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Latinos, Corporate Power and the Supreme Court

The Forum, ,

By Angelo Falcón

Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in the appeal of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission adds to the already corrupting influence of money on American politics, which is bad news for the Latino community. In a 5-4 split vote the Court lifted the ban against corporation spending money from their own treasuries for political advertisements aired within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days of a general election and lifted restrictions on corporate spending to support or oppose candidates. The majority was composed of justices appointed by Republican Presidents, while the dissenting minority consisted on three appointed by Democratic Presidents and one by a Republican President. By the way, Justice Sotomayor was among the dissenters who, in Justice Steven’s opinion, sharply argued that the Court’s ruling “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation.”

Along the lines of the criticism of the Court in the Bush v. Gore 2000 decision, some are seeing this as a highly politicized decision. This is spurred by the unusual circumstance of the Court’s invitation to hear the case, making it look like a deliberate political set-up by Chief Justice Roberts and the other conservative Justices. As Justice Stevens put it, this resulted in “elevating the majority’s agenda over the litigant’s submissions.”

The decision equates the First Amendment rights of corporations to those of individuals, which is highly controversial. While framed as an association of individuals and including nonprofit corporations and unions, the Court’s majority clearly ignored the problem of the concentration of corporate power and the fact that corporations have many ways they can express themselves through PACs and other means. It also ignored the growing economic inequality in the US and its negative implications for the value of free speech and a democratic politics. And, as occurred with the health insurance companies in the health care debate, the Court’s majority seemed to strangely portray corporations as victims. “While American democracy is imperfect, few outside of the majority of this Court,” Justice Stevens concluded, “would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.” The First Amendment was, in other words, treated in overly abstract terms despite the concrete evidence that it shouldn’t be.

Given the impact of social class on political participation from voting to campaign contributing, this Supreme Court ruling serves to further disadvantage the Latino community in the political process. This includes the problem of the poor representation of Latinos in the decision-making levels of the major corporations that the Supreme Court just further empowered. As the politics of health insurance reform clearly illustrates, corporate influence is disproportionate and debilitating of populist changes, making Latinos highly marginalized politically in these policy debates.

For the Latino community, this new situation requires some different thinking about how to hold the corporate sector more accountable to its needs and social policy agenda. It is a challenge that comes amidst charges or suspicions by many that too many of our leaders and organizations are increasingly captives of the big corporations. Who, in this context, is ultimately setting the Latino agenda?

The Citizens United ruling is an urgent call to the Latino leadership to critically reassess our community’s relationship to corporate power. For a community that is still largely poor and working class, how do we define such a relationship? For a community that represents close to a trillion dollars in buying power, how do we leverage this economic lever and for what? To date, we really haven’t come up with adequate answers to these questions. But recent developments tell us that we better start coming up with some, and soon!

Angelo Falcón is president of the National Institute for Latino Policy (NiLP) and editor of the Latino Policy eNewsletter.

Dead Latinos

The Forum

by José R. Sánchez (January 2, 2010)

When does one dead Hollywood actor trump another? When does one fierce dead organizer against social injustices trump another? In fact, when does a dead chimp responsible for a hideous attack catapult himself above the life of a dead Mexican anthropologist with over 150 books and articles filled with archaeological and cultural studies about Mayan civilization? For the New York Times, the answer seems to be whenever the second option is a Latino.

Travis the chimp was one of the few fortunate deceased to get star billing in the New York Times 2009 annual issue devoted to the passing of important people. Travis, you may remember, was the Connecticut chimpanzee, raised by a woman in Stamford, who was killed after he mauled the face off of his caretaker’s friend. This annual Times compilation included twenty-three essays on this year’s deceased. Like in past years, not one single Latino made it onto this lamentable list of the departed, famous and not-so-famous.

Many Latinos died this year, arguably many of them having led interesting and notable lives. But they apparently were not interesting enough for the New York Times. This newspaper highlighted the death of Karl Malden but not Ricardo Montalvan. The latter was the debonair path-breaking Mexican movie and television star best known for his roles in the Star Trek series and movie and his commercials for promoting the “soft, Corinthian leather” in Chrysler Motors car seats.

The Times also wrote about the death of Crystal Lee Sutton, a fierce labor organizer in the South. But it ignored the death of Esther Chavez, a Mexican accountant who was one of the first to discover a pattern of murders in the 1990s against Mexican women working in U.S.-owned factories in border cities. Chavez helped to draw public attention and government prosecution against men who kidnapped young Mexican women off the streets, raped and killed them with impunity. Her advocacy led the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to rule that Mexico had violated the human rights of women.

The Times also wrote about Robert Rines, an MIT scientist who spent most of his life pursuing evidence to prove the existence of the Loch Ness Monster. It ignored Dennis deLeon, a former New York City human rights commissioner, who created the premiere Latino advocacy group against AIDS. A Mexican American, deLeon created the Latino Commission on AIDS in 1994 and made it into a very effective tool against the spread of AIDS in the Latino community.

Why should we care that the Times ignored so many of Latinos in death? Some say it is because this slight is one more example of the invisibility Latinos experience in life in the U.S. Death, apparently, does cannot redeem the living. Some Latinos, like Montalvan and de Leon, did get obituaries in the Times’ daily paper at the time of their death. These annual compilations are done for many, often valid, editorial reasons.

Some of the people the Times choose to celebrate led unusual lives, enough to have books or movies done about them. The Times also specifically selected each author to write these obit articles. Some were Times writers while others came from outside the paper. Who they chose to write about sprung from their individual “passions, quirks and curiosities” as writers and editors. The Times, in that sense, did not attempt to provide a comprehensive listing. All of this, however, simply underscores an even more troubling reality for Latinos. It’s one thing to be invisible, to not be seen; it is quite another to be in plain sight and yet not spark much interest or curiosity from others.

Public recognition of the dead provides a rough indication of the difference that person made in life, how much they were able to change the way other people thought, behaved, or felt. Rines, the scientist who spent a large part of his life chasing the Loch Ness monster never found her, at least conclusively. He inspired others by his failed quixotic efforts, however. He pushed the limits of how much we know and how much faith is warranted in the myth of her existence.

Omitting Latinos from this kind of recognition carries a message — that Latino lives do not really matter and did not have an impact. Is this a legitimate conclusion? The Timesalso omitted any recognition of Canadians, Jamaicans, Muslims, and many others. But they did include two African Americans, Naomi Sims the model, and Reverend Ike, the irrepressible minister who built a church based on greed and hope. They also included a Trinidadian, the chili restaurant owner Ben Ali. Are these choices the product of simple editorial decisions, the play of curiosity, or pure whimsy? Are these news sources simply responding to audiences whom have little interest in Latinos?

Latinos, obviously, did make a difference in this world before they passed on. We don’t need the Times to tell us so. But do we need the Times to tell others? How much do other Americans know about Latinos, the “fastest growing minority group” in the country? The Times treatment of Latino deaths is symptomatic of a wider neglect of Latinos in the media. Most mainstream newspapers and magazines also systematically ignored Latino accomplishments in their end of year appraisals.

