Photo: Stacy Lanyon
I am from Puerto Rico. I was living in Puerto Rico, even
though I had spent eighteen years of my life in the United States. When I was
seventeen, I came out here. I went to college here, and I worked here most of
my life. When I went back to Puerto Rico, I was angry because Puerto Rico is a
colony of America. We have over five hundred years of colonialism between Spain
and the US. When we actually gained independence from Spain, the US invaded us
in 1898 and created martial law for three years. They basically occupied my
country. That was the main reason I came over here for Occupy Wall Street because in Puerto Rico right
now Goldman Sachs just bought one of our new highways. We just
constructed it not even two years ago, and Goldman Sachs bought it, and now
they have the rights to the tolls, for I don’t know how many years. This money
was supposed to go to the infrastructure of my island, not to a Wall Street
corporation. That’s happening every day.
Our governor basically makes the
Wisconsin governor look like a dummy. He actually killed unions in Puerto Rico.
There are no longer unions. He fired, in one day, seventeen thousand workers
from the public sector, and now all of those jobs are in the private sector.
All of these things were happening, while I was living these last two years in
Puerto Rico. Of course, I felt indignation. I was like, “This cannot
be happening.” We are the race that has died the most in the wars of the United
States, but we are treated like second class citizens. The only reason the US
gave us citizenship was because, in 1917, they needed people to go to World War
I. After nineteen years under their possession, they gave us our citizenship just so they could send people to get killed. Right now, we are the number
one race that is serving in the United States armed forces, but we cannot vote for the chief commanding officer
that is the president of the United States. We can elect the candidates from
the democratic and republican parties. That makes no sense. I can vote for the candidate,
but I can’t vote for the president? All of these things are happening.
We have more pharmaceutical companies than any state in the
United States, and the only reason that is the case is because federal regulations over
there do not apply fully to these corporations. These corporations actually get
tax breaks when they go to Puerto Rico. They don’t have to pay federal taxes
because this is not a state. It’s basically a colony. These corporations pay
minimum wage to people. Another reason they are there is to get cheap labor. Pharmaceutical
company employees in Puerto Rico make one third of what they make here. That’s
one of the reasons, but the main reason is dumping the chemicals after they make
the medicine. Basically,
the corporations have been taking advantage or the people of Puerto Rico.
I’m the third generation living in this country.
I served in the military of this country because I didn’t have a job. When I
got to the military, that’s when I found out the truth. I was eighteen or
nineteen years old. It was right after the first Gulf war. I told people that
when I went to fight for my country, I really didn’t know who was my
enemy. Now that I’m here, I know who
exactly I’m fighting. I know who’s my enemy. It’s the corporations, the politicians that are their puppets and the courts that uphold these unjust laws.
We are a human race. The only difference between any of us
is only 0.01% and it is our features. Everything else is exactly the same. Of course,
coming from my culture that’s Puerto Rican, we are so mixed that there is no
difference between a black person, a white person or a Native American. We need
to understand that we’re all immigrants in this country. Somehow, a European
got here. Somehow, an African got here, and even the Native Americans got here
from Siberia. That’s my dream. My dream is when actually we all break the wall
that keeps us seperate. It’s not Wall Street. Occupy Wall Street was just a place. It wasn’t
about Wall Street. It was about how we could make this a better world. When we
start noticing that no matter who we are, we are the same, we will live in a better world. We all need to understand
that.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/