authors-from-puerto-rico

"If the ego cogito was built upon the foundations of the ego conquiro, the ‘I think, therefore I am’ presupposes two unacknowledged dimensions. Beneath the ‘I think’ we can read ‘others do not think’, and behind the ‘I am’ it is possible to locate the philosophical justification for the idea that ‘others are not’ or do not have being."

"In this way we are led to uncover the complexity of the Cartesian formulation. From ‘I think, therefore I am’ we are led to the more complex and both philosophically and historically accurate expression:"

"The significance of the Cartesian cogito for modern European identity has to be understood against the backdrop of an unquestioned ideal of self expressed in the notion of the ego conquiro. The certainty of the self as a conqueror, of its tasks and missions, preceded Descartes’s certainty about the self as a thinking substance (res cogitans) and provided a way to interpret it. I am suggesting that the practical conquering self and the theoretical thinking substance are parallel in terms of their certainty. The ego conquiro is not questioned, but rather provides the ground for the articulation of the ego cogito."

"Before Cartesian methodic skepticism (the procedure that introduced the heuristic device of the evil demon and which ultimately led to the finding of the cogito itself) became central for modern understandings of self and world, there was another kind of skepticism in modernity which became constitutive of it. ... I characterize this attitude as racist/imperial Manichean misanthropic skepticism. It could also be rendered as the imperial attitude, which gives definition to modern Imperial Man."

"Unlike Descartes’s methodical doubt, Manichean misanthropic skepticism is not skeptical about the existence of the world or the normative status of logics and mathematics. It is rather a form of questioning the very humanity of colonized peoples. The Cartesian idea about the division between res cogitans and res extensa (consciousness and matter) which translates itself into a divide between the mind and the body or between the human and nature is preceded and even, one has the temptation to say, to some extent built upon an anthropological colonial difference between the ego conquistador and the ego conquistado. The very relationship between colonizer and colonized provided a new model to understand the relationship between the soul or mind and the body; and likewise, modern articulations of the mind/body are used as models to conceive the colonizer/colonized relation, as well as the relation between man and woman, particularly the woman of color."

"Not even the ashes of heroes have peace. Being great is synonymous with loneliness."

"• Imagine you have a root system, much like a flower. Where are the roots? Are they in your mind, your heart, your entire body? Outside of your body? Where does your "strength" come from? • What are your sources of nourishment? Apart from your basic needs, is there something else you need? Perhaps it is a few minutes alone each morning, reading a book, creating art, taking walks, etc. What is it, and how can you incorporate it into your life? • What do need to flourish? What steps can you take to nourish your soul? • What other types of cycles can you notice within your life? What can the trends you see within your relationships, friendships, body, and emotions tell you about yourself? What wisdom can you take from them?"

"The personal and the impersonal coincide because life itself impels them. Killing humanity kills language. Once the language is dead, the human self disappears."

"One of my favorite low budget ways to decorate is just to decorate with books. You can find interesting-looking books, almost anywhere, second-hand for very little cost. I like to get ones that I'm ... interested to read but also others that just speak to me. Their covers may be intricate, or the stories that are told can teach me something about the people who lived in the past and their perception of the world. Next time you go to a thrift store, maybe look out for some fun books within a specific color scheme or style."

"My feminism is the feminism of Puerto Rican writer Clotilde Betances Jaeger, who, in 1929 responded to the racist comment of Carrie Chapman Catt that Latin American women were not helping to build peace, by stating that while peace was a central principle for Latin American and Caribbean women, it was based on freedom from US imperialism."

"Every slave of a golden cage feels some hatred towards their master. Wondering the cause of such restlessness, they begin their emancipation."

"I love to see animals running free. It reminds me to be grateful that cool weather and a space to play is enough, and sometimes that's all we need to be joyful."

"About a year and a half ago, I quit my job, moved to the countryside, and started a new life. Since then I've learned quite a few lessons on how to cultivate a feeling of abundance while living simply."

"Language has life because it lives in humanity...Language lives in me because it lives in everyone and everyone lives with it."

"Many edible herbs and flowers can be used in tea and recipes. When it comes to tea, I find my favorite sources apart from lilac are chamomile and rosemary. Even if these flowers are not as readily available to you, the options of flowers and herbs to use are endless. I often pair the dandelion and chamomile with a touch of honey. In addition, each year I love to experiment with using these herbs in a variety of syrups, jellies, and baked goods. Once you know how to properly harvest and dry each herb, you can get creative with its uses."

"Afro-Latinos serve as bridges. The most obvious example would be Arturo Alfonso Schomburg. The Schomburg Center for Black Culture [Harlem, New York, USA] is probably the premiere institution for any type of serious scholarship and research on Africans and their descendants. Schomburg was a Black Puerto Rican who came to the United States from Puerto Rico in 1891 at 17. He became an integral part of the Black community – African American and Caribbean; most definitely he served as a bridge. Most of his writings were about Black Latinos, whether in Spain, the Caribbean or South America."