The Chicago Tribune list of notable deaths in 2009 listed two Latinos out of 104 recognized dead. This included Mercedes Sosa, the Grammy Award winning and Argentinean singer, and Alex Arguello, the Nicaraguan boxer. If we wanted to be generous, we could give them a third in Gidget, the Taco Bell dog featured in their commercials. The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, listed about 120 notable deaths and only 3 Latinos. This included Arguello, Montalvan, and Ismael Valenzuela, the Mexican horse jockey. One last example is the Baltimore Sun. It listed only Montalvan, Rafael Antonio Caldera, the two-time Venezuelan president, as well as the baseball manager Preston Gomez among the 134 notable deaths in 2009.

The wide reach of this neglect is probably driven by the current media structure. Most newspapers in the U.S. are part of a handful of media monopolies that share the same sources of information or rely on syndicated sources like the Associated Press. In this vein, the AP listed only Montalvan among the 91 notable deaths it chose to feature in 2009. Five or six media conglomerates control the majority of newspapers in the United States. Editorial decisions, thus, tend to accumulate and spread with this kind of centralization. Most of the end-of-year reviews of the deceased were simply replicated by each newspaper in the chain. Recent research confirms this disturbing reality.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Hispanic Center reported recently that, in one six-month sample period, only “2.9% of the news content studied contained substantial references to Hispanics.” Most of that coverage was focused on the nomination of Sonio Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Otherwise, the media attention focused on Latinos only in the context of discussing issues like immigration and the recession. Clearly, a population that is now almost 16 percent of the population deserves more widespread and direct media attention focused on Latino lives and accomplishments.

The complaint here is not just about recognition and publicity. It is, to a great extent, also about power. Nothing happens simply because any one group or person has taken action. The world does not function so linearly. The success of health care reform or the results of the 2008 elections have many contributors. A group that is either not seen or that draws little interest will find its contributions minimized or dismissed. But this is about power in an even more important way.

I believe that any success at influencing or changing how others think, behave, or feel depends directly on our ability to offer something that others value. Those who attribute power to objects like money or weapons can’t easily explain why these things sometimes fail to deliver power. The rich don’t always get what they want and, historically, much poorer-equipped opponents have often defeated the largest and best-equipped armies. Vietnam for the U.S. and Afghanistan for the U.S.S.R. are the best examples of the latter. The “War Against Terrorism” may, eventually, prove to be another.

Power is a transaction, an exchange between parties in which each side has input. This is true no matter the situation. A mugger can get me to turn over my valuables only because my health and life mean so much more to me than my watch and money. The key here is that the threat of assault gets victims to move only because I, like the vast majority of us, fear getting hurt or killed. When that is not the case, when I am reckless or suicidal, for instance, the mugger’s threat often falls flat. The mugger’s attempt to extract valuables from me then gets stalled, jeopardized, and, possibly, defeated. I may get killed but the mugger will have failed to influence my behavior.

I cannot teach my students, change the way they think, unless they want knowledge or grades or something else from me. I cannot influence how an elected official decides policy issues unless I can provide the votes, money, or information that they need. The ability to influence becomes extremely difficult, however, if the others around me do not see me or have no interest in me when they do. The exclusion of Latinos from the list of notable deaths reflects a community whose life remains lived apart from the main cultural, economic, and political currents of this society.

Latinos lag behind other groups in voting rates, average age, high school graduation, college attendance, employment rates, corporate and professional employment, income, housing conditions, two parent families, and residential integration. These conditions not only produce deprivations and obstacles to individual mobility. They also produce a community that still lives, despite all the progress, largely apart from the rest of society. This life apart results in very limited opportunities for Latinos to develop power with and influence other sectors U.S. society.

The neglect of Latinos in death is, thus, a reflection not just of how much Latinos are neglected in life but also of how few opportunities they have for power while alive. The Times is, thus, justified to omit any Latinos from its annual “How They Lived” magazine compilation. It would be hypocritical to pay attention in death to a group that they and society have mostly ignored, overlooked, dismissed, and brushed off in life.

José Ramón Sánchez is Associate Professor of Politics and Chair of Urban Studies at Long Island University – Brooklyn; Chair of the Board of the National Institute for Latino Policy, Inc. He is also the author of “Boricua Power: A Political History of Puerto Ricans in the U.S.” (2007) and co-auhotr of “The Iraq Papers” (2010). He can be reached at jose.sanchez@liu.edu.

