After months of planning/ organizing, the date is almost here. Hope to see you tomorrow at El Grito 2007!
Yaz

El GRITO 2007
Sunday, September 23rd
TODOS SOMOS MACHETERO!

March and Rally for a free Puerto Rico!

12 PM Gather at Times Square (Broadway between 41st and 42nd Streets)
1PM:  March towards United Nations
2-5 PM: Rally Program at the United Nations- Dag Hammarskjold Plaza (47th St. and 1st Ave.) 

Featuring:

-Former Political Prisoners/ Prisoners of War: Dylcia Pagan and Antonio Camacho Negron!

-Ally speakers from the Palestinian, New African, Venezuelan, Chilean, Dominican communities and others!

-Hip Hop performances by protest pack Rebel Diaz and the radical rhymes and rebel rhythms of X-Vandals!

-Bomba performance by Afro-boricua ensemble Alma Moyo!

-Direct from Puerto Rico, music by Nueva Trova musician Fernandito Ferrer!

-Poetry by Prisionera, Jesus "Papoleto" Melendez and Frank Perez!

-Children's activity table, all little ones are welcome!

Puerto Rico is the oldest colony on the planet. The history of its colonization goes back 500 years, to the arrival of Columbus in 1493, and its continuance under Spanish rule for 400 years. September 23rd 1868 is traditionally celebrated and commemorated as the birth of the Puerto Rican nation, when Puerto Ricans rose up against Spanish colonial rule in a revolt known as El Grito de Lares. By 1898 Puerto Rico had achieved a form of autonomous self-rule that came to an abrupt end that same year, when the united states invaded Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War.  Puerto Rico has been under the colonial rule of the united states ever since and has continued to struggle throughout that time for its independence and self-determination.   On September 23rd of 2005, the united states government, sent the FBI to Puerto Rico to assassinate Filiberto Ojeda Rios, leader of the Puerto Rican People's Army, Los Macheteros.  It was a bold attempt by the united states government to kill the Puerto Rican liberation struggle, which Filiberto embodied.  Although they accomplished their mission to assassinate Filiberto, they failed in their mission to kill our spirit. The Puerto Rican liberation struggle and the legacy of Filiberto live on! 

¡Filiberto Vive!
La Lucha Sigue! 
¡Que viva Puerto Rico libre! 
¡Todo Boricua Machetero! 
www.september23.org

Simon Bolivar, Jose Marti, Che Guevara, we know the names of these liberators and countless others, but seldom outside of Puerto Rico do I hear the name of Pedro Albizu Campos.  Actually the name was uttered countless times by Che Guevara himself who testified before the United Nations asking that the u.s. stop torturing him in their prisons.   But I often wonder why he's obscure or feared. Is it that the u.s. has worked hard to ensure that it be this way? Is it because he was a man with a huge fighting spirit and had no issues going toe to toe with the u.s.? I was happy to learn that a friend's mom, a peruana honors Albizu and his work. She remembers the legacy he left and his close connection to her country as his beloved wife Laura Meneses was from Peru and one of the first Latin American woman educated at Harvard, where they met.

Anyhow, today, September 12 is recognized as his birthday. But even that is a controversy. He used several birthdays throughout his life, one in June and this one. One in 1891 and one is 1893. That's only part of the mystique around my big hero.  Folks seem to have decided on September 12, 1891 for historical reasons. But here's my "top of the dome" tribute to this big man. And cuz you never should expect to hear about him in school. If you do send me a message so I can grant them an award!  It'll be damn long cuz great men deserve great tributes and even this won't be enough……

"Raising Revolution", 2004 by Yasmin Hernandez, Collection of The Center for Puerto Rican Studies, CUNY, NYC. www.yasminhernandez.com/raisinrev

So Don Pedro was born a few years before the 1898 US invasion of his homeland Puerto Rico.  Growing up within these first years of colonialism, he witnessed things such as the imposed English language on school children.  Living in poverty, Pedro didn't start school till the age of 12.  He then proved to be a child prodigy, completing his primary and secondary education in only 8 years, instead of the usual 12.  He was recruited to the University of Vermont to study bio-chemistry and later was snatched up by Harvard where he studied law, military strategy, the colonial cases of Ireland and India among other things.  He also spoke 7 languages. 
In 1917, the US imposed their citizenship on all Puerto Ricans. It was a strategic move since it was the same year the US entered World War I so they could now draft Puerto Rican men to fight foreign wars, even though they had  no rights under the u.s. government.  The above image is of Don Pedro in a u.s. army uniform.

