With the presentation of Dr. Margaret Power’s Solidarity across the Americas: The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and Anti-Imperialism: Chicago, Berkeley, Davis, San Francisco, Puerto Rico, France, and England
The Puerto Rican Cultural Center, Juan Antonio Corretjer (PRCC), is honored to announce the launching of its 50th-anniversary celebration with the presentation of Dr. Margaret Power’s book, Solidarity across the Americas: The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and Anti-Imperialism (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) in Chicago, San Francisco, Berkeley, Davis, Puerto Rico, France, and England. Dr. Power is the Chair of the PRCC’s Board of Directors and a Professor Emerita of History at the Illinois Institute of Technology. This book is an excellently researched, well-written, incisive, and insightful historical narrative of the building of a broad movement of active networks in virtually all of Latin America, much of the Caribbean, and in New York City for Puerto Rican Independence.
It is not a coincidence that we, in the PRCC, received a physical copy of this book on March 1, 2023, exactly 69 years after the photo, which appears on the book’s cover, was taken following the arrest of the nationalist political prisoners. For it was the guiding principles of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party (the self-determination, self-actualization, and self-reliance of the Puerto Rican people), which have served as the decolonizing practice of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center since its inception 50 years ago. Thus, while the PRCC’s work is deeply rooted in centering our marginalized Puerto Rican community in Chicago, we have played a decisive role in every major struggle in Puerto Rico during those five decades, including but not limited to the following: from stopping the proposed copper mining in Puerto Rico, to getting the US Navy out of Vieques; from halting the construction of the gasoducto; to supporting the “Rescate” movement on the island by the dispossessed; from exposing the political repression against the independence movement, to demanding freedom for all political prisoners. And, most recently, the PRCC played a significant role in developing the 3R’s (Rescue, Relief, and Rebuild) for Puerto Rico campaign following the natural catastrophes Hurricanes Maria and Fiona, and the earthquakes.
It is against the above backdrop of the PRCC’s role in building a community of resistance, in Chicago, and its engagement in solidarity with Puerto Rico that we initiate our Golden Anniversary by presenting this scholarly work with the following international tour:
CHICAGO
April 6, Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture, Chicago
5:30 – 7:00, 3015 W. Division St., Chicago, IL 60622
Presenters: José López, Executive Director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center and Maura Toro-Morn, Vice. President-Elect of the Puerto Rican Studies Association and Professor of Sociology at Illinois State University and Margaret Power, author.
This event is co-Sponsored by the PRCC’s
Digitizing the Barrio Archive Project
CALIFORNIA
DAVIS
April 12, University of California, Davis, Noon, Presenter: Lisa Materson, Professor of History
SAN FRANCISCO
April 16, Medicine for Nightmares bookstore in SF, 3046 24th St, San Francisco, 3:00 pm Presenter: Judith Mirkinson
BERKELEY
April 17, Latinx Resource Center, UC Berkeley, Noon Presenter: Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz, Professor of Sociology
PUERTO RICO:
RADIO INTERVIEW:
With author Dr. Margaret Power on “Comunicando con Toti Figueroa from 8 to 9 a.m., wpra990.com
PONCE
Wednesday, May 3, Fundación Rafael Hernández Colón, Ponce, Puerto Rico, 7 p.m. Presenters: César A. Hernández Colón and Enrique Ayoroa Santaliz
RÍO PIEDRAS
Thursday, May 4, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, Museo de Antropología y Historia, 3:00 pm, Presenter: Dr. José Manuel Davila, historian.
SAN JUAN
Thursday, May 4, Ateneo, San Juan, Puerto Rico 7:00 pm, Presenters: Marco Rigau and Che Paralitici
Saturday, May 6, Festival de Claridad, Claritienda kiosk, sale and signing by author
PARIS, FRANCE
June 5, Ecole de Hautes Etudes, Presenter: Yann Philippe
June 8 Université Paris 3, 5-7 p.m. Presenter: Edward Blumenthal
ENGLAND
LONDON
June 12, University of London, Institute of the Americas, 3 p.m., Presenter: William Booth
OXFORD
June 15, Latin American Centre, Oxford, 5-7 p.m., Presenter: Eduardo Posada-Carbo