Prometen, por lo menos, audiencias

The Forum

Jose A. Delgado
15-Dic-2009
El Nuevo Dia
Tan pronto quedó hoy formalmente constituido, el grupo interagencial de la Casa Blanca sobre Puerto Rico anunció que persigue celebrar audiencias en 2010 en Puerto Rico y Estados Unidos, con el propósito de desarrollar una agenda que, por encomienda del presidente Barack Obama, deberá incluir temas sobre desarrollo económico, educación, salud, energía y el futuro político de la Isla.
La intención, según fuentes de la administración, es que las audiencias incorporen también la participación de la diáspora puertorriqueña en Estados Unidos.
Por medio de la orden ejecutiva suscrita por Obama, el ‘task force’ tiene que rendirle a la Casa Blanca un “informe de progreso” sobre los asuntos de Puerto Rico, como muy tarde el 29 de octubre del año próximo.
“A medida que el grupo de trabajo ponga en práctica un proceso para avanzar con respecto a estos importantes asuntos de política pública, trabajaremos decididamente para involucrar al pueblo puertorriqueño e incluirlos en el proceso”, afirmó Tom Perrelli, secretario adjunto del Departamento de Justicia de Estados Unidos y copresidente del ‘task force’.
Perrelli, el número tres del Departamento de Justicia federal, compartirá la copresidencia del grupo con Cecilia Muñoz, la directora de la Oficina de Asuntos Intergubernamentales de la Casa Blanca que ha tenido, además, la función de ser responsable de los asuntos de Puerto Rico en la mansión presidencial.
Es la primera vez que el task force, desde que fue creado por orden ejecutiva en diciembre de 2000, tiene la encomienda de atender otros asuntos adicionales al status. Antes el grupo interagencial era regulado por memorandos internos.
Después de que en diciembre de 2000 el entonces presidente Bill Clinton creó por orden ejecutiva un grupo interagencial de trabajo dedicado exclusivamente al status, el presidente George W. Bush, aunque acogió la idea del task force sobre status, no reactivo el comité tradicional – creado por memorando – que manejaba todos los asuntos referentes a Puerto Rico.
Al enmendar la orden ejecutiva, Obama, en respuesta a peticiones del ex gobernador Aníbal Acevedo Vilá y el Partido Popular Democrático (PPD), le asignó tareas adicionales, como la encomienda de estudiar alternativas de desarrollo económico para Puerto Rico.
“Cuando Bush creó su ‘task force’ no puso en marcha el otro, que por años había manejado todos los temas de Puerto Rico”, recordó Jeffrey Farrow, ahora asesor del gobernador Luis Fortuño y quien fue responsable de los asuntos de la Isla en la Casa Blanca de Clinton.
“El presidente Barack Obama reconoce la importancia de avanzar con el asunto del estatus de Puerto Rico y trabajar, a su vez, a fin de crear mayores oportunidades económicas para todos nuestros ciudadanos”, dijo, por su parte, Muñoz, al dar a conocer los nombres de los 18 miembros del Task Force, que incluyen los 16 principales departamentos del gobierno federal y dos representantes de la Casa Blanca.
Cecilia Rouse, miembro del Consejo de Asesores Económicos, es la otra representante de la casa de gobierno. Muñoz indicó que en la agenda de la Casa Blanca está trabajar no sólo con los funcionarios gubernamentales de Puerto Rico, sino también con “partes interesadas” en los asuntos de la Isla.
“Ahora vamos a tener todo un equipo de trabajo a cargo de los asuntos de Puerto Rico”, dijo el comisionado residente en Washington, Pedro Pierluisi, quien aseguró que desde que la Casa Blanca le dio el visto bueno a la ampliación de la agenda del ‘task force’ ha apoyado la idea con entusiasmo.El gobernador Luis Fortuño también aplaudió la agenda de Obama.
“El presidente Obama va por el camino del desarrollo económico, mientras Pierliuisi y el gobernador Luis Fortuño, con un proyecto de status que excluye a todos los demás sectores ideológicos, va por el otro”, indicó, por su parte, el presidente del PPD, Héctor Ferrer.
El secretario de Asuntos de Norteamérica del Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño (PIP), Manuel Rodríguez Orellana, afirmó que el task force debe demostrar que quiere hacer “algo más que llenar el expediente”, pues considera que los problemas económicos de Puerto Rico “no pueden servir de escudo para distraer la atención del problema de fondo: la condición colonial”.
Observadores de las relaciones entre Puerto Rico y Estados Unidos destacaron la designación de Perrelli – quien es el número tres del Departamento de Justicia federal –, pues le otorga un rango más alto a un grupo interagencial que suele estar integrado por funcionarios de niveles intermedios.
Tradicionalmente, Justicia federal nombra al task force a un miembro de la oficina del Consejero Legal, experto en el tema constitucional. Pero, al parecer la ampliación de las tareas ha provocado que esta vez se designe no sólo a un funcionario de mayor rango, sino uno que tiene que lidiar con temas variados en Justicia federal.
El listado oficial de miembros del task force, según divulgado por la Casa Blanca, es el siguiente:
Copresidentes
*Casa Blanca, Cecilia Muñoz, directora de asuntos intergubernamentales de la Casa Blanca
*Departamento de Justicia, Tom Perrelli, secretario adjunto
Miembros
Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos, Paul Dioguardi, director de asuntos intergubernamentales
Departamento de Transporte, Joanna Turner, subsecretaria adjunta de asuntos intergubernamentales
Agencia de Protección Ambiental, Judith Enck, administradora de la región 2
Departamento de Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano, Mercedes Márquez, secretaria adjunta de planificación comunitaria y desarrollo
Departamento de Educación, Eric Waldo, asesor especial del secretario
Departamento de Agricultura, Tammye Treviño, administradora del Servicio de Vivienda Rural
Departamento del Interior, Anthony Babauta, secretario adjunto del Interior para asuntos insulares
Departamento de Trabajo, Gabriella Lemus, asesora principal y directora de la Oficina de Participación Pública
Departamento de Energía, Joe García, director de la Oficina de Impacto Económico
Departamento de Defensa, Patrick O’Brien, director de la Oficina de Ajuste Económico
Consejo de Asesores Económicos, Cecilia Rouse, miembro
Departamento de Comercio, Rick Wade, subjefe de gabinete
Departamento de Asuntos de Veteranos, Langley Koby, asesor especial del secretario
Departamento del Tesoro, Matthew Kabaker, finanzas nacionales
Departamento de Estado, Julissa Reynoso, subsecretaria adjunta de Asuntos del Hemisferio Occidental
Departamento de Seguridad Nacional, Juliette Kayyem, secretaria adjunta de programas intergubernamentales

OBAMA’S STRATEGIC MOVES ON PUERTO RICO – Could Sotomayor Influence the Puerto Rican Status Issue?

The Forum

9:00 AM BY MAEGAN LA MAMITA MALA – POLITICS| PUERTO RICO| WOMEN
1Jun2009 – VivirLatino.com

According to an article I received in my inbox Sotomayor has said something on Puerto Rico’s status and sovereignty.
NCM Puerto rico

OBAMA’S STRATEGIC MOVES ON PUERTO RICO
Jesús Dávila (Translation by Jan Susler)
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, May 26, 2009 (NCM) – President Barack Obama named to the Supreme Court a jurist who developed the theory that it is viable to make special arrangements with Puerto Rico if it is annexed as a state of the Union, at the same time that its Government initiated steps to free an independentista political prisoner.

Obama’s two strategic actions on Puerto Rico, taken the same day, refer to events that took place about 30 years ago related to two very different aspects of the colonial case of this Caribbean nation, which the U.S. chief has promised to resolved during his first term in office.
The first took place in 1979 when Sonia Sotomayor, a Puerto Rican born and raised in the Bronx, New York, wrote an essay for the Yale University Law Journal — from which she graduated with honors — in which she argued that the history of Puerto Rico as a colony made it constitutionally viable for the United States to respect Puerto Rico’s rights over mining and petroleum in its territorial waters up to 200 miles. According to Sotomayor, as a colonial power, the U.S. acquired a responsibility over “several poor dependencies” and that “some of them, like Puerto Rico, may seek statehood unless they are accorded a greater measure of self-government,” so that arrangements such as giving them the rights over underwater resources would help the new state of the Union to “overcome its economic problems.”

Sotomayor argued then that nothing in the Constitution would prevent the U.S. from giving that special treatment to Puerto Rico. Over time, that brilliant young attorney, whose juridical history is described as “moderate,” and who is a member of the American Philosophical Society, became a district court judge under the presidency of Democrat William J. Clinton, and became an appellate judge during the mandate of his Republican successor George Bush. Now, after intense lobbying by powerful Puerto Rican congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, with the support of Senator Charles Schumer (both Democrats from New York), Sotomayor has become the first Puerto Rican woman named to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Many people mention famous cases in which she has ruled, such as the decision which resolved the dispute that paralyzed the U.S. professional baseball league, but few recall her expertise in terms of special means to make viable Puerto Rico’s becoming a state of the Union .

The second case occurred only months after Sotomayor wrote her essay, when, in Evanston , Chicago , a dozen members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation of Puerto Rico were arrested — an organization with a history of attacks related to the struggle for the independence of Puerto Rico. Among those arrested, who refused to defend themselves because they took the position of “prisoner of war,” was young Carlos Alberto Torres.

