In the wake of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rican women on the island are leading the way. And you can meet those women here. They do everything from heading up medical services, promoting economic development, develop art and expression from a social justice perspective, challenge neoliberalism while crafting responses to "environmental terrorism," teaching mathematics, and much more while promoting civil rights knowledge like Constitutional rights and advocacy, togher with feminist and Indigenous thought and practice.
In the current moment where political and environmental crises often go hand in hand, including extreme environmental calamities that create massive death, dislocation, and dysfunction, the power of women to organize effective responses is praiseworthy.
The world has much to learn from these women who have emerged from the ashes of a devastated economy and weakened social structure as a result of both natural and human-made disasters and crises.
Thanks to Dr. Tony Baez for sharing.
-Angela Valenzuela
Meet the Women Leading Puerto Rico's Feminist Revolution
These trailblazers are on the front lines of the movements
helping to transform the island from the bottom up.
Underneath the spectacular protests rocking Puerto Rico’s
government, forcing the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló in July, is a
women’s movement that began in the days following the devastation of Hurricane
Maria. Lost in the coverage about the island's dysfunction are the stories of
thousands of women of the Caribbean archipelago who are leading the charge for
transformative change.
Independent
journalist Sandra
Rodriguez Cotto first published a series of profane chats from Rosselló and his cohorts that
showed the then governor leveling racist, sexist, and homophobic attacks. Three
days later, the woman-led Center for Investigative Reporting published the text messages in their entirety,
kicking off a wave of massive #RickyRenuncia protests. When citizens
learned that Rosselló and his closest allies were calling women whores, making
fun of members of the LGBTQ community, fat and poverty shaming people, and even
joking about those who died as a result of Hurricane Maria — even as hundreds
of bodies still remained in refrigerated wagons — outraged masses hit the
streets.
On
the front lines of the protests are a cadre of women who had been previously
organizing and calling out the former governor for turning a blind eye to
Puerto Rico's high rates of violence against women. When the
governor — who was vacationing in Paris when the scandal broke — cut his trip short, he landed in San Juan to a
throng of protesters from the Colectiva Feminista en Construcción, a group
that has been holding sit-ins since 2018 to call on the government to declare a
state of emergency because of gender violence. This time, however, they were
demanding Rosselló's resignation.
Women-led
marches are nothing new in Puerto Rico. In fact, women have always been at the
center of movements that created lasting change on the island. These days,
young women are delving into history and rescuing the work of feminists such
as Luisa Capetillo, a 19th century suffragist who
organized workers and who was arrested for wearing pants at the turn of the
last century; Juana Colón, a Black suffragist and working-class
heroine; feminist poet Julia de Burgos, who in the 1940’s wrote about the
condition of women; and Lolita Lebrón, who, along with three men, shot up the
Blair House in Washington, D.C in 1954 to protest Puerto Rico's lack of
independence. Reclaiming their feminist lineage is more than a history lesson
for women today — it's a decolonization process that has also helped them in
reclaiming their Indigenous and African identities as the two groups also
battle their invisibility in the larger Puerto Rican story.
Unlike feminist movements in other parts of
the world, in this archipelago, this charge is horizontal and massive and has
no leader. There are hundreds of thousands of women across the island — of all
ages and backgrounds — participating in this slow but steady revolution. Many
of the women are on the front lines being pelted, gassed, and confronting riot
police. Others are doing the quiet, behind the scenes work — in their
communities, tending to farms, leading community workshops, healing, and
educating. The elder feminists, too frail or sick to protest, cook meals and
offer counsel to the younger women.
In every town, in every home, the power of the
feminine voice in Puerto Rico is lit — and it shows no sign of extinguishing.
While there are countless people in this movement, here are just a few of the
women at the forefront of Puerto Rico's push for reform.
 |
| COURTESY OF SHARIANA FERRER |
Shariana Ferrer — Co-founder of Colectiva Feminista en Construcción
“We have no
fear,” declares Shariana Ferrer, one of the co-founders of the leading feminist
movement on the island that helped topple the governor. “This fearlessness has
to do with how much we have survived. You have to understand that we have been
cornered and we are fighting back.”
If
there is a face to the feminist movement in Puerto Rico it is the women of this
collective. Five years ago, Ferrer — a black, queer, feminist activist from
Aguadilla — came together with six compañeras and
began discussing intersectionality and how they could work together to build a
better Puerto Rico. Together, they created a space where they decolonized
themselves and tried to figure out a better way to accomplish their goals.
