Sunday, December 07, 2014

the Original Rainbow Coalition



The original Rainbow Coalition was not a liberal election strategy by Jesse Jackson.  It was Fred Hampton's attempt to politicize and unite the street gangs in impoverished Chicago.  Racism was, as it always has been, an obstacle to proletarian unity.  However, through the hard organizing work of Hampton and the Black Panthers, the Rainbow Coalition united poor whites in the Young Patriots Organization, poor Puerto Ricans in the Young Lords and the American Indian Movement with the Black Panthers to form a united front against poverty under capitalism and brutalization of the poor by police.  Do not fall for the divide and conquer narrative.  Certainly the various oppressions we face are linked to aspects of our identity, but certainly, we can all unite as a class in the interest of rising up against the ruling class in order to establish a new, proletarian regime.

Matthew 20: 1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius[a] for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
“About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
- New International Version


IDEOLOGY 
OF THE 
YOUNG 
LORDS 
PARTY 



^ 



National Headquarters 

357 Wl His Ave. 

Bronx, New York 10454 

First Pr int I nq Feb. 1972 UrVWiw 
Wilt be updated and revised 
at first party congress 
Julv 1972 



F*b. »av 



AM criticisms and suqnestions welcome 



Vouva 



THE IDEOLOGY OF THE YOUNG LORDS PARTY 

(Puerto Rican Pevol utionary Party) 

Juan Gonzalez, Minister of Defense 

Juan "Fi" Ortiz. Chief of Staff 

Gloria Gonzalez, Field Marshal 

David Perez, Field Marshal 

Denise Oliver, Former Minister of Economic Development 

Pablo "Yoruba" Guzman, Minister of Information 

"I have lived in the belly of the monster, I have seen its 
entrails, and mine is the sling of David." 

— Jose Marti 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 



1. INTRODUCTION 2 

2. DEFINITION OF TERMS 3 

3. ON HISTORY AND DIALECTICS , 5 

by Yoruba 

4. PROTRACTED WAR IN PUERTO RICO 13 

by Gloria Gonzalez 

5. ECONOMIC AND MILITARY STRUGGLE 20 

by Juan Gonzalez 

6. COLONIZED MENTALITY AND NON-CONSCIOUS 
IDEOLOGY 26 

by Denise Oliver 

7. THE PARTY AND THE STATE 33 

by David Perez 

8. THE PARTY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 37 

by Juan "Fi" Ortiz 

9. ANALYSIS OF PUERTO RICAN SOCIETY ^ 1 



INTRODUCTION 

This is the beginning of the ideology of the Young Lords 
Party. What is ideology? It is a system of ideas, of principles, 
that a person or group uses to explain to them how things 
operate in the world. Our ideology was developed out of the 
experiences of almost two years of struggling everyday with 
our people against their oppression. 

The systematic ideas and principles in this pamphlet are 
guiding us as to the best way to lead the liberation struggle of 
the Puerto Rican nation. These are not fixed, rigid ideas, but 
constantly developed as we constantly work to serve and 
protect the people. 

There are certain principles that are fixed and 
unchangeable to us, though. First, is collective leadership, not 
individuua I leadership. One individual can never see the 
whole of a problem. Only collectives of people, working 
together, can solve problems correctly. Second, we can 
understand nothing unless we understand history. One of the 
problems of the Puerto Rican and amerikkkan revolutionary 
movements is that they have not done systematic, scientific 
study of their history and so do not yet understand the 
countries that they wish to liberate. Third, a revolutionary 
must be one with the people, serving, protecting, and 
respecting the people at all times. 



'^Wherever a Puerto Rican is, 
tlie duty off a Puerto Rican 
is to maice tiie revolution." 



GLORIA GONZAUZ, 
FIILD MARSHAL 



DEFINITIONS 

When we begin to read and study things on revolution, on 
how other people's have liberated themselves and on how we 
can develop our revolution, we come across a lot of new 
words we have never heard or seen before. We should learn 
what the words mea n and then learn how to explain those 
ideas to our brothers and sisters in ways they can understand. 

Nation: A people who have had the same history, culture, 
language, and usually have lived in the same territory for a 
long pe riod of time. 

Colony: A nation which is controlled economically, 
culturally, militarily by another country and whose 
government is run by that other country. 

Capitalism: A way of running the economy of a nation, 
where a few of the people in the nation own the factories, 
trains, business, commerce, and the majority of the people 
work for those owners. The few capitalists make large 
amounts of money by selling what the rest of the people 
make-the products, like dresses, cars, copper, oil. This is 
called profit. 

Vendepatria: A sell-out. One who has sold out his or her 
people for money or power. 



Contradiction: When two things are opposed to each other, 
for instance, right and wrong, up and down, good and bad. 
When you have a contradiction, you have a problem that has 
to be solved. If someone says that the way to get to a place is 
by turning right, and someone else says it's by turning left, 
you can't get to that place until the contradiction is 
soived-it's either right or left. 

Jibaro: The mixture of mostly Spanish and Taino, but also 
some Blacks, who developed in the mountains and campos of 
Puerto Rico mostly as small farmers and as peasants. The 
language is Spanish, the culture Spanish and Indian. 



Afro-boricua: The mixture of mostly Spanish and African 
who developed in the sugar cane plantations and coasts of 
Puerto Rico doing fishing, and whose ancestors were slaves. 
iVIost Black Puerto Ricans try to call themselves mulattos 
when the language is Spanish, but the culture and customs 
are still mostly African, and when the racist societies of Spain 
and Amerikkka still treat them as though they are inferior. 

Class: The group of persons that an individual belongs to all 
of whom make their living the same way. For instance, 
lumpen make their living by surviving -stealing, prostitution, 
dope, etc.. The workers make their living by working for 
someone. The petty-bourgeois make their living by working 
for themselves, the peasants make their living working on the 
land for themselves or someone else. The bourgeois make 
their money off the labor of everyone else. They don't work 
at all. 