At the same time Obama monopolized the media’s attention by naming Sotomayor, without making much noise, the U.S. Parole Commission convened a hearing with Torres, one of the longest held political prisoners. The commission agreed to recommend a gradual process to release Torres, which would include his transfer to a halfway house for six months, after which he could be released under special conditions.

The nomination of Sotomayor, as well as Torres’ release, related to determinations which will have to be approved by their respective organisms before being finalized. In the particular case of the Supreme Court nominee, the vote will be taken by the Senate in Washington , and sectors of the right wing U.S. press have already begun to attack her.

For the statehood movement, which controls the Puerto Rican government, legislature, Resident Commissioner in Washington , and even the insular Supreme court, Sotomayor’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme court was received with great enthusiasm. The high court would be that last appellate resource if legal controversies are generated over the process to review Puerto Rico’s political condition, a process already begun in Congress, though without the consensus of Puerto Rican political forces.

But Sotomayor’s nomination was not only applauded by annexationists; it immediately received solid support from the autonomists and from various Puerto Rican sectors, in the Island as well as in the Puerto Rican “diaspora” in the U.S. Sotomayor’s father died when she was young, and her mother raised her in a poor neighborhood in the Bronx. She was a superior student with an impressive record of social service — such as her participation in the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund. Sotomayor is now a symbol of Puerto Rican pride that goes beyond party lines or doctrines.

The case of the release of the political prisoners, on the other hand, is another topic that has shown itself to be the object of support from broad sectors in Puerto Rico and the U.S. However, these are the first perceptible moves by the new President of the U.S. in a road that seems like a minefield. Evidence of this came last May first when the Boricua Popular Army Macheteros reported they had detected agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in concert with the Puerto Rico Police, taking positions as sharpshooters on the roofs of nearby buildings as a huge demonstration of workers passed by.

Consistent with its usual policy, the FBI reported that it could not confirm or deny reports that its agents were active the day of the labor demonstration. The Macheteros confirmed that what was seen is indicative that the FBI and the Puerto Rico Police “continue planning operations” like the one of the commando group that killed its commander Filiberto Ojeda in 2005.

The 2005 operation aborted conversations Ojeda was having with the Catholic Church to explore the possibility of a peaceful process for the U.S. to grant independence to Puerto Rico .
NCM-CHI-NY-26-05-09-28

Puerto Rico: All Out to Defend the Teachers’ Struggle!

The Forum, ,

02.17.2008 – Philadelphia Independent Media Center

We are on the threshold of a major class battle in Puerto Rico. Every day new preparations are announced for the coming strike of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR). With 42,000 members, a majority of them women, the FMPR represents almost all of Puerto Rico’s teachers and is by far the largest union on the island. The Shock Force of the Puerto Rican Police and National Guard are being readied to go after the strikers. The struggle of the Puerto Rican teachers affects everybody. The working class as a whole, students and parents, teachers and defenders of workers’ rights around the world must come out in defense of the FMPR! If there are mass arrests, the response must be massive blockades and spreading the struggle to the point of shutting the island down. In order to win this strike, it is necessary to prepare for a struggle not only of the teachers but within the whole workers movement against the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy that sabotages the workers’ struggle. Above all, it is necessary to fight against illusions in and ties with bourgeois parties and politicians. It’s high time to begin building a revolutionary internationalist workers party.

Hard Class Battle Coming
Puerto Rico: All Out to Defend the Teachers’ Struggle!

“Every Class Struggle Is a Political Struggle”
–Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto

Break with All the Capitalist Parties (PPD, PNP, PIP)!
Forge a Revolutionary Workers Party!

FEBRUARY 14 – We are on the threshold of a major class battle in Puerto Rico. Every day new preparations are announced for the coming strike of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR, from its initials in Spanish). With its 42,000 members, a majority of them women, the FMPR represents almost all of Puerto Rico’s teachers and is by far the largest union on the island. It is confronting the government/employer headed by the rabidly anti-worker and anti-union Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD). His insufferably haughty education secretary, Rafael Aragunde, refuses to negotiate. The FMPR is defying the treacherous Law 45, which claims to recognize government employees’ right to unionize while prohibiting strikes, their only method of defense. The Shock Force of the Puerto Rican Police and National Guard are being readied to go after the strikers. And they have doubtless alerted the many bases of the U.S. armed forces that have turned this island colony into an imperialist military bastion to control the Caribbean.

The struggle of the Puerto Rican teachers affects everybody. The working class as a whole, students and parents, teachers and defenders of workers’ rights around the world must come out in defense of the FMPR! At the onset of the strike, there should be support and solidarity demonstrations all over. In Puerto Rico, schools are everywhere: build mass pickets which throw the island into turmoil. As FMPR president Rafael Feliciano says, the teachers must get respect. Education won’t stop. Turn the streets into big open-air classrooms, to give lessons in the class struggle! The FMPR has already announced the formation of some 600 strike committees. In the face of the government’s cynical “Plan B,” which consists of organizing scabbing and using children to provoke incidents on the picket line, it’s necessary to turn the strike committees into enormous community centers of the working people. And if they go ahead with mass arrests, the response must be massive blockades and the generalization of the struggle to the point of shutting the island down.

A Struggle for the Independence of the Workers Movement

The teachers are fighting to defend public education against a privatization offensive that would sacrifice the future of an entire generation of youth on the altar of the bosses’ crazed free-marketeering policies. The rulers want to turn the schools, many of which are in terrible run-down condition, into profit platforms for the capitalists. Back in October 2006, the governor and his interior secretary, Jorge Silva Puas, announced a Hundred-Day Plan to Restructure the Government by drastically slashing public expenditures. They want to set up 1,000 charter schools, managed by private entities but financed by public funds, and run them like any private company whose purpose is to generate profits. This negates the democratic right of education for all. That this plan is a real threat was shown by the two-week lockout in April-May 2006, when the government left 98,000 workers without jobs or income, including the entire teaching force.

In January the government the decertification of the FMPR, on the grounds that 7,000 teachers voted in favor of authorizing a strike in a huge union assembly last September. So these “democratic” rulers trample not only on workers’ rights but on freedom of speech. On that basis they refused to negotiate at all, or even to speak with the Federation’s representatives. In late January they organized a provocation at a school in the town of Utuado, leading to the arrest of eight teachers who had been picketing since last fall because they were suspended (and later re-suspended without pay) for coming out against unilateral changes in the academic program. At other schools police were called in when FMPR representatives arrived to deal with union affairs. The following day, the press was invited to a meeting that Puerto Rico’s perennial police chief Pedro Toledo held with his top officials, where talked of readying the Tactical Operations Unit to intervene in cases of “violence” on the picket lines. Intimidation is clearly the aim of all these measures. But the teachers would not let themselves be bullied.