“We
decided to create our own political project in 2014, recognizing that we have
to deal with social class issues and gender and race, topics that on the island
were usually glossed over," she says. “We began learning about
intersectionality and to understand how race works — how we were racialized and
colonized."
According to
Ferrer, the group also found inspiration in the legacy of black American
feminists who came together in the 1970s to address the inadequacies of the
largely white feminist movement of the time. “That is our base," Ferrer
says. "In fact, our manifesto is in the tradition of the Combahee River Collective."
Ferrer
says the group was also inspired by Audre Lorde, Assata Shakur, Sojourner
Truth, and black Puerto Rican suffragist and worker’s rights hero, Juana Colón,
and independence activist, Blanca Canales.
“We
are the daughters and heirs of black feminism in traditions of resistance in
the Caribbean and in Latin America,” Ferrer explains. “It’s important to note
that when I talk about the black women here, I am talking about coming from a
space that is non-white and not upper class.”
Puerto
Ricans have been living precariously, even before the storm, Ferrer says. And
she points to something that had been brewing for decades.
“There are two generations finding themselves
not in conflict but in a meeting point. On the one hand, there is a generation
of adults who fought for labor rights and had access to benefits like health
care, pension funds, vacations, Christmas bonuses and sick days," she
says.
But that generation is losing those rights,
Ferrer says. “And then there is us, who were born with the narrative of
crisis,” she says. “We were not going to have pensions, or health care or full
time and stable jobs so that we could survive and live in dignity. We are the
daughters of crisis and have found ourselves cornered — and we have decided to
fight.”
Sandra Rodriguez Cotto — Independent Investigative Journalist
Sandra Rodriguez Cotto
COURTESY OF SANDRA RODRIGUEZ COTTO
“Puerto Rico is difficult to explain because
so much has been happening for so long but I can assure you that at every
juncture, it has been the women who have always kept this nation together,”
says Sandra Rodriguez Cotto, the independent journalist who leaked the first
set of text messages that ignited the massive protests.
“You have to remember that women are the most
affected by a downturn in the economy and if you are a woman like me who is a
black, single mom, and caretaker of my elder parents — we feel it worse,"
she says.
It is precisely because women are the most
marginalized that they are the ones who are rising, argues Rodriguez Cotto.
“Men who are in their reproductive years are leaving the island," she
says. "There are entire towns with only women, elder women, abandoned by
their kids and their families, or young moms with two and three kids.”
And it’s not just the government that refuses
to see women either. Corporate media has missed the cry for help and the
ensuing feminist movement, too. Rodriguez Cotto, who runs the blog, En Blanco y Negro, remembers reading
Rosselló's chats and crying.
“The gross homophobia, the way they made fun
of Ricky Martin, who has only done great things for this island. I called his
publicist in tears at 5 a.m.," she says.
Rodriguez Cotto herself was also a target of
racist and misogynist attacks in the messages.
“For doing my job, I’ve been called all kinds
of names and I guess it comes with the territory,” she says. “What was most
upsetting was when my house was robbed a few weeks after I posted the
chats."
She now travels with a group of friends to
protests and has more eyes watching her house in Guaynabo, where she lives with
her daughter, who has multiple disabilities. Still, robbery, derogatory memes,
and online harassment won’t stop Rodriguez Cotto.
Pluma Barbara Moreno — Indigenous Activist
Pluma Barbara Moreno
COURTESY OF PLUMA BARBARA MORENO
The first thing that Moreno wants the world to
know is that the real name of the island is not Puerto Rico. It's Borikén.
“The name Spain
chose to give our nation in the 1500s tells the intent of the first imperial
power that terrorized us for nearly 500 years — to enrich themselves,” she
explains. “They renamed us 'rich port' for a reason.”
The
second thing that the Indigenous activist wants the world to know is that even
though the island has been violently colonized, the spirit of the people was
not. Instead, the unique culture and rituals of the island's people have
persisted for hundreds of years.
“Our grandmother ancestors are with us in this
struggle — they are fighting along with us,” Moreno declares. Ever since she
was a young woman Moreno has fought against the myth that the First Nation
people of the island were extinct. “This is an island of immigrants, and also a
nation where people were brought in chains from Africa. In this entire story,
our Native story has been erased. It’s not unlike what happens in the U.S.”
For Moreno, a trained sociologist, the latest
round of protests are part of a historic resistance that began in 1493 when
Christopher Columbus landed on the island, financed by the Queen of Spain to
pillage the so-called New World.
“You can point to different eras where the
masses have risen. This is an island that has been fighting for a long, long
time,” she says. “I see these last few years of protests as part of an ancient
struggle. This time, rather than only resist, we are fighting back and we will
win.”