Self-determination: It means very individual, every 
nationality has the right to determine their own lives, their, 
future, as long as they don't mess over other people. A nation 
shoud be free from control by another nation. 
Independence: When a nation has a government made up of 
people from that country, but it is still controlled 
economically, and culturally by another country. 

National liberation: When a country is completely free from 
control by another nation. When the people are in control of 
the government, economy and afmy. 

Lombriz: A parasitic worm that produces intestinal disease, 
found in tropical countries. We use this word for all the 
Puerto Rican traitors, for the parasites they are. 

**The price of imperialism 
is fives." 

JUAN GONZALES 

4 



ON HISTORY 
& DIALECTICS 

The Young Lords Party has always believed in the correct 
studying of our history, the history of the nation. Puerto 
Ricans are told we have no past, not as good as the 
oppressor's past. So finding out the truth is a good thing. See, 
the game that the amerikkkan enemy runs is to tell us that 
we ain't got no history, no roots, no tradition, no nothing. In 
this way, we are made to feel as though we have just popped 
up, and when we move against the enemy, we move blindly. 
If we had a knowledge of history, we could study the 
mistakes and successes of those who came before; instead of 
starting anew, we could begin where the last generation left 
off. 

It is time that all Puerto Ricans get down to studying our 
history. This serves three purposes: 

1) We'll be able to check out what our ancestors did and 
did not do. Also, we'll get a sense of our people's 
development. In a national liberation struggle like ours, a 
movement must be built that comes from the people, from 
our experiences, sorrows, joys. There is a certain way to 
organize the Puerto Rican nation, as opposed to say, the 
Polish nation. 

2) Studying history allows us to see the enemy's master 
plan develop, such as the one being used to control Puerto 
Ricans. 

3) Finding out about our roots gives us a certain pride in 
the knowledge that we have withstood oppression for so 
long. We must transmit this righteous pride to all of our 
people. 

Let me run something down on history. In school, or in 
society in general, we are taught that events in history take 
place because of a few "great" individuals, like Napoleon or 
George Washington (specifically, "great" white males). We 
are taught that history goes in cycles, that it repeats itself. 




This is atl jive. In the Young Lords Party, we are training 
ourselves in thinking scientifically, in looking at things from 
an orderly point of view to arrive at the right conclusions. All 
Puerto Ricans concerned with their people must begin to see 
things in a scientific way. 




Scientific?: Well, we learned in school that the way a scientist 
approaches a problem is by way pf a thing called the 
scientific method. The scientist first say, "What do I want to 
get out of this thing after I understand it? Where do I want to 
go? Now what would be the best way of getting through this 



problem and to my goal?" And then the scientist lays out 
each step, one by one, until the goal is reached. This is the 
way we must lay out the revolution, using our passion, our 
feelings, to keep us going, step by step, until we are free. 
This means that we will become something catted "dialec- 
tical materialists." What does this mean? 

First, take the word dialectics. Dialectics is the study of 
contradictions. 

What is a contradiction? We've heard about 
something being contradictory, right? Like say you're having 
a discussion with someone, and then they say one thing and 
you say the opposite. That's a contradiction, and it must be 
resolved one way or the other. The both of you could have 
an argument and walk away, or a unity of thing between you 
will arise. Contradictions are everywhere, even in nature. Say 
you have a herd of pigs, the last herd left. Then say there are 
some people who are starving , and they come across the pigs, 
a decision has to be made. The people or the pigs. 

That's a contradiction. 

A Puerto Rican in, say, high school who hears 
their history teacher say "history repeats itself," will say, 
"No good, teacher. History flows, like a river, and the course 
that river takes depends on how contradictions are resolved. 
In other words, history is always moving ahead, teacher, 
going forward, once a contradiction is dealt with (resolved). 
Sometimes a contradiction is resolved in a way that it only 
looks as though history repeats itself." That sister or brother 
would say, "See, let's say you have a nation where most of 
the people are starving, and a few people in power are eating 
well. That's a contradiction. It could be resolved either by 
the people rising against those in power, like in Cuba in 1959, 
or by those in power taking the country into a war against 
another country, like the united states in 1941 against Japan 
(sometimes the rulers of a country go to war so that the 
people forget their internal problems, like their stomachs)." 
This Puerto Rican would say, "That's history, that's life: you 
have contradictions, they get resolved, which changes 
history's course, and since there are always contradictions. 



there will always be new changes." 

Some contradictions are the ones between machismo and 
male-female liberation, or between capitalism and socialism. 

The second word is materialism. This means that all of 
these contradiction occur in the real world, the world we can 
see around us. Many times, for example, the economic facts 
of life cause other things to happen. Yet, we are taught in 
school that the united states went into World War I "to make 
the world safe for Democracy." This is a lie. The u.s.a. went 
into World War I for the same reason it went into the 
Mexican-American invasion, Spanish-Amerikkkan invasion, 
Korean and Indo-China Wars — economics. Wealth. As an 
imperialist country, amerikkka resolves the contradiction of 
constantly needing more wealth to keep its machinery 
running by going to war to rip off land (Puerto Rico from 
Spain) and to put people to work at home. (Defense 
contracts=factories=employment=products=consumers). 
Scientific analysis show that it is materialism, real things, that 
exist in the world. Part of dialectics is that everything has its 
opposite, and the opposite of materialism is metaphysics, 
idealism. Idealism is ideas that have nothing to do with 
reality. It's like saying that the reason why flowers grow is 
because of magic, or why people are here is because man was 
made from dirt, and woman came from man's rib. The reason 
why flowers grow or Why people are here is because of 
certain scientific laws of nature. That is real. That is 
materialism. 