At the same time, the governor tried to piece off teachers by announcing wage increases of $100 in December and $250 in February. Since these offers are not the result of collective bargaining and are not written down in a union contract, the governor can take them away at any time. An attempt was made to break the teachers’ solid front by announcing a new, phantom company “union” created by the Association of Teachers, a professional association that includes supervisory personnel and managers from the Department of Education, with the backing of the U.S. SEIU and its “Change to Win” federation. Later, a press conference was orchestrated by union groupings affiliated to the AFL-CIO, the other U.S. labor federation, to rant and rave against the impending strike and stab the FMPR in the back (see our article “A Case of Labor Colonialism: AFL-CIO and Change to Win vs. the FMPR”). None of this succeeded in breaking the teachers’ militancy. Meanwhile, other unions, among them the electrical workers’ UTIER, proclaimed their “unconditional” solidarity with the teachers.

As this article goes to press, Puerto Rico’s Appeals Court responded to the FMPR’s appeal of the decertification of the union decreed by the Public Service Labor Relations Commission, temporarily suspending the measure. The clear reason for this ruling is that the determination and militancy of the teachers’ union is causing some vacillations among the bosses. The Education Secretary, the arrogant Aragunde with his ridiculous trademark bowtie, had no choice but to show up at a session at the Department of Labor, but once again he refused to negotiate. That’s how things stand on the eve of the great March for Dignity of February 17, which will converge on La Fortaleza as a major show of the teachers union’s strength and public support. The job-sucking governor and profit-hungry capitalists circling like vultures over the schools in anticipation of their privatization – they want to teach the teachers a lesson. Let’s give these sinister looters a well-deserved lesson, with a strike they’ll never forget!

Above all, it is crucial to keep in mind the crucial phrase from the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: “Every class struggle is a political struggle.” This fight will not be won by seeking false “allies” from the bourgeois parties like the PPD, the New Progressive Party (PNP) – both of them colonialist outfits – of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP). The capitalists, whether the imperialists or their junior partners in Puerto Rico, tremble at the prospect of any major workers struggle. Nor can working people place any confidence in the bourgeois – and colonial – courts. What the Appeals Court conceded today can be annulled tomorrow by a federal court. All the institutions of the capitalist ruling class, including the churches and mass media, will be pressuring the teachers to cave in. To resist and to win, it will take sacrifice, as the FMPR slogan says, but above all the mobilization of the power of the working class, including in the political arena. Thus it is high time, right now, to begin building a revolutionary internationalist workers party!

Lessons of the 1998 General Strike: The Need for a Revolutionary Class-Struggle Leadership

Faced with the bourgeois onslaught against the teachers, one thing is clear: this will be a hard strike. Some say it will be the biggest labor struggle in Puerto Rico’s history. Bigger than the 1933-34 sugarcane strike? We’ll have to see. But what we can say for sure right now is that the teachers’ strike movement, as well as the frenzy and fury of the government onslaught, are a direct result of the long 1998 strike against privatization of the Puerto Rico Telephone Company (PRTC) and the two-day general strike it led to – and especially of its defeat. In the first place, Law 45, approved in November of that same year, was the colonial bourgeoisie’s immediate response: faced with the working-class mobilization they decided to allow unionization of public employees, but under strict government control, with a whole series of restrictions and prohibitions, and without the unions’ main weapon: the right to strike. This, despite the fact that the worker’s right to withhold his or her labor is “consecrated” in Puerto Rico’s Constitution: consecrated but ignored.

Law 130 governing labor relations in public corporations – like the telephone company before it was privatized and, still today, the public electrical and water companies – is a very restrictive law. But Law 45, covering direct employees of government bodies (like the schools) is the equivalent of the federal Taft-Hartley Law and New York State’s Taylor Law rolled into one. The former was the keystone in the “red” purge of unions during the McCarthyite witch hunt of the early Cold War. It made it a crime for communists to be union leaders, prohibited “secondary” (that is, solidarity) strikes, and established union representation “elections” controlled by a governmental body (the National Labor Relations Board) that favors the bosses. The unions that did not play by these rules were banned from participating in these rigged elections and faced a whole series of legal impediments.

New York’s Taylor Law was passed after the successful 1966 transit workers’ strike, in order to outlaw any future strike. In the 2005 New York City transit strike, a $2.5 million penalty was imposed on the union and each striker was fined a thousand dollars. The employer’s automatic check-off of union dues was also halted. In Puerto Rico, Law 45 does the same thing. Under its provisions, in addition to canceling the FMPR’s certification as the teachers’ representative to the employer, the government seized the union’s strike fund, eliminated the union dues check-off and declared that FMPR leaders cannot hold any union posts for five years – all because the membership democratically voted to authorize a strike! This law established police-state conditions for labor. Revolutionaries must fight to eliminate this law entirely, not just modify it to allow strikes, as the Puerto Rican legislature is now deliberating on with the FMPR’s approval. We Marxists oppose any and all control of the workers movement by any capitalist government.

We most certainly denounce, in the harshest terms, the measures taken against the FMPR and its leaders. At the same time, we stress that a union with a class-struggle leadership will always face the hostility of the capitalist (and colonial) government. There is no way to reach a live-and-let-live arrangement. There can be no confidence in fake, government-controlled elections. The way to establish unions is by using their power, which ultimately means the strike. And in any case, any real union must insist on its own complete financial independence from the employer and the state. This would obviously make dues collection more difficult, which is what really what in Puerto Rico are called chupacuotas (dues-sucking) bureaucrats who want to sit back in their cushy chairs and rake in funds the employer deposits in union bank accounts. For a union following a class-struggle policy, in contrast, collecting dues in person means direct contact with the union ranks and is an enormous aid to the union’s democratic functioning, and militancy. It is also a means of protection against the funds being seized when the union incurs the bosses’ wrath.

The fact is that those who today attack the FMPR and act as accomplices of the government crusade against it have sold themselves, literally, to the capitalist class in exchange for crumbs from the table of exploitation. Naturally, like the government, they are afraid that a big teachers strike could endanger their juicy business operations. This means that in order to win this strike, it is necessary to prepare for a struggle not only of the teachers but within the whole workers movement against the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy that sabotages the workers’ struggle. It is necessary to call for support in deeds, not only declarations of empty solidarity, from all unions in this struggle which will affect everyone. At the same time, it is necessary to fight within the unions to throw out the sell-out leaders and forge a new militant leadership guided by a program of complete independence from the capitalists, their parties and their government. This also means opposing any confidence in “mediation” by the capitalist courts and supposedly neutral figures, explaining that bourgeois justice favors the bosses and that in the class struggle there are no neutrals.

