In Coney Island they have a sign hanging
Outside one of those spooky rides
That reads: Come inside and see the
Invisible man—Victor Hernandez Cruz, from Tropicalization, Reed, Cannon & Johnson, 1976
So, what are you?
“Yo Soy Boricua, Pa’Que Tu Lo Sepas” (“I’m Boricua, Just So You Know”)
The Independent Film Channel last night aired the premier of Rosie’s Perez’ (Do the Right Thing, White Men Can’t Jump, Fearless) doumentary on Puerto Rican political and cultural history, Yo Soy Boricua, Pa’Que Tu Lo Sepas that artfully weaves her personal history to tell the story of the island’s people. It’s an excellent film that deserves to be seen by all Americans, not just a ‘niche’ Puerto Rican & Latino audience.
The camera often focuses on Perez (who also directs) with her family & friends (the film doesn’t talk about ‘family values,’ it shows them) who discuss the culture, history, and people of Puerto Rico and those who migrated to New York. Jimmy Smits does voice-over narration for the other segments. The personal and historical segments alternate to create a rich tapestry where the personal is political. One of my favorite moments in the film is a story of when, after Perez has reluctantly joined in a civil disobedience action at the United Nations, fear and panic sets in as they’re herded into the paddywagon. “What’s going to happen?” She calms down after one of her elderly fellow protesters lets her know that this is about the 20th or 22nd time she has been arrested for trespass & everyone had a good laugh at popping Perez’ CD-arrest cherry.
In these days of ‘immigration debate’ & demonizing the brown ‘other,’ Yo Soy Boricua, Pa’Que Tu Lo Sepas plunges headfirst into issues of race, ethnicity, skin color, language, cheap labor, culture in the melting pot, and political amnesia. A defacto colony (formally a Commonwealth) following the Spanish American war, Puerto Ricans are citizens of the US (Wilson wanted their bodies for WW I) unable to vote for the President that might send them to war. Brown square pegs trying to fit into the black & white holes of American race consciousness.
Shocking, forgotten incidents of history are remembered:
— the 1937 Ponce massacre when police fired on a Nationalist Parade protesting the incarceration of the nationalist Pedro Abizu Campos
–the subsequent torture of Campos in US custody, including electrical shocks (it’s claimed in the movie that his bed was wired so that he’d get zapped when he lay his head down) — I don’t recall if the movie talks about the charges that he was subjected to radiation experimentation)
–the US policy that forced sterilization of up to one third of Puerto Rico’s women between 1956 & 1976 in effort at population control known locally simply as la operacion
–the use of the women as guineau pigs for the pharmaceutical companies testing the world’s first birth control pills before FDA approval, which had three times the current dose of hormones
–the radical actions of the Young Lords in the 60’sto improve the living conditions in NYC
There’s an excellent section on Vieques Island, which the US Navy bombed & poisoned for years until activists forced them to stop.
In other words, we’ve treated Puerto Rico much as any other third world country whose resources (sugar cane), land, and labor we covet. We’ve treated Puerto Rican citizens as ‘others’ indistinguishable from ‘immigrants.’