With this kind of thinking in mind we can now briefly 
cover Puerto Rican and Black history. Why? Well, there are 
contradictions between people and the enemy; these are 
natural contradictions since it is the enemy that enslaves us. 
Contradictions with the enemy are antagonistic, non-friendly. 
These differences are resolved ultimately through war. Then 
there are contradictions among the people. We have been 
divided and conquered by the enemy in hundreds of ways — 
housewives against prostitutes, young against old, men 
against women, Puerto Ricans against Afro-Americans, 
unionized workers against non-union workers, workers 

8 



against drug addicts, families against other families, one ar 
rabale against another. These contradictions should be kept 
non-antagonistic and settled among ourselves, as friends so 
we can unite against the enemy. 

So, in studying Black and Puerto Rican history, we look 
at the history of the contradictions between Blacks and 
Puerto Ricans as differences among brothers and sisters 
oppressed by the yankee. 

"We wasn't thinking 
about the other guys 
being Puerto Ricans 
•••if he was your enemy, 
you iciii him*" 

CEORGIE 

We studied the history of Puerto Ricans. First, we saw 
that the u.s.a. took control of Puerto Rico because they were 
preparing a "safety valve" country in case the "Black 
Problem" got too heavy. In case Afro-Americans increased 
their efforts to remove their chains, the u.s. intended to ship 
the Black people to Puerto Rico, the Phillipines, and Hawaii. 
The gringo came claiming to be liberators from Spain, and 
our people couldn't even understand the lies since they were 
made in english. We were ruled by interpreters. By changing 
the currency of Puerto Rico to u.s. dollars, one unit of the 
old currency was now worth 60 cents amerikkkan. Then a 
hurricane wiped out the coffee crop (the only crop), and this, 
combined with the currency devaluation drove people 
bankrupt overnight. A severe depression set in. The u.s. 
self-proclaimed liberators of the island, sent aid to Puerto 
Rico that amounted to about 8 cents a person. Dig that. 

Already the Yankees had a master plan — First, to take 
military control; then, to make Puerto Ricans citizens; then 
change the colony to a dominion status, like Canada; then 
make it a state. This plan was made in the early 1900s and 
the enemy is right on schedule. 

The governors amerikkka picked to rule over us weren't 
exactly gems, either. They were perverts and lames. Not one 
knew a thing about diplomacy, shown in how they 



constantly said openly racist stuff, or got caught either 
embezzling or having late-night sessions with ambassador's 
wives. We studied how Munoz Marin weasled his way into 
power, running an independence line here, a commonwealth 
line there. Most important we saw bmbriz Ferre's scheme for 
getting Puerto Rico to be a state: 

1) Before the '72 elections, he was gonna ask Nixon to 
set up a commission to see if Puerto Rico could vote for u.s. 
president. (The commission has already been set up). A 
referendum would be called for the people. 

2} They are then gonna ask that the resident 
commissioner who now sits and watches what happens in the 
amerikkkan House of Representatives, be doubled (another 
resident commissioner) and the both of them would be given 
the right to vote. 

3) Ferre runs for governor again in 1972 on a maintain 
the commonwealth line. 

4) After Ferre wins, after there are two resident 
commissioners in the house of representatives, and after the 
island is given the presedential vote (so that Puerto Rico can 
vote for Mix on in 1972) Ferre puts out the referendum to 
make Puerto Rico a state. 

Ironically, the u.s. congress may be most strongly 
opposed to this. A tot of those red-necks wouldn't want no 
"spanish-speaking colored, poor, illiterate, nasty, smelly 
fornicating, rum-drinking, welfaring, stupid, lazy, 
troublesome spies" to be a state. 

Next, it is important to study the history of 
Afro-American people. Many people think that Puerto Rican 
history is like one circle sitting by itself on one side, and 
Afro-American history is a circle sitting by itself on another 
side. Actually, the two circles are linked together. To study 
Black history is to complete the study of Puerto Rican 
history, and vice-versa. African people were brought, in 
chains, to the americas, and the resistance started from day 
one. The ships brought Africans to Hispanola, Cuba, Jamaica, 
Brazil, Puerto Rico, etc. Moving through history, we see how 
many of the organizations and tendencies of the Black 
movement in Amerikkka are definite outgrowths of history 

as are all people's movements, 

10 



The Young Lords Party recognizes Black people in the 
united states as the leaders of that country's revolution, since 
they have been the most oppressed people in that empire's 
history. Wo other people in amerikkka were ripped off from 



f i 




their country and brought here as slaves. For 400 years, the 
only change in Black people's conditions was that the visible 
chains were removed and non-visible ones put on — like 
segregated schools, ghettoes, police aggression, or 
mind-bending chains like "No niggers allowed" signs. One of 
our most important allies in the fight for the national 
liberation of Puerto Rico, will be Afro-Americans, and we 
must eliminate the racism that divides us now, or else all of 
us be killed off separately. 

Let us look at the history of the revolutionary struggle in 
the united states. For example, most of us never were taught 
in school the true history of that empire, how it expanded 
from a rebellious little colony of England to destroy a whole 
people, the Native American, how it committed genocide 
against the Hawaiian people, how it conquered and exploited 
the Filipino people, how it forced large numbers of Chinese, 
Mexicans, and Japanese to leave their countries to come to 
the U.S. like Puerto Ricans did, looking for jobs, how it 
massacred large numbers of poor European immigrants who 
rebelled against the conditions they were forced to work in. 
Most of us were never taught in school about a righteous 
white workers' movement of the early 1900's called the 
International Workers' of the World (IWW) or the Wobblies. 
These were some revolutionary people. In the early 1900s 
amerikkka was uptight. It may seem shocking to us now with 
the hardhats walking around, but these white workers were 
revolutionary. And the IWW was the leadership of their 
struggle. One leader of that movement was Elizabeth Gurley 
Flynn who was a leader of a general strike of 25,000 workers 
in Patterson, New Jersey. What happened to this progressive 
movement was the sell-out political parties, like the socialist 
party, and the enemy's tricks like World War I, and their 
final tool - repression, the jailing and killing of many leaders. 
We must study white amerikkka's background to see how 
the monster developed, then we can begin to move in the 
manner which Jose Marti 19th century Cuban Revolutionary, 
described, "I have lived in the monster, and know its entrails 
(insides), and mine is the sling of David." 