Against Nationalist Popular-Frontism, For a Socialist Federation of the Caribbean

Above all, it is necessary to fight against illusions in and ties with bourgeois parties and politicians. This question played a crucial role in the eventual defeat of the telephone strike and then general strike of 1998. With all the propaganda about the “strike of the people,” the idea was to highlight the enormous amount of popular support for the strike, and at the same time to seek support from capitalist politicians, particularly from the PIP but also from supposedly “autonomist” sectors of the PPD. Since the 1940s, attempts to ally with one or another sector of the Populares (as the PPD is known) have been an Achilles heel of the union movement. At the same time, in the socialist left, the politics of class collaboration was concretized in calls for “independentista unity.” This led to small-scale “popular fronts” (alliances tying the workers to bourgeois sectors) with bourgeois formations like the tiny Nationalist Party or petty-bourgeois ones like the former Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP) of Juan Mari Bras, which is now the National Hostos Independence Movement (MINH).

Today it is not surprising that the MINH independentistas openly serve the bosses as they grotesquely denounce the teachers’ strike, since they long ago stopped pretending to be a workers party. Why do they bow down in this way to their colonial masters? Because for them, like everyone else, class interests come first, and they want to be a new bourgeois ruling class. With regard to formations like the Frente Socialista and the Movimiento Socialista de Trabajadores (MST–Socialist Workers Movement), which plays a preponderant role in the FMPR leadership, for decades they have made alliances with a range of nationalist forces. If they presently have disagreements with the MINH or PIP, it is not over principles but tactical questions.

For our part, we strenuously denounce Yankee imperialism’s jailing of Nationalists, and join the defense of arrested independentistas, as in the case a few days ago of Avelino González Claudio, accused of being a member of the Macheteros group. We also condemn the cold-blooded murder of Filiberto Ojeda in September 2005 by a U.S. military task force: this was a crime of the same imperialists who carry out the war and colonial occupation of Iraq and left 100,000 mainly black and poor people to die in the ethnic cleansing of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. At the same time, we underline the fundamental political differences that separate proletarian internationalists from both bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalists. We of the Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International, as the early Communist International insisted, are unconditionally for the independence of Puerto Rico, the oldest colony of the United States. We seek to strike a blow against imperialism and at the same time to show the working masses the real character of the bourgeois nationalists as a potential new exploiting layer. The MINH’s repulsive anti-strike declarations should serve as Exhibit A in this regard.

We also insist, as Leon Trotsky’s theory and program of permanent revolution teaches, that in this epoch the only way to achieve national liberation from the imperialist yoke is through the seizure of power by the working class and the beginning of the international socialist revolution. For this reason we emphasize that a workers and peasants government in Puerto Rico could not survive in isolation and would need to extend the revolution to include all the islands of the Caribbean, through a voluntary Caribbean socialist federation. We stress that this federation must be voluntary, because the historical divisions sown by the colonial domination of six European and North American powers have yet to be overcome. But as seen after the 1794-1804 Haitian Revolution, and later with the wave of social struggles following the Cuban Revolution in the 1960s, these divisions can be overcome in the context of revolutionary struggle.

Today we defend Cuba against imperialist blockade and internal counterrevolution while fighting for workers democracy and a proletarian political revolution to replace the Castroist leadership, a nationalist Stalinist bureaucracy, with an authentically communist, internationalist leadership that fights to extend revolution throughout the continent and into the belly of the imperialist beast, as José Martí called it in his day. We underline that despite the betrayals of the U.S. union leaders, it is essential that the Puerto Rican teachers’ struggle be carried out in closest collaboration with North American workers – making efforts to mobilize support in the U.S. all the more important. Thus the FMPR strike can serve as a beacon to illuminate the path of international workers struggle. The League for the Fourth International has contacted unions in the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia and other countries to internationalize support for our Puerto Rican class brothers and sisters in struggle. From Rio de Janeiro to the embattled teachers of Oaxaca, from the striking university workers of Mexico City to New York, the center of Puerto Rican emigration, the call must resound: Teachers of Puerto Rico, we are with you!

The President’s Task Force On Puerto Rico’s Status Holds First Meeting

The Forum

Task Force also examining matters affecting Puerto Rico’s economic development
U.S. Department of Justice (December 15, 2009)

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico’s Status held its first meeting today, continuing the important work of examining and reporting on the island’s status question, but also expanding its focus to include matters affecting Puerto Rico’s economic development. President Obama signed an Executive Order on Oct. 30, 2009, to both preserve the Task Force’s original mission, and to provide advice and recommendations to the President and the Congress on policies that promote job creation, education, health care, clean energy, and economic development on the islands.

“President Obama recognizes the importance of both moving forward on the question of Puerto Rico’s status, but also on working toward creating greater economic opportunities for all our citizens,” said Task Force Co-Chair and White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Cecilia Munoz. “We look forward to continuing to work closely with officials and interested parties in Puerto Rico to build on the investments we’ve made through the Recovery Act, which are serving the people of Puerto Rico while creating and saving jobs in everything from community health centers to infrastructure projects.”

Consistent with President Obama’s commitment to responsive and accountable governing, the Task Force members voted to hold public hearings in Puerto Rico and on the mainland on the broad range of issues before them, and to seek the public’s input.

“As the Task Force works to put in place a process for moving forward on these important policy matters, we will work diligently to engage the people of Puerto Rico and involve them in the process,” added Task Force Co-Chair and Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli.

President Clinton originally established the Task Force when he signed Executive Order 13183 in December 2000. The Task Force is made up of designees of each member of the President’s Cabinet and the Co-Chairs of the President’s Interagency Group on Puerto Rico. The members are as follows:

Co-Chairs

White House, Cecilia Muñoz, Director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs

Department of Justice, Tom Perrelli, Associate Attorney General

Members

Health & Human Services, Paul Dioguardi, Director of Intergovernmental Affairs

Transportation, Joanna Turner, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Government Affairs

Environmental Protection Agency, Judith Enck, Region 2 Administrator

Housing & Urban Development, Mercedes Marquez, Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development

Education, Eric Waldo, Special Assistant to the Secretary

Agriculture, Tammye Trevino, Administrator of the Rural Housing Service

Interior, Anthony Babauta, Assistant Secretary for the Interior for Insular Areas

Labor, Gabriella Lemus, Senior Advisor and Director Office of Public Engagement

Energy, Joe Garcia, Director of the Office of Economic Impact

Defense, Patrick O’Brien, Director Office of Economic Adjustment

Council of Economic Advisors, Cecilia Rouse, Member

Commerce, Rick Wade, Deputy Chief of Staff

Veterans Affairs, Langley Koby, Special Assistant to the Secretary

Treasury, Matthew Kabaker, Domestic Finance

State, Julissa Reynoso, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs

Homeland Security, Juliette Kayyem, Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Programs

Sotomayor to make first Puerto Rico visit as justice

The Forum

By MIKE MELIA
Associated Press (December 15, 2009)

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Sonia Sotomayor is visiting Puerto Rico this week for the first time since becoming the U.S. Supreme Court’s first Hispanic justice, an achievement that has made her a celebrity in her parents’ Caribbean homeland.

Sotomayor is arriving Wednesday at the invitation of judges in this U.S. territory.

