Photo Essay: The Power of Popular Protest: El Verano Boricua

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Photo Essay: The Power of Popular Protest: El Verano Boricua

Federico Cintrón-Moscoso and Vanessa Díaz
Text by Jean Hostetler-Díaz

In July and August 2019, hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans participated in a series of mass mobilizations in San Juan and municipalities across the island, demanding that officials be held accountable for their betrayal of the public trust and calling for the immediate resignation of Governor Ricardo “Ricky” Rosselló. These protests were triggered by the revelation of digital chats between the governor and his closest collaborators that included mocking those who died in Hurricane Maria, misogynistic comments, homophobic slurs, and remarks reflecting class bias.

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Political Report # 1404 Celebrating the Young Lords-Amid Revolution in Puerto Rico

By Juan González The Nation

Last Friday evening, less than 48 hours after Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló resigned in the wake of a series of unprecedented mass protests in the streets of San Juan, several hundred people jammed Harlem’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture to celebrate Puerto Rican activism from another era. The occasion was the 50th anniversary of the founding of the New York Young Lords, and the timing could not have been more apt. After all, young people made up the bulk of the protesters in Puerto Rico the past two weeks-including the July 22 march of more than half a million-and the audience at the Schomburg instantly understood the connection. Back in 1969, a few dozen young Puerto Ricans, all children of post-World War II working-class migrants from the island, gathered in Tompkins Square Park on the Lower East Side, sporting purple berets and green field jackets, and we announced to the world that the Young Lords were here to start a revolution. Over the next few years, the Lords became a household name in more than a dozen Northeastern and Midwestern cities, with our militant and often theatrical protests against inadequate city services, our free breakfast and free clothing programs, and our occupations of churches and hospitals that were aimed at spurring reforms by local officials. Along the way, we taught ourselves Puerto Rican history and politics, sparked a cultural renaissance among a generation of Latinos, changed our ways of relating to each other-including launching one of the earliest lesbian and gay caucuses among people of color-and controlled our own narrative through our newspaper, Palante, and our own local radio show. And we somehow managed to receive more favorable news coverage in the mainstream media than virtually any other radical group of that era.

Political Report # 1165 Popular Uprising Backs Striking Teachers in Southern Mexico

The fight for teachers' rights has blossomed into a movement against education privatization. This sign at a July 6 march says, "We parents support the teachers against the education reform." Photo: Valeria Méndez (CC BY-ND 2.0) By Emily Keppler, Labor Notes

In Chiapas, Mexico, what started as a fight for teachers union power has exploded into a popular movement against the privatization of public education and the entire public sector. Fifty thousand teachers, students, parents, and small-business owners marched at sunset July 11 through the streets of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital city of Chiapas-in just one of at least 10 protests across five states. Meanwhile an hour east, in the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas, parents, students, social justice organizations, and members of civil society were gathering for the 15th night of their highway blockade. The protests came as representatives of the CNTE, the dissident caucus in the teachers union, met with federal representatives in Mexico City for their third dialogue on the controversial education reform. The teachers have been fighting this reform since 2012, when the Mexican Congress passed the measure. It's being imposed gradually, region by region. But in the last few months, as the reform has encroached on the more militant southern states, the fight for teachers' rights has attracted more allies and blossomed into a movement against education privatization.