12 



PROTRACTED 

WAR IN 
PUERTO RICO 



The concept of Protracted War best describes the history 
of the Puerto Rican people. For many centuries our people 
have been invaded by one nation or another. Two oppressors 
were successful, the Spaniards in 1493, and the yankees in 
1898. 

When a country is invaded by another, it becomes a 
colony, slave, of the occupier, and that control stops the 
normal development of the people. 

In Boriquen, the Taino nation had its own economic, 
social and political structure, and was developing in its own 
way. When these people came they used the riches of the 
island to aid Spain's development and destroy the Tainos. 

The Taino people rose up against the enemy. The war did 
not last long, because the Spaniards, with their plunder of the 
rest of Latin America, had more power and arms. Many 
Tainos died, some because of diseases the Spaniards had 
brought, others through the war, and the rest fled to 
the mountains to avoid slavery. 

Then the Spaniards had the problem of who would be 
their slaves. Beginning in the 1500s, they showed how 
barbaric and criminal they were. They began to ravage the 
African lands, kidnapping our Yoruba brothers and sisters to 
serve as slaves. By the 1600s there had been four slave 
revolts. We were once again defeated, but they did not 
destroy us, as is shown through the influence of African 
culture in Puerto Rico. 

Out of these temporary defeats, our people became 
stronger, and by the 1800s, the Puerto Rican nation, as we 
know it today, was formed, of the mixture of Taino, 

13 



Yoruban, and Spanish, of the most exploited by those in 
power of men and women more determined than ever to be 
free. Among the many freedom fighters were Ramon 
Emeterio Betances, Maria Bacetti, and Segundo Ruis Belvis. 
These were the ones who toward 1868 raised the cry for 
liberation on September 23, in Lares. Eventhough we were 
defeated again, Betances knew what a protracted war was and 
he said, "Men and women pass, but principles continue on 
and eventually triumph." And so our struggle for liberation 
continued. 

In 1898, the Spaniards had war declared on them by the 
united states and were quickly defeated. As a result, Puerto 
Rico passed from one slavery into another. Now the invaders 
were Yankees, and on July 25, 1898, 18,000 amerikkkan 
troops landed at Guanica. 

This new invader would be the most criminal and vicious 
that has touched our land, and with the new invasion began 
the new war of liberation. 

The principles established by the Taino nation, by the 
African people, and then by the revolution of Lares were 
advanced by the Nationalist Party, which in the 1930s 
proved to the Yankees that our people have never been 
docile. During this time our people suffered from 
unbelieveable hunger and misery--that was the "democracy" 
the Yankees brought to us. 

The Nationalist Party, under the leadership of Don Pedro 
Albizu Campos, became the defenders of the people. In 
1936, the amerikkkans arrested Don Pedro and the rest of 
the leadership of the party, because they were considered a 
threat to their plans. It was during this period that occurred 
what we have come to know as the Ponce Massacre. On 
March 21, 1937, the Nationalist Party organized a 
demonstration in Ponce. The day was the anniversary of the 
abolition of slavery in the era of the Spaniards. The 
demonstration was to let the Yankees know that our people 
would not tolerate either political prisoners or continued 
occupation. 

Throughout this period the amerikkans had one of their 
own as governor. At the time the criminal was called Blanton 

14 



Winship, and he, along with the lombrice, Corsado, gave the 
order to assassinate the nationalists; 200 persons were 
wounded and 22 killed. With this act the united states 
declared war on the Puerto Rican nation. The enemies of our 
people continued their brutal attacks, arresting 2,000 
persons and sentencing many to 400 years of prison after the 
revolt of Jayuya in 1950. All of this had one sole aim-to end 
the operation of all the just struggle for liberty because we 
were receiving international support. 

In addition to all of this, the yankees began operation 
"co-option." That is. they looked for sellout traitors, and 
during this period they began to heavily support the 
electoral parties, especially the Popular Party led by traitor 
Munoz Marin. 

The combination of the repression of the Nationalist 
Party and the lies of the Popular Party created a lot of 
confusion among the people. Another important factor was 



**lf our people fight 
one tribe at a time, 
ail will be killed. 
They can cut off our 
fingers one by one, 
but if we join 
together we'll make 
a powerful fist." 

LITTLE TURTLE, MASTER GENERAL OF THE 
MIAMI INDIANS, 1791 



that the Yankees tried to weaken us by dividing the people 
through "Operation Bootstrap," and they moved 1/3 of the 
Puerto Ricans to the united states, but our struggle 
continued. 

15 



It's true that they weakened us when they took away our 
revolutionary leadership, but what they did not understand 
was that it is impossible to stop a liberation struggle. 

Once again, in the united states, we rose up in the belly 
of the monster. In 1965, we rebelled, together with Black 
people in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and in New 
Jersey; wherever there were boricuas, the cry of liberty was 
heard. 

Out of those rebellions, developed the Young Lords 
Organization in Chicago, in 1969. With the example of the 
Afro-american people, who throughout their prolonged war 
inside the united states, raised consciousness among Puerto 
Ricans, and with the principles and examples of Don Pedro, 
Lolita Lebron, Dona Blanca Canales, the YLO began to 
organize the Puerto Ricans in Chicago . Meanwhile, in New 
York arose a group, the Society of Albizu Campos, young 
students and lumpen {lumpen are the class in our nation 
which for years and years have not been able to find jobs, 
and are forced to be drug addicts, prostitutes, etc.), all of 
whom had the same sole objective, the liberation of Puertd 
Rico on the island and inside the united states. 