“Being a judge these days is not easy. There is a lot of a lack of respect for institutions,” said Chief U.S. District Court Judge Jose Fuste. “When you see a person like that who has been able to reach so much and achieve the highest position in the judiciary, it’s an inspiration.”

Sotomayor, who speaks proudly of her Puerto Rican heritage, is due to attend meetings with local judges and visit relatives during the trip, and probably will be accompanied by her mother, Celina Sotomayor, who was praised by President Barack Obama for setting her daughter on a path to success from a Bronx housing project.

Sotomayor, 55, has often visited the island to see family and offer lectures. Her last visit came after her nomination by Obama in May but before she was sworn in as the court’s third female justice in August.

While Sotomayor was born in New York, many here see the rise of the self-described “Nuyorican” as symbolic of islanders’ achievements on the U.S. mainland, which is home to more than 4 million Puerto Ricans – more than live on the island.

Sotomayor’s mother, a nurse, is from Lajas, a rural area on the southwest coast. Her father, who died when she was 9, was from San Juan. Many of Sotomayor’s cousins live around the western city of Mayaguez.

Puerto Rico’s Labor Leaders Stage Sit-in at the Islands’ Office of Management and Budget

The Forum,

AFSCME News (Dec. 15, 2009)

Washington, D.C. – Top union officials affiliated with AFSCME, SEIU, UAW and UFCW are currently occupying the Office of Management and Budget offices in San Juan, Puerto Rico, protesting Gov. Luis Fortuño’s proposed layoff of more than 20,000 workers.
Riot police have surrounded the OMB offices.

AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee issued the following statement:

“AFSCME joins other unions in supporting our brothers and sisters in San Juan who are fighting during this serious economic crisis to protect Puerto Rico’s vital public services. We are very concerned that riot police have surrounded the building. We urge restraint on the part of law enforcement officials during this peaceful protest.”

AFSCME’s 1.6 million members provide the vital services that make America happen. With members in hundreds of different occupations – from nurses to corrections officers, child care providers to sanitation workers – AFSCME advocates for fairness in the workplace, excellence in public services and prosperity and opportunity for all working families.
For further information:
Cheryl Kelly
202-429-1145
American Federation of State, County and Municipa Employees
www.afscme.org

The Puerto Rican Community Speaks Out: The word “spic” is out!

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Note: The recent controversy over the naming by El Museo del Barrio of a spoken word series using the word “spic” hit a nerve among many in the Puerto Rican’Latino literary community and others. The Museo issued a statement on this issue on the website, which generated a response from some leading Puerto Rican cultural workers. We thought you would find this exchange interesting and thought-provoking, understanding, after all, that words can be like bricks.

To express your views on this issue to the Museo’s Director, Julian Zugazagoitia, you can write to him at director@elmuseo.org.

—Angelo Falcón

You Spoke Out/We Listened!
El Museo del Barrio (December 9, 2009)

El Museo del Barrio, out of respect for those members of our community who have expressed strong feelings against the use of the word ‘spic’ in the title of our spoken word program, has renamed this series. The new title is “Speak Up!/Speak Out!”

El Museo is proud that many of its programs and exhibitions are at the cutting edge of Latino artistic expression. We are emboldened by the strength we draw from our roots and culture, which allows us to respect the past while helping to chart the future place of the Latino voice in the general culture.

Our program is a platform for addressing contemporary social issues and political concerns-especially in terms of the Latino experience-through the creative use of language. The artists participating in the program over the past two years typically have long professional trajectories, and are deeply passionate about language and its social/political/historical weight and significance. Their aesthetic vision and dynamic engagement have generated lively discussion, debate, and creativity, and has made spoken word programming at El Museo an indispensable forum for ideas. As a result, the program has built a significant and loyal following.

We deeply regret that some of the artists that generated this platform by participating in the series have become targets of hate mail. We strongly believe that as artists they have the right to use words within the context of their art as a means of expression as they see fit. No artist should be censored or ostracized for being evocative or provocative.

We appreciate hearing the range of thoughts and feelings that have arisen in relation to the use of the word ‘spic’ in the title of our spoken word program. While the title was conceived as a re-appropriation of the term as a means of empowerment-an approach that already has a history in our own community, see context information below-the word still evokes strong and hurtful connotations. Therefore out of sensitivity to those who have expressed concerns with the use of the term and with profound respect for those for whom this term is offensive, we have renamed the series “Speak Up!/Speak Out!”

We take this opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to spoken word as a programming area. We continue to be proud that El Museo is a public platform where discussions like this happen for the advancement and understanding of our communities. We strongly believe that the respectful, insightful and articulated expressions of support and concern help us move forward and grow as a vocal, dynamic, and engaged community.
We are grateful for all the passionate feedback we have received for this series and invite you all to continue participating and joining us for our next installments of “Speak Up!/Speak Out!”

Context of Reference for How the Term “Spic” Was Used in the Initial Naming of the Program

El Museo did not intend to be hurtful when using the word ‘spic’ in the initial naming of the spoken word series. We hoped that by re-appropriating a word with a painful history for Latinos one could transform the word into a tool of empowerment.

This kind of re-appropriation and transformation has been successful in other contexts. For example, gay activists now use the old insult ‘queer’ in a positive manner (as in the slogan “We’re here, we’re queer,” among other uses). A group of Jewish journalists now publish a positive, edgy magazine called Heeb (also once a slur). Chicanos on the West Coast who once resented being called ‘pochos’ by other Mexicans now use the phrase with pride and humor in the hilarious satiric magazine Pocho, and comedy troupe of the same name. Each of these groups has been victorious in reclaiming an old slur, thus rendering moot the once painful effect of the word.

Within our own Latino community, the effort to reclaim the term ‘spic’ also has a long history, both in comedic plays and serious literature. The famed late Boricua poet Pedro Pietri used ‘spic’ in his acclaimed “Puerto Rican Obituary”-a poem first read in 1969 at a Young Lords rally-to call attention to racism against Puerto Rican immigrants. John Leguizamo’s Spic-O-Rama is a comedic play about a Latino family, based on his own childhood. This show has been publicly acclaimed since it launched in 1993. It enjoyed a sold-out run in Chicago before relocating to New York’s Westside Theater, where it drew large Latino audiences and won Leguizamo a Drama Desk Award.

Poet Urayoán Noel used the word in his 2000 piece, “Spic Tracts,” to attack present-day racism. And in 2005, Nuyorican performance artist Chaluisan opened a one-person show, entitled Spic Chic, at the Ibiza nightclub in the Bronx, which later enjoyed a successful run at the Wings Theater in New York City’s West Village. Also, acclaimed Mexican-American intellectual Ilan Stavans’ recent book, Mr. Spic Goes To Washington, employs humor to make salient points about Latino political engagement and one fictional character’s rise from the barrio to the halls of power.

