UNION ESTUDIANTIL BORICUA

The first organizers of the Puerto Rican Student Union (P.R.S.U.)were Nuyorican college students who held their founding convention in December of 1969. These radical student activists collaborated to produce a policy statement, which was later used as a major organizing tool to mobilize Puerto Rican communities in the Bronx and throughout New York City. P.R.S.U. drew upon Don Pedro's nationalism by dating Puerto Rico's Nacimiento (birth) to September 23, 1863, El Grito del Lares. The young radicals praised Don Pedro's courageous leadership against U.S. imperialism and his unrelenting committment to the struggle for Puerto Rico's liberation and national identity. In the spirit of his work that of past Puerto Rican freedom fighters, the P.R.S.U. called for raising a Puerto Rican political consciousness based in community education. As stated in their policy statement: "We do not believe that words or papers will bring about change in the everyday life of Puerto Ricans either here in the United States or in Puerto Rico. We clearly understand from years and years of being hit over the head with it, that the only way tht our people will become free from disease, poverty, ignorance, oppression, exploitation and cultural and physical genocide is through the use of force" (P.R.S.U., 1) This ideological understanding of revolution echos Don Pedro's strategic vision for attaining liberation for the people of Puerto Rico. However, applied to the generations of Puerto Ricans living in the United States, the P.R.S.U. coupled Don Pedro's radicalism with thier own platform for fighting oppression, exploitation, and the forces that undermine a postitive and revolutionary Puerto Rican cultural and political identity. [edit]

THE YOUNG LORDS

"Our cry is a very simple and logical one. Puerto Ricans came to this country hoping to get a decent job and to provide for their families; but it didn't take long to find out that the American dream that was publicized so nicely on our island turned out to eb the amerikkkan nightmare" Union Estudiantil Boricua The Puerto Rican Student's Union evolved into the student front of the Young Lords organizing in college campuses and their communities (Melendez, 190). Don Pedro Albizu Campos' political views about the Puerto Rican national identity needing to rid itself of U.S. imperialism and oppression had a profound impact on the Puerto Rican student activism in the late 1960s and 1970s. The Young Lords and other Nuyorican arts and activists saw that generations of Puerto Ricans were being taught they had no history, were alienated from their culture, and had no national identity aside from second class citizenship. Thus the struggle of the Young Lords was to link Nuyoricans with thier past as means for combating community problems with police brutality, public housing crisis, unemployment, education, and health care. The Young Lords militant tactics were in part, built on Don Pedro's model of a nationalist revolutionary opposed to the repression imposed by the facist powers that be. However, the Young Lords coupled their anti-oppression framework with issue based mass mobilizations that again, addressed the needs of Nuyorican communities in NYC and other working class communities at large.

Below is the 13 Point Program and Platform of the Young Lords: 1. We want self-determination for Puerto Ricans. Liberation on the Island and inside the United States. 2.We want self-determination for all Latinos. 3.We want liberation of all Third World people. 4.We are revolutionary nationalists and oppose racism. 5.We want equality for women. Down with machismo and male chauvanism. 6.We want community control of our institutions and land. 7.We want a true education of our Afro-Indio culture and Spanish language. 8.We oppose capitalists and alliances with traitors. 9.We oppose the Amer'kkkan military. 10.We want freedom for all political prisoners and prisoners of war. 11.We are internationalists. 12.We believe armed self-defense and armed struggle are the only means to liberation. 13.We want a socialist society.

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Quotes from Former Young Lord Party Members

"Whereever a Puerto Rican is, the duty of a Puerto Rican is to make the revolution." - Gloria Gonzalez "Revolution means change from the top to the bottom, and that includes the way we deal with eachother as human beings." - Richie Perez "We're saying that...it would be healthy for a man, if he wanted to cry, to go ahead and cry. It would also be healthy for a woman to pick up a gun." - Pablo "Yoruba" Guzman "We're trying to make a society where opportunity is the rule for everybody." - Pablo "Yoruba"

Guzman