Puerto Rican Nationalist Uprising
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University at Albany, State University of New York Scholars Archive Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Faculty Scholarship Studies 2005 Puerto Rican Nationalist Uprising Pedro Caban University at Albany, State Univeristy of New York, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/lacs_fac_scholar Part of the Latin American Studies Commons Recommended Citation Caban, Pedro, "Puerto Rican Nationalist Uprising" (2005). Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Faculty Scholarship. 22. https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/lacs_fac_scholar/22 This Encyclopedia Entry is brought to you for free and open access by the Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies at Scholars Archive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Scholars Archive. For more information, please contact [email protected]. --------------------------~~--------- 498 PUERTO RICAN LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATION FUND school representatives. Law Day participants may attend Guardians Associatio11 and the Hispanic Societv v. Civil Service Com workshops and panel discussions on the application mission, 463 U.S. 582 ( 1983 ). process and the law school experience. PRLDEF cohosts a G(lzman, Betsy. "The Hispanic Population: Census 2000 Brief." Washington, D.C.: United States Census Bureau, 2001. similarly well-attended orientation-day program for ac Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352 (1991 ). cepted students, which consists of panels on how to suc Lopez v. Dil1kins, 69 F.R.D. 343 (S.D.N.Y. 1975). ceed in law school and provides an opportunity to network Mariani v. Banal Rea/tv·, 1990 WL 8174 (E.D.N.Y. 1990). with members of various local Latina and Latino bar asso Pare11ts' Association o{P.S. 16 v. Qui1wnes, 803 F.2d 1235 (2d Cir. 1986). Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. www. prldef.org ciations. PRLDEF has also established scholarships, In Torres v. Sachs, 69 F.R.D. 343 (S.D.N.Y. 1975). ternships, and mentorship programs for law students. Williamsburg Fair Housing Committee v. Nell' York Citv Housing Au tlwrity, 450 F.Supp. 602 (E.D.N.Y. 1978). Policy Division JEI\NY RIVERA When PRLDEF merged with the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy, PRLDEF's Policy Division was formed to serve the needs of the Northeast and Puerto Rico-based Latino com PUERTO RICAN NATIONALIST UPRISING. On munities. The Policy Division turned its focus on three October 30, 1950, in a dramatic but doomed attempt to program areas: policy analysis and advocacy, civic partici free Puerto Rico from U.S. colonial control, the National pation, and policy networking/communications. The Pol ist Party of Puerto Rico carried out armed insurrections icy Division works on these issues in the eastern United in major towns and cities throughout the island. Under States, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. the leadership of the Harvard-educated attorney Pedro The Policy Division organizes panels throughout the Albizu Campos, who was elected party president in 1930, year on such significant matters as voter participation, re the Nationalist Party adopted a radical revolutionary na districting, and education policy. The division also pub tionalism that rejected electoral politics. Independence lishes several policy papers on various topics, including would ultimately be achieved through anti-imperialist ac census analysis and socio-political matters such as Latina tivism and armed confrontation with the U.S. authorities and Latino political identity and political power. and the despised colonial government. The Nationalists Legacy believed that, as a result of continued agitation, the polit Beginning in 1972, PRLDEF filled a vacuum by litigating ical costs of maintaining a colony would prove unaccept and advocating on behalf of Puerto Ricans and other Lati able for the United States. According to Albizu Campos: nas and Latinos in the Northeast and Puerto Rico. As a re Puerto Rico must create a grave crisis for the colonial admin sult of its litigation and advocacy efforts, dramatic changes istration in order that its demands be heard. What is needed is have occurred in employment, housing, voting, and educa a rebel organization to make a clean break with the colonial tion rights for Latinas and Latinos. From board members regime and to request recognition of our independence from to legal staff members to student interns, everyone who the h·cc nations of the world has walked through PRLDEF's doors has learned leader (Wagenheim, p. 168). ship and advocacy skills. Many, if not most, have estab Albizu Campos was convicted of seditious conspiracy lished themselves as leaders within the legal community. and was incarcerated in a federal penitentiary from 1937 They have become federal and state judges, administrative to 1943. He