After Hurricane Maria, Moreno and a group of
women occupied one of the two hundred schools that were closed by former
Secretary of Education Julia Keleher, who was arrested in
July for corruption and money laundering charges. They’re building a
sustainable community in Lares, the village where she was born. The group
converted 19 classrooms into small apartments for women and children who were
left homeless by the storm. The women also planted a medicinal and vegetable
garden, are raising farm animals, constructed a classroom and museum for the
children, and a theater and coffee shop for the teens.
“We are part of a group of self-sustaining communities that sprang up after Hurricane Maria,” she says. “We have found our power in the collective. In many ways, we are remembering who we are.”
“We are part of a group of self-sustaining communities that sprang up after Hurricane Maria,” she says. “We have found our power in the collective. In many ways, we are remembering who we are.”
Adriana Santoni — Drummer, Founder of Plena Combativa
Adriana Santoni and the women of Plena Combativa.
“The drum and specifically, bomba y
plena, is part of the oral history tradition of the lower social
classes,” explains 22-year-old musician Adriana Santoni, who founded an
all-women percussive ensemble in the days after Hurricane Maria. “It makes
sense that it is part of our protests today.”
Santoni has been playing drums since she was a
young girl, but it wasn't easy to be accepted in the community. “This is a very
macho world of drumming and I’ve had to fight my way in,” she says of the
500-year-old tradition that was created by the island's enslaved residents.
Santoni's uncles were her first teachers and several years ago, when her father
saw that she was serious about the vocation, he bought her a requinto –
the main drum in the circle.
Initially, the Cupey native was part of the
Feminista Colectiva en Construcción, but as the need to play in different
venues grew, Santoni formed Plena Combativa in the days after Hurricane
Maria. The group has eleven members and is intergenerational. At 22, Santoni is
the youngest of the ensemble, and the oldest woman is 52. Through music, the
group gives voice to injustices, and while the songs are steeped in traditions,
she changes the lyrics of well-known songs to reflect the issues they're fighting
for today.
“There are so many layers of abuse that we are
up against — capitalist oppression, the patriarchy, misogyny, racism,
colonialism, homophobia,” she explains. “The drum and this art form is the
perfect vehicle to resist and fight back, it’s part of a long tradition in our
nation.”
Dr. Brenda Mariola Rivera Reyes — Pediatric Pulmonary Specialist
Dr. Brenda Mariola Rivera Reyes
COURTESY OF DR. BRENDA MARIOLA RIVERA
REYES
“Hurricane Maria
detonated my activism,” says pediatrician Dr. Brenda Mariola Rivera Reyes, who
was never very political. “I saw neglect, people suffering, and I could not let
it go. I had to do something.”
Today
she is known as the doctor of the protests and the doctor of the storm.
In
the days and months following the hurricane, Dr. Rivera Reyes lost count of the
number of people who called or texted for medical help. She still doesn’t know
how they found her number, but she was hearing from people around the clock.
“I
would get a text with symptoms and text the person back with advice. I did the
best I could,” she recalls. “I would wait to get word back that they were fine.
I helped people that I never met. And I think about them often and I hope they
survived.”
Dr. Rivera Reyes,
a mom of a 10-year old girl, travels between Morovis, a mountain village in the
center of the island where she was born, and Bayamón, one of the larger
metropolitan cities in the island. Each time she attends a protest, Dr. Rivera
Reyes carries a large backpack — her first aid kit — ready to treat anything
from heatstroke and dehydration to pepper spray and rubber bullet attacks. At
first, Dr. Rivera Reyes bought the supplies on her own dime, but social media
has been a lifesaver.
“Boricua
Twitter saved the day," she says. "When I posted that I was buying
supplies to help protesters if they needed medical attention, I started
receiving donations from Puerto Ricans who live outside the island.”
While
scores of doctors have left the island during the last decade, Dr. Rivera Reyes
returned in 2016 after two decades studying and working in Ohio and Florida.
She is one of only three pediatric pulmonary specialists on the island of 3.5
million residents.
“I
am not surprised that women are leading this revolution for change. We have
always been an island of strong women,” she says. “My indigenous grandmothers
were feminists even though they never used that word to describe themselves.
But the truth is that women on the island are sick of being sick, we are sick
of our kids being sick, and we are fighting back."
“The historical atrocities perpetrated are
profound," she adds. "No more. We are all using our gifts to help
this nation be stronger and more equitable.”
Ruth Figueroa — University Student
Ruth Figueroa
COURTESY OF RUTH FIGUEROA
“We are fighting
for our lives,” says Ruth Figueroa, a student at the University of Puerto Rico.