"Pedro Albizu Campos", 1994, by Yasmin Hernandez. www.yasminhernandez.com/albizucampos

It was in the u.s. army where Albizu began to recognize the unfair treatment of African-Americans and Puerto Ricans through segregation and racism.  All the injustices he endured is what encouraged him to craft his anti-imperialist ideologies, not to mention his participation on Harvard's debate team and his close ties to the Boston Irish community.  Upon his return to Puerto Rico, Pedro first joined the Union Party, the first Party to have PRican independence on its platform.  Later on when the Nationalist Party was created, he joined it, with its exclusive independence approach.  Albizu quickly climbed the party ranks becoming first its international ambassador, traveling to Haiti, Dominican Republic, Peru, and other countries to rally support for independence and then in 1930 becoming its president. 
Under Albizu's leadership, the Nationalist party was  radicalized. The above image is inspired by an event in which he climbed a podium to speak. The podium was decorated by u.s. and Puerto Rican flags. Before speaking, he first took down all the u.s. flags and stuffed them into pocket, leaving only the Puerto Rican flags. The Puerto Rican flag was banned in Puerto Rico from 1898-1952. He and his party are the ones that promoted that flag and made it the loved piece of fabric it is today with millions waving it at the NYC Puerto Rican Day Parade.  For over 50 years, it was a crime to wave our flag.  He and his party taught us that our identity is never a crime. The only criminals are those who deem it such, the imperialists.  Albizu taught "where tyranny is law, revolution is order".  In 1932 election results for a campaign he participated in did not reflect the desire of the people. He decided then that within a colonial system, in which the u.s. president presides over all Puerto Rican affairs and has veto power over all Puerto Rican laws, a democracy cannot exist, the people's vote is always subject to a foreign government's manipulation.  Since then Nationalists do not participate in the electoral process (me either!)

The Ponce Massacre, 1997 by Yasmin Hernandez. www.yasminhernandez.com/ponce

Events like the one pictured above, the Ponce Massacre, characterized the nature of life in Puerto Rico during the 1930s under the oppressive rule of u.s. appointed governor General Blanton Winship. This is really when the Nationalist Party decided to take a self-defense approach.  In response to young Nationalists assassinated at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras and other events, the party responded by assassinating the Chief of Police.  In the above incident a peaceful parade organized by the Nationalists to commemorate the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico, on Palm Sunday, March 21, 1937, ended with 21 dead and 150 wounded when the police fired on a crowd of unarmed men, women and children.  Albizu was arrested immediately after the assassination of Chief of Police Riggs, along with 7 other Nationalists, among them were the great Puerto Rican poets, Clemente Soto Velez and Juan Antonio Corretjer.  Another infamous event of the 1930s is when American Dr. Cornelius Rhodes decided to inject cancer into Puerto Ricans in a secret experiment. It was discovered when he crumbled up a letter to a friend in which he described Puerto Ricans as dirty and lazy and worthy of being killed off.  All this was supporting his cancer experiment which he revealed in the letter to his friend, but threw it in the wastebasket where it was found by a Puerto Rican worker. When word got back to Albizu, he took the news to the masses.  Well here's this link I found with Dr. Rhodes on the cover of Time magazine celebrated as a "Cancer fighter". Well, we were the guinea pigs, just like Puerto Rican women were guinea bigs for population control, the birth control pill and contraceptive foam. http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19490627,00.html.

"Carpeta: Albizu", 2007 Archivos Subversivos Series, by Yasmin Hernandez.

As a Harvard educated lawyer, Albizu had turned down jobs in Washington to go back home to work for the liberation of Puerto Rico. When Nationalists were arrested, he served as their defending lawyer and also represented himself in a court presided over by American judges and in trials conducted in English, a language foreign to a nation that had spoken Spanish for the past 400 years.  The FBI began their COINTELPRO harrassment on the lives of any Puerto Ricans identified or suspected of being independence supporters.  After a 1950 revolution in Jayuya led by Nationalist Blanca Canales, yes Boricua women are fierce!, over 2,000 were arrested and the "carpeta" or government file process spread like wildfire. Each independence supporter was under surveillance. Their everyday moves were tracked by the government.  The painting above is from my ARCHIVOS SUBVERSIVOS project which focuses on this part of our history and present because it still occurs.  