returned to Puerto Rico in 194 7 and immedi law judges, law professors, and heads of city and state ately took up the cause of Puerto Rican independence. In agencies and bar associations. They have also been policy 1949, the U.S. Attorney General labeled the Nationalist makers at the highest level, and have assumed elected and Party a subversive organization that sought "to alter the appointed political offices throughout the Northeast. form of government of the United States by unconstitu Through its community lavvyering, PRLDEF has touched tional means" (New York Times, 1949). This designation [ the lives of Puerto Ricans and other Latinas and Latinos, provided a legal basis for the colonial government's perse It and brought the community closer to real equality and em cution and harassment of the Nationalists. c powerment in the United States and Puerto Rico. [( The Puerto Rican Commonwealth Act See also ASPIRA and Puerto Ricans. c In a series of fiery speeches between 1948 and 1950, Al rc BIBLIOGRAPHY bizu Campos excoriated the United States for keeping '\ Aspira v. Board o{Educ., 58 F.R.D. 62 (S.D.N.Y. 1973). Puerto Rico's people in economic bondage and perpetual Centro de Estudios Puertorriqucfios. Archives: Finding Aids. dt W\\'W.centropr.org/lib-arc/prldef.html poverty. He condemned the Puerto Rican Commonwealth .\I Centro de Estudios Puertorriquefios. "Research: Census 2000." Act (Public Law 600) and called on the Puerto Rican peo rh www.centropr.org/researchlcensus2000.html ple not to register to vote in a referendum on the adoption to ·I I - PUERTO RICAN NATIONALIST UPRISING 499 of the law. This important legislation, which was enacted Govemment Response by the U.S. Congress but conceived by Governor Luis Munoz Marin dispatched 3,500 National Guard troops to Munoz Marin and his Popular Democratic Party, author suppress the insurrection in Jayuya, Utuado, and Arecibo. ized the people of Puerto Rico to draw up and approve Police held Albizu Campos's home under siege for two their own constitution. This constitution would have the days before the Nationalist leader surrendered. The in trappings of a charter of autonomy under a republican surrection was quickly stamped out except in the moun form of government but would not alter Puerto Rico's tain town of Jayuya, a Nationalist stronghold. There, the fundamental relationship to the United States as a terri Nationalists burned the police headquarters, overthrew torial possession subject to the unrestricted plenary pow the local authorities, and for two days took control of the ers of Congress. According to the Nationalists, Public town. Blanca Canales, one of the Nationalist leaders, Law 600 was a farce that allowed the United States to re raised the banned Puerto Rican flag and declared Puerto port to the recently established United Nations, which Rico an independent republic. The National Guard was actively promoting global decolonization, that the launched its attack on Jayuva with heavy weapons, in Puerto Rican people were sovereign. cluding mortars and tanks. Airplanes were ordered to By repudiating the colonial administration and Public bomb and strafe the rebels. The National Guard recap Law 600, Albizu Campos was provoking the government hired Jayuya on November 1 and arrested four hundred to arrest him for violating the 1948 anti-free speech law townspeople. According to a reporter at the scene, known as La Mordaza (Law No. 53). The law made it ille "Jayuya looked as if an earthquake had struck it, with sev gal to advocate the overthrow of the Puerto Rican gov eral blocks destroyed and most of the other buildings in ernment "by means of force or violence." Under this law, the town of 1,500 charred by fire" (New York Times, No the colonial authorities had tremendous latitude to sup vember 1, 1950). National Guard ground and air forces press the activities of the Nationalists and other inde were also deployed to suppress the rebellion in Utuado. pendence advocates, who comprised a substantial portion In all, about 140 Nationalists were active combatants in of the population in 194 7. the insurrection. The police reported that twenty-eight people had been killed and fifty wounded during the up The Start of the Insurrection rising, including police officers and National Guardsmen. The Nationalist Party had planned to begin the island Munoz Marin sought to turn public opinion against the wide insurrection on November 3. The uprising would Nationalists by calling the insurrection "a conspiracy not only disrupt the voter registration process slated to against democracy helped by the Communists" (New York begin on November 4 but would also possibly provoke a Times November 2, 1950). Once the insurrection was sup crisis in authority that would compel the U.S. Congress pressed, the reaction by the government was swift and either to rescind Public Law 600 or to delay its imple draconian. Law No. 53 was used as a legal tool to arrest mentation.