Unfortunately, the film doesn’t get into the political assasination last September of wanted fugitive and independentista leader, Filiberto Ojeda Rios, who was shot by an FBI sniper and left for twelve hours to bleed out. Nor could it cover more recent efforts to subdue and repress anyone voicing support for indepence & freedom, like how
[t]his past February 10, 2006, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation once again violently invaded the homes and places of employment of respected independentistas activists in Puerto Rico. They terrorized entire communities, assaulted members of the press covering the FBI operation and displayed disregard for the government and police of the island. The FBI’s aggression leaves unequivocally clear what is at stake now in Puerto Rico is the same old but vital question asked by Pedro Albizu Campos: either Yankees or Puerto Ricans? [snip]
What the FBI has decided–as the police arm of the U.S. government in the Island- is to destroy the independentista movement, both in Puerto Rico and the cities in the mainland territories, where half of our population lives. The FBI’s goal is to get rid of the better organized, more efficient and energetic pro-independence activists, in order to prevent them from further organizing, educating and mobilizing Puerto Ricans to our political independence. They have a definite plan to attack those community organizations, labor unions, student organizations, cultural groups, and environmentalists’ organizations that are doing an effective job and in which many independentistas have a leadership role. The FBI agenda as in the past- is to damage the prestige of the pro-independence movement by attempting to link it with the so-called war on terrorism and as part of the climate of fear that they promote in the United States and would like to extend to Puerto Rico. The FBI wants to get rid of the independentistas, whether they are linked or not to the Macheteros. [snip]
After the tremendous protests and mass mobilizations repudiating the assassination of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos in September 2005, the United States government is convinced that the pro-independence movement is the main threat to the continuance of colonialism and U.S. political domination of Puerto Rico, despite the fact that the pro-independence movement continues divided and without a clear sense of its historical role as promoters of truly revolutionary change on the island. But, I should point out, we had a similar scenario in 1999, four years prior to the U.S. Navy having to leave Vieques, with the tail between the legs, under the pressure of a mass movement and without the people having fired a single shot. In 1999, however, no one dare to predict a victory over the all mighty U.S. Navy. Yet, the people, on their own, found the right path for liberation. link
The US government would prefer that most Americans remain unaware that at
the United Nations yesterday [June 12, 2006] morning, one thing was immediately clear: as the member nations of the Decolonization Committee noted, there is tremendous and lasting interest in the case of Puerto Rico and its political status. The Committee noted that, this year, the number of presenters and speakers during the hearing on Puerto Rico doubled from that of last year’s hearing, which to them is indicative of the relevance and interest in Puerto Rico’s colonial situation. Indeed, the crowds gathered in front of the United Nations main entrance were witness not only to the strong breezes of an oddly cool morning but to an assembly of Puerto Rico’s most well known and most committed political leadership: Ruben Berrios Martinez, Juan Mari Bras, Fernando Martin, Ismael Guadalupe, Hector Pesquera, and other similarly committed regional leaders such as Miguel Sanchez and Vanessa Ramos. Important organizations such as Movimiento Independentista Nacional Hostosiano, Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño, Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico, and La Coordinadora Nacional Rompiendo El Perimetro made their presence felt as well. Time to End the US Occupation: Puerto Rico at the United Nations
(more on today’s draft resolution by the UN Special Committee on Decolonization here)
Back to Perez’ film, it’s not all politics; music gets a nod (I would have loved more, but guess this is the most well-known aspect of PR culture in the US), as does Pedro Pietri and the important Nuyorican Poets Cafe and there’s a look at the casitas of Brooklyn rising in the midst of urban decay. The film raises questions of what it is to be a multi-cultural society, and it celebrates a cultural spirit, that resists annihilation, or in Perez’ own words:
Most importantly, this is a film that celebrates the tenacity of Puerto Rican people: Through the personal testimonies of Puerto Rican-Americans and through my own family’s journey, I relay how we have maintained our culture and our stories, in spite of the difficulties we have endured. [snip]
As a character in this film, it was difficult for me to admit that my Spanish is less than perfect. I share this story with many other children of Puerto Rican parents, who migrated to America in the early forties as a result of a U.S. government program called “Operation Bootstrap.” My mother, like other Puerto Rican parents, wanted the best for her child by enforcing the use of English as my first language and Spanish second. She did not want me to endure the racism and prejudice that she had experienced. Along with other characters in this documentary, I explain that even as painful as this was and how difficult it is for some of us to still master our own language, we hold no judgment against our parents, because we understand what they went through to offer us a better life.
The stories presented in Yo Soy Boricua, Pa’que Tu Lo Sepas! are long-overdue and making this film was far more than a labor of love: it was a necessity for me. When I tried to set up this documentary with one of the Hollywood studios, I met with a great deal of resistance: they told me that there was no audience for this film. However, IFC recognized that the story will resonate, not only with Puerto Ricans and Latinos, but far, far beyond that, with those who seek to learn not only about our history and culture but their own history and pride. For this story is not unique to Puerto Ricans, this story speaks to every nationality and race that has endured difficulties from the outside world. And I thank them for giving me a voice and platform. My partners, Liz Garbus and Rory Kennedy, also supported me from the start: we have all given our hearts and souls to this project. I hope you enjoy.
There was still no central heating
in the tenements
We thought that the cold was
the oldest thing on the planet earth
We used to think about my Uncle Listo
Who never left his hometown
We’d picture him sitting around
cooling himself with a fan
In that imaginary place
called Puerto Rico.—Victor Hernandez Cruz, from Tropicalization, Reed, Cannon & Johnson, 1976