The Young Lords of Chicago united with the Society of 
Albizu Campos to create the national organization. With a 13 
Point Program the organization began to serve and protect 
the people, with free breakfast programs, free health and 
clothing programs , and with the taking of the People's 
Church, where the organization was recognized as a group 
with support from the community . 

Each day the organization won more support, but it 
found itself with many problems. Because of its oppression, 
the Chicago group did not understand the necessity for 
discipline and political education, which is needed to achieve 
our liberation, and was not able to further the struggle. In 
New York, was the Eastern region with a much more 
disciplined and developed leadership, which was anxious to 
advance the struggle. We split with Chicago and fomed the 
Young Lords Party. With three bases in El Barrio, another in 
New Jersey, and another in the South Bronx, the Party began 
to analyze Puerto Rican society, and we soon realized that 

16 



'^ 




2/3 of our people, almost wholly unknown to us, lived on the 
island. 

The analysis of Puerto Rican society made it clear that 
our nation is composed of distinct classes and social groups 
and with this understanding we began to formalize ideas to 
bring the Party to all sectors of our people. Always 
remembering that we are a revolutionary party whose goal is 
complete national liberation, and about the job of uniting 
that nation. 

In August, 1970, two leaders of the Party, Juan Gonzalez 
and Juan Fi Ortiz, made the first official Party visit to the 
island. From that trip we analyzed a number of things. 

For example, we saw that the struggle in the united states 
was much more advanced since the conditions in the u.s.--the 
racism, the oppression was much clearer; hunger and 
oppression expose quickly the lies of the amerikkkan dream. 

Although it's true that there were other established 
independence groups, the Movement for Puerto Rican 
Independence, founded in 1959. the Puerto Rican 
Independence Party, founded in 1947, the origin of these 
groups was either from the petty or upper bourgeoisie (the 
middle and upper classes}. Also, they were either social 
movements or electoral parties. As the years have passed, 

17 



these organizations have raised the consciousness of the 
people, especially MPI, but for our revolution to succeed it's 
clear that we need more revolutionary leadership. With this in 
mind, we began the preparations for the move to the island, 
this being the best way to unite the 1/3 of our people on the 
island and the 2/3 in the u.s. 

The Yankees have divided and weakened us in many 
ways- the analysis of Puerto Rican society helps us to 
understand the divisions. First, we have to unite the two 
most oppressed classes, the lumpens and the workers, and 
also the two social groups in which our people are divided, 
the most oppressed Afro-Puerto Ricans and the jibaros. This 
is not to say that we won't also unite the petty-bourgeoisie 
and the students. As we have seen, with a little education, 
they will come in large numbers to follow the lead of the 
people and will take part in the revolution. 

Taking into account our origin in the u.s., we began to 
analyze the 2/3 in Puerto Rico. 

In the northeast of the island, are the towns of Loiza 
Aldea, Fajardo, Rio Grande, Canovanas: it was to these 
towns that the Spaniards brought the African slaves, and to 
this day these towns, with one third of the island's 
population, are Afro-Puerto Ricans, victims not only of 
exploitation, but of racism. 

Carolina is one of the most industrialized towns where 
the Yankees have built many factories, and the people are all 
workers. 

In this area are the big arrabales (slums), like El Cano, in 
Santurce, Barrio Obrero, Martin Pena, Cataf%, and the 
housing projects like Lloren Torres where 26,000 people live, 
and communities with large lumpen populations, like La 
Peria, in San Juan. 

With this, we have briefly described the north of the 
island. The second area of major importance is the 
center-- Lares, Adjuntas, Jayuya, and the south. Ponce, Cabo 
Rojo, Salinas, and Guanica. The social group of the center is 
what by the 18th century received the name Jibaro. The 
jibaro of that period was humble and illiterate because of 
their exploitation, very superstitious, and always ready to 






defend their honor. 

It was rare when the jibaro or jibara visited the town. 
Their calendar was the many hurricanes that passed over the 
land. The jibaro of today continues to be illiterate, not so 
superstitious, and now not only visists but lives in the big 
towns, now that the Yankees have forced them to leave their 
lands, turning them into tomato pickers in New Jersey or 
dishwashers in New Y ork. The jibara, who once had her herd 
of pigs, her house in the mountains, now is a worker in a 
factory making a miserable amount, while producing 
brassieres. It's obvious why this group, a large part of our 
population, will give strength to the revolutionary 
movementOur job is immense. We have called it the Chains 
Off Offensive (Ofensiva Rompecadenas). To reunite our 
nation, we began with a demonstration on the 21st of 
March, the 34th anniversary of the Ponce Massacre. Together 
with our revolutionary example , the Nationalist Party, we 
raised once again the cry of liberty in Puerto Rico. 

|re are many reasons why we chose Ponce. Pecans 
the secohcLJargest city on the island, next to^atitfuan. The 
place where Dbits^edro was born, it is al^oxtflrfiere the Yankees 
have establishe^Ks^emicjJ'-'-'plants, although the 
unemployment is imjJjaJWfi^We have all sectors of our 
society Wvinajitare^^me lumpert»Nqnd workers and also the 
differgjjt-'fScial groups, Afro -PuertftN,^ cans and jibaros. 
lyunified can we break the chains of sla^ 

For the Puerto Rican nation this is another stage in our 
protracted war for liberation. To achieve our liberation we 
need a revolutionary Party, representative of all the people 
with one sole objective, national liberation. 

In that way we will give our largest contribution to the 
other oppressed people's of the world, as the people of 
Vietnam have done for us. 

Liberate Puerto Rico now! 
Venteremos! 



18 



19 



■m^MiiijiAMiM^^ 




ECONOMIC 

AND MILITARY 

STRUGGLE 



On the television, in newspapers, wherever Puerto Ricans 
go, they tell us that money is the key to a good life, that if 
you work hard you'll make enough money. 