“We are the most vulnerable in a patriarchal society so we are the first ones
to suffer. Women are in constant danger and this government is not listening.
We must make them hear us.”
Figueroa
isn’t part of a formal organization, preferring to work with friends on the
ground to support various efforts. Since 2016, she’s been marching — against
public university tuition hikes, the U.S. Congress approved fiscal board
overseeing the island’s coffers, and now the #RickyRenuncia protests. She has
also accompanied women who are being abused by partners to court to get orders
of protection.
“Sometimes
to help a sister all you need is to hold her hand and go to court with her,”
Figueroa says. “Women die here because we are women. Moms are being killed in
front of children by their partners — to me that is an emotional murder of the
kids.”
Figueroa
and her friends number in the dozens. They write and disseminate bulletins, Boletines, so that women know their rights,
where to seek help or shelter if they need to escape a violent partner. And if
need be, Figueroa and her friends intervene. “If we know a woman and her
children are in trouble, we are not afraid to go help her since the police are
often the last to get there.”
According to a 2012 ACLU report, Puerto Rico
"has the highest per capita rate in the world of women over 14 killed by
their partners," and Figueroa says that she and her friends — queer,
non-binary, trans femmes, and poor women from the projects — are often the most
marginalized. But they are finding power in their voices
“What
is important in this movement is that we are not letting white or elite women
speak for us. We are empowered to speak for ourselves,” she says. “I want the
world to know that Puerto Rico is a native reservation run like a plantation.
The same Congressional committee that runs the Native reservations is the same
committee that runs Puerto Rico’s affairs. Alcoholism and addiction rates, and
gender violence in Puerto Rico is the same as in Native reservations of the
U.S.”
In the past few years, Figueroa lost four
friends to suicide and she is blaming those who have mismanaged the government,
including those back in Washington, D.C.
“We need the world to know that when tourists
visit and drink piña coladas, and enjoy our beautiful forests and beaches —
which we can’t even enjoy because we are always working — that there is a whole
class of people, black and Natives and mestizos, being worked to death. This a
black and brown nation being trained to serve tourists and the white elite of
the island.”
Figueroa is inspired by the work of black
feminists, in particular, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, and Assata Shakur, and
plans to pursue a law degree.
“Our movement is for justice and freedom,” she
says, “and it is horizontal. That is what is so important about what is
happening — we are all leaders.”
Zaida Robles — Nurse, Farmer, and Environmentalist
Zaida Robles
COURTESY OF ZAIDA ROBLES
“Women were the
ones who woke up the next day after the storm and saw that we had nothing to
feed our babies,” says Zaida Robles, a mother of two and a trained nurse. After
Hurricane Maria, she returned to farming full time. “Women took charge and did
what we have always done: take care of our families and take care of what needs
to be done.”
Robles
tends to a small patch of land in the rain forest and is part of a collective
of female farmers and eco-environmentalists that educate families and small
farmers about living more sustainably and the toxicity of using pesticides. She
was also part of a group of women who led Millions Against Monsanto in the town of Luquillo.
The corporation runs several labs on the southern part of the island and many
worry their experiments are not only hurting the environment but
also harming the health of the residents of the surrounding
communities.
When the Zika virus scare gripped the island
in 2016 and the government wanted to spray Naled — a pesticide that kills
mosquitoes but may also be harmful people —
Robles and her friends of the Colectivo Poleo organized protests in the
northeast towns. They also went house-to-house educating families about ways to
combat mosquito infestation naturally. These days, Robles travels about an hour
to the capital city with her children to attend protests, usually carrying
baskets of fresh fruits, pots of rice and beans, and supplies to the female
protesters who are camped out in San Juan.
“We were abandoned by our government, but in
the end, we realized that we had each other,” says Robles, who used to work at
one of the island’s veteran’s hospitals.
Still, she remains hopeful that the transformation
will be successful because of the diverse groups she sees at demonstrations.
“I want the world to know that Puerto Rico is
under attack," she says. “Wall Street, big bankers, which are sanctioned
and protected by Washington, D.C. and the island’s white elite are taking our
lands.”
She adds: "In this third wave of
colonization, they are coming for our lands. We’re being displaced and crushed.
But women are putting our pants on and fighting back.”
Yanina Moreno — Environmental Activist and Math Teacher
Yanina Moreno and others protesting in Puerto Rico.
