2025: Book written by an author from/written about Puerto Rico

Not having been incorporated into the community of sovereign nations of the globe, Puerto Rico must always have her international relations sifted through the U.S. State Department.

That this is an arrangement suitable to U.S. interests is demonstrated by its determined refusal to permit the Committee on Decolonization of the United Nations to include Puerto Rico on the list of territories which “have still not obtained their independence” under the provisions of Resolution 1514 (XV), passed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December 1960.

This might not seem important to a person who believes that the United States has Puerto Rico's interests at heart, or those of its property-holding class, or those of anyone with material interests that are improved by being part of the United States, and not independent of it. However, to understand any part of Puerto Rico's modern history is to understand how the United States took possession of Puerto Rico.  ^[1]

what do we eat when a name dies?

[...]

what is that about, going out
and not having to explain
you aren’t that her
or that thing? ^[2]

in this, our language ^[3],
there exists no plural that doesn’t deny me.

In the United States, individual liberties are increasingly being restricted and encroached by the State apparatus, which strives to achieve absolute control of public opinion and annihilate all dissent, while itself generally acting outside the law. Consequently, the State has become the principal threat to individual freedom, the free spirit, and creativity.

[..]

Along with violations of law, the United States has also developed a psychological and emotionally charged campaign to impose upon the population the internalization of a highly negative view of those who are dissidents. This is, in effect, an effort of the State to demonize those who are different, while isolating dissidents from the population at large. In turn, such a campaign seeks to gather support for the illegal conduct of the agencies of the State. The nomenclature used to create these negative categories has changed over time but always retains its high emotional charge. ^[4]

The rise in violations of civil and human rights by the State results in different levels of resistance against specific domestic and foreign policies, which in turn leads to a public policy of cruel and vengeful repression. The ultimate goal is to eliminate dissent by all means that are available to the repressive apparatus of the State.

In the conflict arising from the illegal conduct of the State—which includes, but is not limited to crimes against peace and against humanity as well as war crimes—and the resistance by an opposition that combats the illegal actions of the State, the judicial system is revealed as an important partner in the official strategy of repression.

[..]

Judicial discourse has a common ideological content: the obstinate refusal to accept that in the United States there are people who are persecuted and imprisoned for holding ethical and political positions that are in opposition to those sustained by the U.S. government; the furious denial of the existence of political prisoners in U.S. jails and prisons; the assertion that the only avenues open to dissidents are the electoral process and official channels of expression; the denial that revolutionary actions are a legitimate avenue of change; the use of linguistic categories of a deprecatory nature to classify dissidents and thereby justify disproportionate sentences, which allow for the permanent removal from society of dissidents and political militants, while at the same time allowing criminal violators of international law to walk about freely and with impunity.

[..]

The other profile, that of the resisters and militants who have been imprisoned for their objections of conscience, is a profile of a group of people who are deeply committed to fighting against racism and social injustice and growing militarization and nuclearization. They fight against: U.S. collaboration with racist regimes; military interventions in sovereign states; the continuing aid the United States gives to dictatorial regimes; U.S. participation in terrible atrocities against peoples who are engaged in liberation struggles; and the continued imposition of a colonial regime in Puerto Rico. All of these official actions involve violations of international law, the compliance of which are compulsory for U.S. citizens as established in the Nuremberg principles. ^[5]

... Bad Bunny made an unprecedented decision to use his power to refuse the demands of our mediatic age. Instead of releasing flashy, highly produced videos for each track, the artist’s team worked with Jorell Meléndez-Badillo, author of Puerto Rico: A National History, to create historical slides that were launched alongside each of the seventeen tracks... Dense layers of meaning bely the simplicity of the slides. The background is the light blue of the original Puerto Rican flag, before the US imposed the current dark blue to match its own. And the texts themselves speak with the music, creating innumerable possibilities for historical insight.