But who tells us that money is the key — the ones who 
have the money, who own the televisions, the factories, 
azucareras, the refineries, the hotels, the restaurants, the 
hospitals, and even own the government. We work and sweat 
for $50, $70, $100 a week. We work and the companies 
grow, and the bosses get richer, and we stay the same. And 
whatever we produce the owners sell for a lot more money, 
that's their profit, for doing nothing. We, the people, work 
and they, the capitalists, profit. 

We must begin to demand that all the money and 
factories made from our sweat and blood be returned to us. 
We know that this is the only system where a woman can 
work nine hours in a factory, produce dozens of dresses in 
one day and not go home with enough money to buy herself 
a dress. That's why many of us hate our bosses, and we 
should — they are robbing us. That's why many of us would 
like to, and do, steal the bosses' products, because they 
belong to us. 

If we study history, if we talk to our parents, we will see 
that things were not always this way. 

Capitalism is just one phase of the human race. It has 
existed since the late 1700s, but the human race is probably 
25,000 years old. The whole history of human beings is the 
story of our trying to develop our ability to survive, to have 
food, clothing, shelter, and mental satisfaction. We used our 
hands, feet, and brains to increase our power to survive, to 






produce out of nature, what we needed. First we traveled in 
tribes looking for food. Little by little we settled in one 
place, the men hunting and the women bearing children and 
planting food. As agriculture became more developed, not 
everyone was needed to look for food, so some people could 
do other things. Some farmed, others made clothing, or tools, 
or built homes, and little by little cities developed. Then, 
some began to become more wealthy than others and soon 
enslaved others to work for them — like the Pharoahs of 
Egypt, the Emperors of Japan, or the Aztecs of Mexico. 

Then came the period of feudalism, when there was no 
slavery but people were serfs, worked on the land of one rich 
prince or another. All these periods did not come at the same 
time all over the earth. Some areas, like the African nations 
of Mali, Songhay, or the Biblical kingdoms of Mesopotamia, 
developed faster, or at different times. Then came the period 
of capitalism and of nations with a state and a regular army, 
both working under the employ of the capitalists, who began 
to buy and sell politicians like they bought and sold goods. In 
the 1800s revolutions in France and all of Europe brought 
the rising young businessmen to power against the feudal 
Kings and Queens. Why was it that Europe, a backward and 
barbarian country in the year 1300, rose to conquer the 
world by the year 1900 is hard to say. Maybe it was because 
Europe was sitting on much of the iron needed to build 
factories and had many rivers needed for steam and electric 
power to run those factories With that iron they built the 
guns that conquered the rest of the world in a few hundred 
years. 

As capitalism developed, there was competition between 
them to control the wealth; the little ones were cheated, 
killed, outcompeted by the big ones, who then began to look 
to other countries in the world where they could make 
money. They looked to Latin America, Asia, and Africa, 
trying to find natural resources, cheap labor, and more 

consumers. We call this, when one nation oppresses another 
nation. Imperialism. 

In the 1930s came the world-wide depression. Millions of 



20 



21 



people were out of jobs — capitalism had collapsed because 
of its own faults. In Puerto Rico, the depression meant 
complete hunger and misery. The old type of competitive 
democratic capitalism had failed. A new type of capitalism 
was suggested by one of their own politicians, named Adolf 
Hitler. He put forth fascism, open dictatorship and genocide 
as a solution to the problem. Meanwhile, Roosevelt in north 
amerikkka put forth the "welfare state", the government 
controlling things peacefully for the welfare of the 
businessman. We call this monopoly capitalism. Rexford 
Tugwell was Roosevelt's lacky in Puerto Rico and he together 
with lombriz Muftbz Marfh developed Operation Bootstrap, 
the welfare state idea for Puerto Rico. 

Roosevelt was a left-wing capitalist and Hitler a 
right-winger. These divisions still exist. ISitxon, Reagan (the 
governor of California} and Ferre are right-wing and Lindsay 
(the niayor of New York City), Kennedy, and Munoz Marin 
are left-wingers. Both are enemies of the peoples. 

World War II was a war between left-wing and right-w/tng 
capitalists. But the ones who fought the war are the ones who 
always fight the wars, the poor and oppressed people. The 
capitalist and generals always stay far away from their own 
wars. White the u.s. and its allies fought Germany, in Asia, 
and China, which had been long exploited, was fighting the 
Japanese fascists. Twenty million Chinese were killed by the 
Japanese but China liberated itself and in 1949 emerged as a 
socialist country with 1/4 of the world's population. Since 
then Korea, Vietnam, Cuba have also become socialist, and 
little by little capitalism is dying. Chile and Guinea-Bissau 
and other countries are not far behind. 

We must begin to study economics. We must begin to 
learn how the yankees invaded Puerto Rico destroyed our 
economy and rebuilt another to meet their needs. 

The main capitalist countries are the united states, 
england, france, germany, japan. They are surrounded by the 
2/3 of the world which is starving, homeless, and angry. The 
europeans and yankees are like one big city and the Third 
World is the countryside. They must fight genocidal wars in 

22 



^ 




•: 



the countryside as well as fight against their own internal 
enemies. 

The first front is Indo-China. 

The second front is Palestine. 

Where will the third front be? Puerto Rico? Black 
America? Brazil? India? Meanwhile, these wars are destroying 
northamerikkka internally. A recession in the U.S., Puerto 
Rico, and ^e world is leaving hundreds of thousands out of 
jobs. Layoffs in New Jersey factories, Fajardo sugar centrales, 
Mayaguez refineries, the New York garment center, general 

23 



motors plants, and the California aviation industry. For the 
first time since the depression, workers are looking to 
revolutionaries for the solution to their problems. 

This is just a summary, but it shows that we have much 
to study in economics and world politics. If we are to liberate 
Puerto Rico and control our own destiny, we must study 
how we have been enslaved and how we will release the 
power of the people, through socialist revolution. 