"Crucified Albizu", 2006 by Yasmin Hernandez. www.yasminhernandez.com/crucifiedalbizu

For being a revolutionary and fighting for the dignity of his homeland and his people, Don Pedro spent the majority of his adult life in u.s. federal prisons.  While there he complained about having been subjected to radiation experiments. Many called him a loco. As if the person who studied biology and chemistry at Harvard didn't know what radiation was or the damage it could cause his body.  The American League for Puerto Rican Independence, in 1954 wrote a letter to famed scientist Albert Einstien, then studying the new atomic energy used by Americans to kill countless Japanese and used by Americans on their federal prisoners to study its affects on humans.  The letter was pleading with him to look into the case of Don Pedro. They reached out to him not only for his expertise in the field, but for his outspokeness against the un-American Committee hearings happening at the time.  Albizu continued to suffer from lesions throughout his body and burn marks.  The radiation was administered in the form of light rays in his prison cell and hospital room.  There are cases of folks using his body to create X Rays of metal objects placed under this body.  Oh and remember Dr. Cornelius Rhodes, the cancer injector? Well bust how he just happened to be the head of medical services the for the u.s. department of federal corrections at the time Albizu was being used as a lab rat.  Pay back possibly for Albizu having exposed his evil plot to exterminate Boricuas back in the 1930s through cancer? Read about it in Yo Acuso y lo Que Paso Despues, a book written on the controversy. 
Albizu was finally pardoned in 1965 and died three months later on April 21, exactly two months after another "by any means necessary revolutionary, Mr. Malcolm X (d. Feb. 21st).  And guess what he died of, Cancer! Yes, the plot thickens.  Puerto Rican history is not about the music we make  and the way our women's hip sway, it's also about the struggle a people have endured and their resistance.

Albizu's Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico, celebrates their 85th anniversary this week.  Check out this link for a flyer to a Sept 14th celebration in NYC.   http://pictures.aol.com/ap/singleImage.do?pid=2e90tYBxdJdSzzaLfD*Q0DwTcd1LkWTSNyh6v4xQp5Fd3Ig%3D

Come commemorate Don Pedro's birthday with me tonight (Sept 12) at my talk on my ARCHIVOS SUBVERSIVOS project at Cemi Undergound. Check out my last post on this blog for details. 

And last but not least, join me and many others on September 23 at Times Square and the United Nations where we will demand a free Puerto Rico (more details two posts ago on this blog).

Albizu Vive!,

Filiberto Vive!

Que Viva Puerto Rico libre!

Yaz

Carpeta: Filiberto, Yasmin Hernandez, 2007

Join me this coming Wednesday, September 12th, 2007, 6PM for a discussion on my recent project ARCHIVOS SUBVERSIVOS at Cemi Underground in El Barrio/ NYC.  Cemi Underground is a new bookstore in the heart of El Barrio that we should all support. Basically Sery Colon, owner of the famed-former Agueybana books in the Lower East Side teamed with Galeria Cemi's Luis Cordero to create Cemi Underground. They've got books, tee shirts, art, music, more.  Check em out at www.cemiunderground.com. Read below for info on my ARCHIVOS SUBVERSIVOS project. 

Cemi Underground
1799 Lexington Avenue off 112th Street
El Barrio/ East Harlem
6 Train to 110th Street. 

"We must determine their capabilities of influencing others, capabilities of real leadership, why the intense desire of Puerto Rico's independence, what they expect to gain from independence and the support they have from other leaders and rank-and-file members. We must have information concerning their weaknesses, morals, criminal records, spouses, children, family life, educational qualifications and personal activities other than independence activities."

-FBI COINTELPRO (Subversive Controls Section): Memo, 1960

It's that time again.  September 23 is just around the corner. As a date that holds huge significance in Puerto Rican history, my comrades and I have been hard at work organizing another mass march and rally at the United Nations for Puerto Rican Independence. 

SOME HISTORY:

 
Lares flag, Puerto Rico's original flag, sewn by Mariana Bracetti.  Mariana was known as "brazo de oro" or "golden arm" not just for her sewing skills but for also having picked up arms during the Lares revolution.
As we know, Puerto Rico, originally known as Boriken (as in Boricua) by its native Taino people, was first colonized by Spain in 1493.  Tired of centuries of oppression, in 1868, a revolution was planned to secure independence for the island. This event, known as el Grito de Lares holds huge importance because it was an act that affirmed a unique Puerto Rican identity separate from the Spanish colonizer.  A flag was designed for the new Republic of Puerto Rico. (Seen above). Known as the Lares flag, the pueblo where the revolution began, this was Puerto Rico's first flag.  Its design was a reference to solidarity with the Dominican Republic. The author of the revolution (Betances) had dominican heritage and during the latter half of the 19th century, early 20th century, folks like he, Marti and Hostos supported the idea of a free federation between Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

