We rematriators aren’t born free. We are born into captivity. Why else would we need to make the political statement that we are returning to our lands, our ancestral ways? It is because conquest took us away.
Rematriation/ Rematriación
Decolonize Death
We embody the ironic conflict of acting out a fear of death by bringing ourselves and others dangerously close to it. What if we took a collective pause, stepped back to assess what we are raging against. Is it death? Is it life? Is it ourselves? Maybe if we begin to demystify death, unlearn the fears taught by our oppressors, tap into the ancestral wisdom flowing in our blood, then we can begin to heal some of this conflict. We can begin to step through fear, closer to love and liberation and living fully.
Oct 30- Sacred Jayuya and Sacrilege
Not knowing, not honoring our history is hella dangerous territory. It leaves us celebrating the heroes and tenets of our colonizers, while stomping on the graves of our own. It is not dollars we are needing, but dignity.
Repatriation Rant
We the colonized work to decolonize ourselves, then turn on one another from wounds too vulnerable, too raw to bear. We lash out at one another. The enemy is too far, too inaccessible. We realize. In shame, we retreat.
Patriarchy: Holding Back Humanity
Today the violation of too many girls, some of us too young, though no age is ever acceptable, turns my stomach and keeps the constant nudge of nausea at my throat like the hurricane did.
Miseducation of a Nation
It is time to focus on the colonial classroom, the empire’s primary battleground. The threat goes beyond school closures. It includes the continued attack on the one public university system in Puerto Rico. It is embodied by a white North American secretary of education with an inflated salary, while her school children constituents are sacrificed at the austerity table of odious debt. It resounds in the arresting, pepper spraying and tear gassing of people protesting injustices like these. Ultimately the colonial battle is waged daily on the minds and on the psyches of the colonized, with schools cunningly crafted for the conformity and conditioning of the colonial subject.
Repatriate your body
My broken body colonized Was the space of incubation In which I myself Had to craft and manifest their liberation Through it I could envision doing the same for myself
Our Brief Wondrous Capacity for Compassion
I know emotional labor. Though we perfect it, it is not a trait exclusive to women, nor do all women possess the capacity for it. I watched my brother die from fucking emotional labor! I have watched men mother more effectively than some women. If we are to eradicate patriarchy, we must stop appropriating and wielding patriarchal weapons in our fight.
The Colony is Dead
The colony was formerly on life support with enough real estate, restaurants, casinos and electric lights to mask its reality. It was kept breathing by a machine so that when the lights went out, it would signal the end. The lights have been out for 7 months.
Maria: Photos from home
Most moments of my day I’m trying to figure out a plan to acquire my own piece of land, to make my lifestyle completely sustainable, to embody the liberation that I strive to practice daily until we can acquire it fully. But sometimes the spirit needs to stop and look at the photos. Honor the moments, the memories, the lessons.
Right on for the Darkness
The art of darkness is the spreading of invincibility like smoke rising from el fogón. In essence, like celestial bodies in outer space, darkness cultivates visibility, which would make it not a tool of, but a weapon against colonialism.
Frida & Julia: Guerrilla Goddesses & Guides
These two spirits "con la tea en la mano," light up what needs to be lit up, torch what needs to be torched. They are the guerrilla goddesses Frida Kahlo and Julia de Burgos. They are my muses, my guides. I follow them wherever they take me. I was not allowed to paint them till... Continue Reading →
Colonial Survival & Resistance through Charco Transcendence
Charco-crossers like myself arrive at a space where we feel divided: our bodies on one side, hearts and spirits in another. Our home on one side, work on the other. Many of us have either lived on each side or travel and work extensively on both sides. Others adhere to one side only, adopting and... Continue Reading →
Transcending Grief Like Water
We leave lands but cannot take the remains of our lost loved ones with us. We leave the monuments behind but bring the memories with us. My son who carries his name, also carries my brother's same birth mark on the bridge of his nose. I said goodbye to all of his Ozone Park and... Continue Reading →
Death by Colonialism
"...you be colonial man You done be slave man before They done release you now But you never release yourself" -lyrics from "Colonial Mentality" by Nigerian musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti My people are yet to be released. We are three times colonized: by Spain, by the United States and by our own selves. Colonialism is... Continue Reading →
Rematriating Borikén 