The amerikkkans tell us we can't exist without them. But 
Albania, Israel, Switzerland, are all countries with similar 
populations and area and they exist well. They tell us we 
have no natural resources, but they try to steal 
$3,000,000,000 of copper from the island's center. Another 
deposit of $2,000,000,000 worth of nickel was found in 
Mayaguez, and they are looking for oil in the off-shore areas. 
They tell us we have no food but before they came we grew 
our own food and ate decently and we fished in our own 
waters. Now we eat only canned foods and New England 
codfish. Yes, we can and will be free from the Yankee. 

MILITARY 

People ask how can Puerto Ricans, 2,700,000 on the 
island and 1,500,000 in the united states, possibly hope to 
fight a war of liberation against the united states, 
200,000,000 strong and the most advanced country in the 
world? Our island is 100 miles by 35 miles. The united states 
is 3,000 miles by 1,000 miles. The u.s. is thousands of times 
bigger. 

First, the Young Lords Party and the Puerto Rican 
people do not want war. We would prefer peaceful liberation. 
We would prefer that the yankees left Puerto Rico and gave 
us self-determination in the u.s.a. peacefully. But they refuse. 
Instead, they cover 14% of our land with military bases and 
bombard our islands of Culebras and Vieques. So we have no 
choice but to fight for liberation. The other choice is the 
slow destruction of the Puerto Rican nation into the 51st 
state. 



24 



If they want war, we will fight it on our terms. That 
means first that the liberation war for Puerto Rico will not 
just be fought on the island but also in the u.s.a. Since there 
are Puerto Ricans in every state of the u.s.a. forced to leave 
their homes by the yankee, we will fight wherever we are, 
because the enemy is the same, from Humacao to Aguadilla, 
from Florida to Seattle. 

If there are less than 5,000,000 of us, we will show the 
strength there is in unity. Since we have lived and developed 
close together for 500 years we are more unified as a people. 
If they forced us to work in their factories, we will fight in 
their factories. If they filled our land with military bases, we 
will fight on their bases. If they herded 1,000,000 of us into 
their most important city. New York, then we will fight in 
that city. If they use us to slave in migrant camps and 
factories throughout their east coast, then we will wage war 
on that coast. If they stuck us in barrios isolated and 
oppressed, we will take control of these communities. If they 
have bombers, missiles, modern weapons, and a regular army, 
then we will fight guerilla warfare, with few weapons, gotten 
from them, but using creativity and our own resources. If we 
are a few and they are many, then we will fight a protracted 
war, eating them away little by little, one by one, until they 
either withdraw or are crushed. 

We will always be on the initiative, always fighting to 
win. We have the moral superiority because our people fight 
for freedom, for their homes, and loved ones, while the 
enemy fights for money. 

We only attack when we know we'll win. The enemy 
attacks whenever he can, and many times loses. Our army 
will be made up of free, thinking, men, women, and children 
— a true People's Army. Their reactionary army is made up 
of mostly racist, robot-like men. 

If the U.S. appears strong, it is just a trick. Thirty million 
Black people, 20,000,000 Chicanos and Chicanas, 500,000 
Hawaiians, 500,000 Chinese Americans, 250,000 Japanese 
Americans, and 700,000 Native Americans and millions of 
young and poor white people fight with us. The u.s. is really 
very weak. 

25 



In the rest of the world, with Indo-China, Palestine, and 
Latin America rising up for freedom the amerikkkan army is 
weak and overextended. 

With socialist countries like China, the Soviet Union, 
Cuba, and Korea, watching it, u.s. imperialism can't do 
whatever it wants. So we are sure to win if we maintain 
unity and strength, and if we remember that combined with 
our fighting is the constant education and mobilizing of 
lumpen, workers, and students. 

Guerrilla War, People's War, Protracted War, is the key to 
an underdeveloped people defeating a larger, more 
technologically advanced people. 

COLONIZED 
MENTALITY & 

We are all fighting against an enemy, the Yankee and the 
Puerto Rican lombrices. The one major thing that holds us 
back in our fight to liberate Puerto Ricans and all oppressed 
people is a lack of unity. If we are not united, like a fist, we 
are weaker in our battle. In unity there is strength, and a 
nation divided is a weak nation. We have been divided 
geographically, with one third of the nation on the mainland 
and two thirds on the island. To be stronger we must unite. 
But even this unification will not be enough if we still fight 
against each other. One of the problems that we face is the 
fact that we have been taught to fight against each other. 
Capitalism is a system that forces us to climb over our 
brothers and sisters' backs to get to the top. It is like a race, 
in which the prize is survival, with 500 people in it, and only 
one person is the winner — the one who gets to the finish 
line first, the losers all starve to death. The prize money 
which is equal to life: We fight against each other to live, and 
we are divided into groups that fight against each other. 
These groups are formed out of artificial divisions of race and 

26 



NON- 
CONSCIOUS 
IDEOLOGY 



sex, and social groupings. The struggle between men and 
women, the struggle between lumpens and workers are all 
contradictions among the people. Contradictions among the 
people must be erased in order to form a solid fist, a fighting 
force to destroy the enemy. 

iVIany of these divisions that exist are a result of 
colonization. Puerto r^icans are a colonized people. As a 
result of the oppression suffered for generations and 
generations, first under Spain and then under the 
amerikkkans we all develop a "colonized mentality". The 
colonizers divide us up, teach us to think we are inferior, and 
teach us to fight against each other, because as long as we 
fight against each other we won't deal with our real problems 
— slavery, hunger, and misery. We are brainwashed by the 
newspapers we read, the books they write for us, the 
television, the radio, the schools, and the church, that we 
don't know what our real thoughts are anymore. We are 
afraid to be leaders, because we are taught to be followers. 
We have been told that we are docile so long, that we have 
forgotten that we have always been fighters. We are afraid to 
speak in public because we have been taught not to speak 
out. We are told that we cannot exist without amerikkkans in 
Puerto Rico, and we believe it, even though we know that 
our nation existed for hundreds of years without them. All of 
this brainwashing, this "colonized mentality" holds us back 
from our liberation. If you take 10 rats and lock them up in a 
cage which is only big enough for 5 rats, some of them will 
kill each other and some of them will go insane, just as we 
kill each other in the streets for five dollars, or in a stupid 
argument, and just as we go insane and turn to drugs to 

27 



cover up the ugly reality of our lives. 