"We keep denying the importance of race because white people are becoming the minority."

"("Are there any countries working to acknowledge the historical and cultural impact of their African roots?") Every single country in Latin America and the Caribbean is doing that, including places you would never imagine like Chile and Uruguay and Paraguay, all have Black advocacy organizations. The only exception is El Salvador. And I think we can contribute some of the reluctance to organizing to El Salvador’s civil war. The political instability works against organizing."

"As a Research Coordinator and Curator of Exhibits and Special Programs at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Miriam worked closely with SNCC activists Roberta “Bobbi” Yancy, professor Zita Nunes, and director Howard Dodson to produce dozens of widely celebrated international Africana exhibits (1987-1997)."

"She authored dozens of seminal works that challenged racial democracy, Taíno revivalism, blanqueamiento, and the U.S. census"

"Influenced by the Civil Rights, Black Power and Nuyorican movements, Miriam often asserted, “African Americans have always been in the vanguard. Everything that’s worthwhile in this country has come about because African Americans have pushed it. We all benefit everyday, white people as well as people of color, from the struggles of African Americans.”"

"She was an influential pioneering architect of the Afro-Latinx Studies movement."

"In the process of putting the book together, we discovered a whole series of people who were identified as being African-American because they appeared—Black. There was no real attention to their [Latino] ethnicity even if they spoke Spanish; they served as bridges. Afro-Latinos function in two worlds: African [Black] and Latino."

"She received all of her formal education in public schools and universities during the early years of ethnic studies, saying, “I owe my less formal but likely strongest intellectual, professional and personal development to the African diasporic community of scholars and activists,” whose worked inspired her for a lifetime."

"struggling for racial equality [in Latin America] is far behind the United States."

"we’re not in a post racial state. Race is still a very important part of how all of us – globally – live our lives. African-Americans and Latinos need to get together, create change that will benefit not just Latinos and African-Americans but all people of color."

"Whether we look at race as a fixed notion or culturally constructed concept it is very real. Race itself is an invention, a creation. Many people feel race is something that’s fixed, rigid and doesn’t have variances. By looking at Afro-Latinos, you kind of get a better sense of how fluid race has been. People have constructed it in different ways depending on conditions and circumstances."

"In Latin America there is this general concept that because we are all racially mixed, somewhere back in everybody’s family tree there is an African or Indian then we are incapable of being racist because that would be being racist against ourselves. Since most of these countries became independent that has become the guiding line that we are all mixed and because we are all mixed we cannot be racist."

"Jiménez Román and Flores write: "Afro-Latin@ is at the personal level a unique and distinctive experience and identity because of its range among and between Latin@, Black, and United States American dimensions of lived reality. In their quest for a full and appropriate sense of social identity Afro-Latin@s are thus typically pulled in three directions at once and share a complex, multidimensional optic on contemporary society." Taking a cue from W.E.B. Du Bois, we might name this three-pronged web of affiliations "triple-consciousness." To paraphrase those unforgettable lines from The Souls of Black Folk (1903) in studying the historical and contemporary experience of United States Afro-Latin@, one ever feels his three-ness, -a Latin@, a Negro, an American; three souls, three thoughts, three unreconciled strivings; three warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. Du Bois's reference to strength and resilience bears emphasis: the multiple experiences and perspectives including the contradictions, pain, and outrage-does not necessarily translate into pathological confusion. As many of the contributions to this volume suggest, embracing and celebrating all the dimensions of one's self has not only been possible but has also resulted in significant innovations at the personal and collective level."

"In their introduction to the Afro-Latin@ Reader, the first major academic effort about Latin@s of African descent in the United States, editors Miriam Jiménez Román and Juan Flores struggle to define the term Afro-Latin@, asking within a North American context, "What's an Afro-Latin@? Who is an Afro-Latin@? The term befuddles us because we are accustomed to thinking of 'Afro' and 'Latin@' as distinct from each other and mutually exclusive: one is either Black or Latin@""

"Prior to graduating high school, Miriam wrote, “Each new mask is put on, tested, and finally disposed of…Just who am I?” adding, “It should not matter who your parents were. The product is what is of importance. It should not matter!” This introspection and insightfulness would serve her well in future endeavors."

"The way ideology is constructed in Latin America –if you claim Blackness or talk about race, it’s because you have some kind of complex; you just can’t seem to deal with the world the way it is. It’s a good way of silencing any kind of protest against discrimination because people think you’re saying because you have a problem, it’s your personal problem not collective discrimination."

"This kind of book should have been around when I was a kid because blackness was equated with being African-American. This limited view left me concerned about my blackness because I grew up as a Black Puerto Rican and I’m very conscious how race and ethnicity have both impacted my life."

