is great fear of more building collapses, personal and property safety, food and water insecurity and electrical outages throughout the island. Between September 2017 and September 2019, the Estoy Con Puerto Rico Effort raised over half a million dollars for the Hurricane Maria Relief Effort. It has provided m...

Con pesar comunicamos el fallecimiento de doña Marisa Rosado. Patriota y biógrafa de don Pedro Albizu Campos. Gestora cultural por excelencia dedicó su vida a Casa Aboy. Colaboró, siempe entusiasta y motivadora, con la Fundación Casa Albizu. Extrañaremos su amistad, compromiso y fervor patrio. En esa otra dimensión, recibida y abrazada por su amado esposo Efraín, Albizu, Corretjer, Matos Paoli, Lolita, Carmín Pérez, Isabelita Rosado, Blanca Canales, Figueroa Cordero, Irving Flores, Filiberto, Clemente Soto Vélez, Moncho Aboy y junto todos y todas las Patriotas que la antecedieron en coro dirán; ¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre! Edwin F. Rosario Fundación Casa Albizu

By José E. Velázquez Luyanda Part 1: “Checkmate: Days that Changed the History of Puerto Rico,” provided a survey for the reader of the Summer of 2019 in Puerto Rico, especially for those unfamiliar with the details of the historical moment. I chronicled events leading to the forced resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosello on August 2, 2019 and the complex internal feud within the ruling party, the New Progressive Party ( Partido Nuevo Progresista ).  These internal divisions played out like a complex game of chess as the Puerto Rican people watched, having just participated in a movement of civil disobedience that shook the ruling class in its bootstraps.  The main chess master was Senate President, Thomas Rivera Schatz, who engineered the removal of Rosello’s hand picked successor, Pedro Pierluisi, when the Puerto Rico Supreme Court unanimously ruled on August 7th that his selection as governor was unconstitutional.    The Senate, who had refused to ratify hi...

July 30, 1945–June 14, 2019 By  Victor Quintana quintana.victor@gmail.com September 14, 2019 Federico Lora Lopez. ( Family Photo.) Federico Lora López was a revolutionary who fought most of his adult life for social justice and for Puerto Rico’s independence.   Federico was not born in Puerto Rico nor was he the son of Puerto Rican parents in the United States.   Rather, he was born in the Dominican Republic on July 30, 1945.   His parents immigrated to New York City when he was a child and established the Upper West Side of Manhattan as their home.   Federico’s new neighborhood in New York City was the home to many Puerto Rican families.   His closest friends growing up were Puerto Rican, and he was accepted as one of them.   He, in turn, became very familiar with Puerto Rican culture—its values, norms, and practices. Federico was a product of the cultural, social, and political zeitgeist of the United States in the 1950s and 1960s...