To better understand this re-conceptualization, we must think about the history of the word. ‘Spic’ is widely believed to have originated in the phrases “no spic English,” or “I spic Spanish,” as uttered by a recent immigrant. Back when the term was coined, Latinos were often made to feel ashamed of speaking Spanish, or of not speaking English well. Many older Latinos remember teachers punishing them for speaking Spanish in class, or their parents being ashamed to have their children “spic Spanish.” Today when we use that word, we invoke a new meaning; a new pride. We are saying we are no longer ashamed to “spic Spanish.” Latinos across the country now advocate for dual language schools so our children can continue to speak our ancestors’ language (and some schools even teach Nahuatl and Taíno words). We are now proudly bilingual, in our music, movies, and art. Thus, creating this title in a sense celebrates the fact that we have now reached a point where we are proud to ‘spic up,’ in English or Spanish, with and without accents.

El Museo recognizes the charge that words can have and thus has renamed the series as “Speak Up!/Speak Out!” Our commitment to the spoken word is reflected by our listening to the words that were spoken and the feelings those words elicited. Speak Up!/Speak Out! reflects our commitment to having all words spoken with passion, creativity, and respect. Please join us for our upcoming programs and continue speaking up and speaking out for the betterment of our communities.

Open Letter on the Renaming of El Museo del Barrio’s Spoken Word Series “Speak Up/Speak Out”
By Richard Villar Sam Vargas Jr., Carmen Pietri-Diaz, Sam Diaz, Jesus “Papoleto” Melendez, and Fernando Salicrup (December 9, 2009)

El Museo Del Barrio has responded to the controversy surrounding their spoken word series, formerly titled “Spic Up/Speak Out.” The full text of this response, entitled “You Spoke Out/We Listened,” can be read at their website: http://www.elmuseo.org/en/explore-online.

A publicly-funded, community-founded arts institution should know better than to market to audiences, poets, or anyone else using the word “spic.”

In the last two weeks, this simple principle has led several diverse communities of artists, writers, teachers, and community members to gather, discuss, organize, and express their disappointment toward this unfortunate word choice. In recognition of this fact, and in response to the community’s postings, letters, and emails to museum staff (including its executive director), El Museo has chosen the correct path and changed the name of the show to “Speak Up/Speak Out.”

Unfortunately, El Museo has also chosen to continue concealing its poor artistic custodianship and community engagement behind the false fig leaves of free artistic expression and an ex post facto linguistic “context” of reappropriation (i.e. the act of reclaiming the word “spic”) for the original naming of the series.
Among the items unaddressed in El Museo’s three-page statement is that from the spring of 2008 until the summer of 2009, El Museo never claimed this context in its advertising, mailings, show flyers, or show descriptions. In fact, the first noted dispute over the title came from some of the very artists they sought to showcase, who in the summer of 2009 engaged in an email debate about the word choice in question. Then, and only then, did El Museo and its defenders attempt to supply a context of reappropriation to the series title. And only until an article appeared in the New York Times did the institution seem interested in entertaining a change in the name.

This alleged context for the naming of their series perpetuates the false parallel between individual acts of expression and the programming choices of a community-founded, publicly-funded institution.

To be perfectly clear, we believe that no artist should be censored or ostracized for their word choices, even those deemed offensive. We have never called for this series’ cancellation, nor have we pressured individual artists to back out of the series. We reject any such calls. Instead, we encourage all artists contracted to perform in this newly-renamed series to use their considerable artistic talents to voice their agreement or their displeasure with the Museo’s word choice as part of their performances.

We agree that the use of the word “spic” has a history in Latino literature. However, contrary to El Museo’s statement, the history is not an altogether positive one. Not every creative use of a slur implies a reclaiming or reappropriation of that slur.

We take particular issue with the interpretation of Pedro Pietri’s poem “Puerto Rican Obituary.” Neither of the two instances of the word’s use within the poem can be construed as reappropriation. Ironically, the one true instance of reappropriation in the poem is found in the Spanish word “negrito,” a word used by some Caribbean Latinos as an expression of love and a backhanded slap at the racist traditions our cultures have historically engendered. Notice, however, that Mr. Pietri’s line reads, “Aquí to be called negrito means to be called LOVE.” It does not read, “Aquí to be called spic means to be called LOVE.”

Regardless of the poetic interpretations offered or refuted, we reject out of hand the notion that individual uses of an epithet by themselves constitute an excuse for an institution to use an epithet as a program name. Our intent here is to remind El Museo Del Barrio of the difference between artistic expression and curatorial responsibility, a responsibility that has clearly been abdicated by means of El Museo’s latest statement. We read it as neither a true acknowledgment of the community’s outrage, nor as an apology. The fact is, nowhere in its missive does El Museo accept responsibility or explicitly apologize for offending people to whom they refer as “those for whom this term is offensive.” They have instead attempted to define a serious curatorial miscue, the use of an epithet by an arts institution, as an act of free speech and artistic license. To say El Museo misses the point is a gross understatement.

To date, we have yet to receive full disclosure as to how this series name was conceived in the first place. We still do not know which curator, intern, administrator, or committee was responsible to putting the title to paper. No staff member, senior manager, or board member of El Museo was willing to put his or her name on the statement. El Museo’s executive director, Julian Zugazagoitia, has not responded to a single email sent to him.

We continue to be hopeful for a fruitful community dialogue with El Museo and its management, given the activist history and community roots of the institution itself. To that end, we would suggest a community roundtable, one attended by the public and the Museo’s Board of Trustees and management, to give a public, face-to-face airing of all points of view on this particular matter.

We also renew our call for Mr. Zugazagoitia, in his capacity as executive director, to engage this community positively and take steps to ensure that this incident and incidents like it do not recur. And we call upon Mr. Zugazagoitia, the Board, and the public and private funders of El Museo to examine their own statement of purpose and ask themselves if the original choice of the word “spic” in its public programming truly
serves “to enhance the sense of identity, self-esteem and self-knowledge of the Caribbean and Latin American peoples by educating them in their artistic heritage and bringing art and artists into their communities.”

Signed,
Richard Villar
Sam Vargas Jr., The Acentos Foundation
Carmen Pietri-Diaz
Sam Diaz
Jesus “Papoleto” Melendez, El Puerto Rican Embassy
Fernando Salicrup, Taller Boricua

Previous articles for context:

“Poetry Series Spurs Debate on the Use of an Old Slur Against Latinos,” by David Gonzalez. New York Times, November 20, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/nyregion/21poets.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

“Leaping The Barricades,” by Rich Villar. “El Literati Boricua” (weblog), November 25, 2009. http://literatiboricua.blogspot.com/2009/11/leaping-barricades-reaction-and-call¬to.html

“El Museo Changes Word That Got in the Way of the Meaning,” by David Gonzalez. New York Times, December 4, 2009. http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/at-el-museo-a-word-got-in-the-way¬of-the-meaning/

“Museo Del Barrio Changes Spic Up/Speak Out Poetry Series,” Village Voice New York News Blog. December 5, 2009. http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/12/museo_del_barri.php