"Juan Seguín is the forgotten father of Latino politics in the United States. The story of his life and career has left Mexican Americans with a somewhat different political legacy than that which Washington, Jefferson, and the Founding Fathers bequeathed to white Americans, or which Nat Turner, Sojourner Truth, and W. E. B. Du Bois symbolize for black Americans. How our nation comes to terms with that legacy will determine much of American politics during the twenty-first century."

"Nowadays, our leaders prefer to search for the causes of crime and poverty in the actions or inaction of those at the very bottom of society. The obscene transfers of wealth over the past forty years from that bottom to a privileged few at the top--and from much of the Third World to financial elites in the West--are all excused as the natural evolution of the Market, when, in fact, they are products of unparalleled greed by those who shape and direct that Market."

"I figured my modest contribution would be... not writing about outcast neighborhoods, but from them. Not simply to entertain but to change. Not after the fact, but before it, when coverage could still make a difference.... I have tried to use as many of my columns as possible to probe the injustices visited upon the powerless. Yes, the rich and famous are also victims on occasion. But they have so many politicians, lobbyists, lawyers, gossip columnists and even editorial writers ready to jump to their defense that they'll always do fine without my help. I prefer the desperate unknown reader who comes to me because he or she has gone everywhere else and no one will listen. More often than not I come across unexpected gems, human beings whose tragedies illuminate the landscape and whose courage hopefully inspires the reader to believe that there is indeed some greater good served by a free press than just chronicling or influencing the ouster of one group of politicians by another."

"Until Puerto Rico is decolonized, American democracy will not be complete."

"Our people have experience with crooked politicians full of empty promises. In the 1940's, luis munoz marin and the slogan "Bread, Land, and Liberty." Where is the bread? Where is the land? Where is the liberty? munoz marin was for independence, until he got into office. Then he became a traitor, and a rich man."

"The central argument of this book is that U.S. economic and political domination over Latin America has always been—and continues to be—the underlying reason for the massive Latino presence here. Quite simply, our vast Latino population is the unintended harvest of the U.S. empire."

"As some of you may know, mine has not been the typical journalism career these past 37 years. I’ve managed to work not only in mainstream journalism, but proudly in the alternative and dissident press, most notably for the past 20 years with Democracy Now!, with a terrific journalist and friend, Amy Goodman, but also at various times in the Spanish-language or ethnic press. In addition, I must be the only reporter in mainstream journalism with an extensive rap sheet, having been arrested about a dozen times over four decades, in the 1960s, '70s, ’80s and ’90s, on a variety of charges: criminal trespass, contempt of court, marijuana possession, inciting to riot, draft evasion—all, except for the marijuana bust, related to political protest."

"When we established the Party on the island, we were expecting to enter the struggle here in an atmosphere of comrades. Instead we found the rejection of the same independentistas who were supposedly companeros and companeras."

"Many independentistas who write or speak about Puerto Rico, fail to mention these two realities that are vital in order to understand our history-the period of slavery, during which one part of our nation treated another part as if they were not human; and the division of the nation when the yankees deceived us and forced us to go the u.s."

"We in the Young Lords Party also follow the teachings of Don Pedro. We know that since the amerikkkan invasion of Puerto Rico in 1898, the united states has controlled the press, radio, television. They control the schools. Every day, our people are bombarded with more and more amerikkkan propaganda. More than 25,000 amerikkkan troops occupy our territory. With those forces of repression, it is impossible to talk of free elections. As the National Liberation Front of Vietnam says-first, the amerikkkans should get out, then we will be able to have free elections."

"The Revolution of Lares, more than an uprising for independence, was a rebellion against slavery."

"The Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico was the first party to raise Guanica, to protest the invasion of the gringos as should be. In these as in many of the struggles for freedom of our people, the Nationalist Party was at the vanguard of its time. The Young Lords Party follows the example of Don Pedro Albizu Campos and the Nationalist Party and declares that for us Guanica is a day of national protest, and will be a day of national protest until we drive the Puerto Rican lombrices like ferre, the Cuban gusanos, and yankee amerikkkans into the sea."

"if we don't hurry and we don't get ourselves disciplined enough and we don't talk and we get out there among the masses of people, the forces of fascism will organize more."

"it's time that people stop looking for speakers, for very prepared leaders-lawyers, professors, doctors, whatever. It's time that the poor look for [sic] ourselves as leaders. It's time that the universities take their place behind the poor in this struggle."

"The new slavery arrived with the amerikkkans and the only ones in this century who truly confronted that empire was the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, and for a time, the Socialist Party. Don Pedro was the defender of our nationality. Don Pedro assured with his struggle that at a later time in the future, men and women, poor and humble, capable of liberating Puerto Rico, would arise."

"Slavery is the most disgusting reality in the history of Puerto Rico. From slavery, from the riches of free labor for centuries by African men and women, comes the money of what is left of the old rich families of Puerto Rico."

"With the division in our nation between the rich who have millions to launch electoral campaigns, and the poor who hardly have enough money to live decently, we can't talk about free elections representative of the interests of the majority of the people."