Puerto Rican revolutionary and abolitionist, Ramon Emeterio Betances
Ramon Emeterio Betances, a "free" black during the times of slavery in Puerto Rico was an abolitionist and the mastermind behind the Lares uprising.  As a physician, he used his own money to purchase the freedom of slave children at their baptisms, along with his comrade Segundo Ruiz Belvis and others.  Though the Lares revolution held it down for a bit, Spanish authorities eventually captured and arrested the revolutionaries and kept Puerto Rico as a colony. However the work of these warriors helped secure emancipation of all slaves (1873) and an autonomous government (1897-98).  However that all changed when on July 25, 1898, the United States invaded Puerto Rico as part of the Spanish American war and kept it as a colony. The new imperialist even implemented a military government for the first few years. It continued to have white american governors appointed by the US president for the next 50 years.  Though PR votes for its own governor the US still has veto power over all Puerto Rican laws.

My portrait of Filiberto features a quote by famed poet Julia de Burgos: "patria ensangrentada, pero jamas deshecha".  "Nation bloodied, but never undone". These words, written in the 1930s in a poem called 23 de septiembre, foreshadowed the events of September 23, 2005.
With the injustices suffered under the new imperialist, the Puerto Rican liberation movement continued to grow.  It reached its height in the 1930s under the radical Nationalist Party led by Don Pedro Albizu Campos.  Mass arrests and surveillance campaigns attempted to destroy the Nationalist movement and eventually gave rise to a new form of clandestine armed struggle for liberation.  Filiberto Ojeda Rios was the brains behind many of these tactics in the 70s and 80s.  He was the leader of el Ejercito Popular Boricua-Los Macheteros.  He lived as a clandestine fighter for Puerto Rican liberation until 2005.
On September 23rd, 2005 at the Grito de Lares commemoration in Lares, a massive crowd gathered to hear an audio message by Comandante Filiberto.  Meanwhile in the small town of Hormigueros, Puerto Rico an army of FBI agents had surrounded the home of Filiberto Ojeda Rios.  A shoot-out ensued between one Filiberto and over a hundred agents.  Filiberto was shot by a sniper bullet to the clavicle and went down. Rather than coming in to arrest him, the FBI sealed the house, refusing to allow even the paramedics to enter.  Filiberto was left bleeding a whole day.  Obvious reason for death, listed on his autopsy report: he bled to death.
All of Puerto Rico–the youth, the viejos, the apolitical–took the streets in rage at what had gone down in Hormigueros. Not your usual arrest, but rather a usual assassination in an unusual colony. 

THE UNITED NATIONS:
In the late 1940s, countries like India started to get suspicious about the u.s. and its control over Puerto Rico.  The question came up before the United Nations.  Being the slick mofos that they are, the u.s. immediately set out a plan to "change" the status of Puerto Rico.  The new term "free associated state" was supposed to give proof to the UN that PR was no longer a colony, however the u.s. president still had veto power over the colony, the island(s) was(were, as in Vieques and Culebra and all Puerto Rico) still presided over by the u.s. military and the currency was still american.  But it worked! The hoax was believed to be true and the UN removed Puerto Rico off its list of colonies in 1953.  However in June of 2005, Cuba and Venezuela pitched a new resolution that calls for the decolonization of Puerto Rico.  The resolution was unanimously adopted by the UN Decolonization Committee.  From that entity it will then be pitched to the greater body so that the issue be discussed by the UN general assembly. So that's why the UN site is relevant. The purpose is to bring global attention to the case of Puerto Rico because if left up to the u.s. they will only secure their own sneaky interests. 

SEPTEMBER 23, 2007:

Hope you can join us:
 
12 PM: Crowd gathers at Times Square (Bdway bet. 41st & 42nd)
1PM: Crowd begins marching towards the United Nations
2-5PM: Rally at the United Nations featuring speakers from Puerto Rican and ally communities and live bomba and hip hop performances. 

SCENES FROM 9.23.2006:

 
Marchers arrive at the United Nations rally site

Marchers come bearing images of Filiberto, flags and panderetas with plena pro-independence chants.