COURTESY OF YANINA MORENO
“When you have
entire villages dying from cancer, you have no choice but to storm the seats of
power,” explains Yanina Moreno, a mother of two and one of the spokespeople of
Campamento Contra Las Cenizas, an Occupy-style group that has been protesting
the dumping of toxic, cancer-causing ashes in the southern town of Peñuelas for
over a decade.
Moreno
says that women have played a key role in environmental protests — from laying
down their bodies to prevent trucks from dumping toxic materials, to confronting
police head-on. Seeing loved ones get sick and die propelled many of the women
of the region to fight back, no matter how scary the military and riot police
are.
The
southern part of Puerto Rico, particularly, the municipalities of Guayama,
Peñuelas, and Tallaboa have fought environmental racism for the past six
decades.
“Since
the1950s our grandfathers and grandmothers have been battling big corporations
that come from the U.S., take our resources, contaminate and dirty our land,
and then take the profits,” says Moreno. “We are left with contaminated earth,
water, and scraps with asbestos, sick citizens, and no money.”
Moreno
is not only angry with local government officials who allow the exploitation of
the island's resources, but also those in Washington, D.C. “The EPA has
jurisdiction here and each time there is a loosening of environmental rules, we
suffer devastating consequences,” she explains.
Puerto
Rico has 19 toxic superfund sites, and Moreno believes
many in her community have gotten sick because of toxic ash from a coal plant
that was dumped in the area.
“People
are dropping dead, suffering. They have strange skin and respiratory diseases, and
asthma,” she says, noting her 25-year-old daughter was diagnosed with colon
cancer. “We don’t need studies. We have the evidence. This is environmental
terrorism.”
Like many of the other women, Moreno believes
it's time for the island to govern itself.
“We are now limited in how we can protect our
natural resources and develop our economies,” she says. “This exploitation has
been happening for too long. It’s time to change the relationship to the U.S. —
it has only served them.”
Mariana Nogales —
Co-founder Brigada Legal Solidaria
Mariana Nogales serving with Brigada Legal Solidaria.
COURTESY OF MARIANA NOGALES
“All the social
fabric of the island is being undone, there is an unthreading in society, and
people have realized that a political process of every four years is not
serving them,” says Mariana Nogales, one of the three lawyers who founded Brigada Legal Solidaria, a team of more than two
dozen volunteer lawyers who have protect the First Amendment rights of
protesters. “It’s a historic moment, very intense, but there is a lot of bravery
on the ground.”
Nogales
and two law school classmates decided to pool their resources to ensure
protesters had protection against police brutality. The Brigade’s presence in
the protests is twofold: to represent protesters who are arrested, and also to
serve as observers and record badge numbers and names of law enforcement
officers they find violating the law.
“I
can tell you that almost all the lawyers who are part of the legal brigade are
women,” Nogales says with enthusiasm. "And the majority of the observers
are also mujeres. I can only
describe this moment as magical.”
During demonstrations, observers and lawyers
wear yellow construction vests so they are easily identifiable. Since 2017, the
group has worked with over 50 people who have been arrested and charged with
what Nogales describes as "creative charges." In one instance, a
protester was arrested for allegedly throwing a weapon at riot police.
“Do you what her weapon was?” she asks. “An
avocado. It’s so laughable!"
"Women are protagonists in this struggle
and the reaction by law enforcement has been violent," Nogales says.
"The police force is extremely machista, they detest for
women to be on the front lines. Also in this movement, LGBTQ communities have
been partners alongside of the feminists because they too are abused in this
patriarchy.”
But Nogales says there is no stopping this
movement.
“There are different kinds of social classes,
political ideologies, ages, all coming together to demand clean,
corruption-free government," she says. "Young people are especially
feeling rooted in this idea that this is their government, that they don’t want
to leave the island, that they have a right to demand and also construct a new
nation.”
Nogales' group has been hosting workshops to
teach people their constitutional rights, and how to protect themselves at
protests. The attorneys, one of them a new mom, have also trained over one
hundred protest observers, people charged with ensuring that the civil rights
of protesters are not violated.
“It’s been fierce to see the young women
observers be so brave and confront riot police when they were abusing their
power,” she says. “They are supposed to leave when things get tense, we don’t
want them to be hurt, but I have seen them charge ahead with notebooks and
cameras in hand to record violations, to fight back.”
Nogales says that as long as the people are on
the streets, she and her female colleagues and observers will be side by side
to represent them.
“You’re talking about an oppressive system
that has been in construction for hundreds of years feeding people fear and
what you are seeing is that people and women are no longer afraid. The people
on the island are feeling their power.”
Sandra Guzmán is an
Emmy Award-winning journalist, author, and documentary filmmaker. Follow her on
Twitter @mssandraguzman.
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