Member-only story
SOCIAL JUSTICE
Meet The Resistance Room
Denouncing colonization in Puerto Rico and Palestine.
No somos pequeños, es que estamos de rodillas.
(We aren’t small, it’s just that we’re on our knees)
~ Pedro Albizu Campos, Puerto Rican Freedom Fighter
What comes to mind when you see or hear any form of the word ‘colonize?’ Perhaps you cringe. Maybe your shoulders shudder. It could be you simply sigh softly to yourself.
For me — since 30 November 2021 — that repugnant word has taken on an entirely urgent meaning. Its literal proximity has turned it into an unwelcome visitor — the kind you’d do anything [or almost anything] to get rid of.
As I often tell folks, “It’s not the same thing to live my cultura, my Boricua-ness, to be una mujer puertorriqueña in the U.S. as it is to experience all of that living in the colony!” Only those of us who have experienced both (especially those — like me — who spent the majority of their lives in gringolandia) can truly appreciate what my words mean.
Living in Borikén has brought countless smiles to my soul.
Here, my heart sings like it has in no other of those 34 countries I visited. Here too, mi luz (my light) shines brighter than it ever did while living in gringolandia.