The crowd sings la Borinqueña, the real revolutionary boricua anthem written by Lola Rodriguez de Tio for the 1868 revolution. (see below)

Yaz and some of her Ricanstruction crew comrades after the rally at the UN.

See you on the 23rd and memorize these words:

Despierta Borinqueño
Que han dado la señal
Despierta de este sueño
Es hora de luchar

A ese llamar patriotico
No arde to corazón?
Ven, nos sera simpatico
El ruido del cañon
Nosotros queremos la libertad
Nuestro machete nos la dara

Vamonos borinqueño
Vamonos ya
Que nos espera anciosa
Anciosa la libertad
La Libertad, la libertad
La libertad,
Laaaaaa Liiiiiberrrrrtaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!

For more information, history, background, event details:
www.september23.org.

Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre!
Todo Boricua Machetero!

Yaz

Ho, ho, ho, hooooooooooooooo
Ain't nobody,
Love me better……………

When was the last time you was in a club and an old-school 80s joint came on that took everybody back and you just had to sing and belt it out?  Well for me it was this past Monday, August 27th, 2007.  The tune was "Ain't Nobody", its singer: bad ass Chaka Khan, the DJ spinnin' it: Bobbito, AKA, Kool Bob Love.  The place: Apartment. 
I left the club with a sexy, raspy voice, hoarse because for a minute I thought I was Chaka and since the music was so loud, I could scream it out and no one was gonna criticize me cuz they were doing just the same.  One brother next to me got all into it, started rubbing his boonkie on the wall and melting into the song. It was an audio despojo of black and brown peoples. It was beautiful.

My Boricua Brother Bobbito be giving out doses of therapeutic musical healing every last Monday of every month at Apartment in NYC's meat-packing district. 

Bobbito spins at apartment

The sounds which includes everything from latin jazz, to salsa, to hip hop, funk, soul and more, puts the crowd into a dance trance.

 
Photo by Ray Llanos- Apartment

But what's lovelier is to be at a club listening to beautiful music that few people got the know-how to spin and then right in the middle of it, have your ears blessed by the voice of Puerto Rican freedom fighter and former political prisoner, Ms. Dylcia Pagan, dropping some knowledge over the speakers before the music breaks into an off-the hook salsa.

My portrait of Dylcia

DJ Rich Medina, DJ Bobbito and B-Boy legend Crazy Legs chillin' at Apartment

OK, so now I'm gonna tell you a story about Happy Feet.  Happy Feet is a place where people check their egos at the door.  If you're coming to mack and look cute, this ain't the place for you. People come in comfy clothes and in their kicks cuz they know by the end of the night they're gonna be sweaty and straight up funky.  I'm gonna tell you how serious these cats are about dancing.  I watched, carefully observing, as one sista busted out with a thing of baby powder and strategically dusted the floor so her sneakers could glide more to the music. Don't believe me, here's a photo:

You see that dusty ass floor?! Baby powder kids!  This was bugged and beautiful. Reminds me of how as kids we used to get our one piece pajama sleepers with the zipper and the little footsies and do the same baby powder action to slide across the floor. It took a lot of coordination to keep from bustin' ones ass.

I didn't take a picture of my feet, ain't into feet, but I did take a picture of my Happy face and that of my hubby's, Ivan.  What had me so happy?, well where the hell else, besides my own ipod can I hear someone spinnin' the music of not one or two but 4 of my Soul Rebels!:

This is a detail of my Soul Rebels installation that was on the theater doors of El Museo del Barrio. L-R: Eddie Palmieri, Fela Kuti, Bob Marley, Public Enemy, all of whom you will hear at a Happy Feet event.

Yes, again being blessed with the conscious music of my favorite Fela Kuti whose intelligence taught us how to subvert the dance experience, flippin' it on the nyash shakers by teaching about "Sorrow, Tears and blood" in West Africa and any where oppressed people be dancin' to their revolutions.  

Later my Happy Face turned even happier,as I zoned into a music high………..

Don't know about ya, but this coming Sunday, I'm gonna be at the next happy feet, gettin' my happy high on rebel rhythms at Club Element with Bobbito and Rich.  If you wanna be down….. here's the flyer:

And don't forget, the last Monday of each month, Bobbito spins at Apartment………….See ya on the flo'
Yaz

Image: by legendary Joe Conzo, check out http://www.joeconzo.com/html/main.htm for a visual history of hip hop.

www.myspace.com/bobbitogarcia
www.youtube.com/user/bobbitogarcia

www.richmedina.com

www.yasminhernandez.com