We can only unchain our minds from this colonized 
mentality if we learn our true history, understand our 
culture, and work towards unity. 

This colonization is responsible for the racism that exists 
in our nation. We do not see it all the time, and most Puerto 
Ricans believe that we don't have any racism. Most people 
will tell you "we are all Puerto Ricans, we are all different 
colors, none of us are black or white, we are just Puerto 
Ricans." But that doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist. It is 
so deep that we just don't see it anymore. The darker 
members of every Puerto Rican family have felt it all their 
lives. We have been so brainwashed that it has become 
unconscious. The Young Lords Party calls this 
"non-conscious ideology." We believe that Black is bad and 
ugly and dirty, that kinky hair is "pelo malo," we call Black 
Puerto Ricans names like prieto, mouUeto, and cocolo. We 
are not proud that our ancestors were slaves so many or us 
say we are "spanish" or "castillians." Our birth certificate 
says white even if the reality when we look in the mirror is 
very dark. jj^g Spanish treated the slaves as if 

they vtsrs animals, and none of us want to believe that 
Qur ancestors were animals, so 

we "non-consciously" reject the Blackness we are all a part 
of. All Puerto Ricans have a Black heritage, in our culture, in 
the way Spanish is spoken, in the blood which flows through 
our veins. Having slaves for ancestors is not something to be 
ashamed of; one should be proud to know that one's 
ancestors were strong enough to live through the horrors of 
slavery, strong because of the rich and beautiful history of 

Africa. We are taught that Africans were savages, and this 
makes us non-consciously ashamed of our past. We must 
study true African history, of the civilizations of Mali and 
Songhay, for this history is part of our history. The Young 
Lords Party is a Party of Afro-Americans and Puerto Ricans. 
Both have the same roots in the past, similar culture and the 
same types of "colonized mentality." Because of the Black 
Power and Black Pride movement inside of the united states, 
American Blacks are now able to hold their heads up high 



28 



''The chains that 
have been taken 
off slaves' bodies 

are put bade on 
their minds." 

DAVID PEREZ 

and be proud of their past. It is necessary that we understand 
and study Puerto Rican history, much of which is African 
history so that we can move on ridding ourselves of the 
barriers that exist between Afro-boricua and jibaro. 

We should not be afraid to criticize ourselves about 
racism. We are all racists, not because we want to be, but 
because we are taught to be that way, to keep us divided, 
because it benefits the capitalist system. And this applies to 
racism towards Asians, other Brown people, and towards 
white people. White people are not the oppressor — 
capitalists are. We will never have socialism until we are free 
of these chains on our mind. 

The other way in which "non-conscious ideology" divides 
our people is through machismo, or male chauvinism. We 
have said for a long time that sisters and brothers should be 
equal in the struggle, that men and women should work 
together and that Puerto Rican men should not oppress their 
wives, mothers, and daughters anymore. When we said that 
machismo is fascism, we were saying something that was true, 
but we couldn't understand the reasons why men became 
uptight when they were accused of machismo. Brothers could 
not understand why some of the ways that they treat sisters 
are wrong. Brothers did not know how to act differently than 
their fathers and grandfathers have always acted toward 
women. Is it all right to rap to a sister? Should I give a 
woman a complement? Is it machismo if I want to protect a 
woman? Because we did not understand why there is this 
division we could not explain well enough, all we could say 
was machismo was bad, male chauvinism is wrong, you are 
oppressing your sisters. 



29 



On the other hand, we c.iticize sisters for being passive 
and docile. We wi nt womeii to become leaders, to speak out 
in public, to stop being shy ?v6 timid, to learn to be strong. 
We tell sisters to change, the way our mothers have taught us 
to be, the way our mothers mothers' have always been. And 
again, we did not completely understand why our sisters had 
difficulty in understanding what passivity is, and how to 
change. Sisters still volunteered to cook and sew, to take care 
of children. Sisters still felt more comfortable letting the men 




Palestinian Women's Militia 
Jordan, July 1970 

be the leaders. Sisters don't like other women to be leaders 
either. We did not understand why women constantly get 
into arguments with each other. When a woman is strong and 
a leader she is considered to ba a "bitch." When a man is 



3n 



strong he is a "good leader." But why? 

We have realized that the division of the sexes between 
male and female have existed for such a long time, that all 
societies have accepted the "fact" that there is a difference 
between men and women. We know that the only differences 
are biological — women have a womb and ovaries and they 
make eggs, and men manufacture sperm. 

All societies developed around the first oppression; man 
used woman as a worker, to reproduce, to make babies, while 
men were free to do other things. This ideology of a division 
of the sexes is called "sexism," just like the ideology of the 
division of the races is called "racism." Both are 
"non-conscious ideologies," From the simple fact that 
women produce babies and men didn't, developed all sorts 
of ideas that women were a certain type of human and men 
another type of human. 

What is a man? What is a woman? "Non-consctously" we 
believe a man is strong, aggressive, hairy, bad, decisive, hard, 
cold, firm, intelligent. "Non-consciously" a woman is 
weak, timid, smooth, soft-spoken, scatter-brained, soft, 
warm, dumb, and loving. Both of these sets of descriptions 
are a result of the way we have trained "non-consciously." 
From the time a baby is born it is taught by its parents and 
by society to be a "man" or a "woman." If it grew up alone, 
with no outside influences what would its personality be 
like? Just because it has a womb, would it be weak? If it had 
a penis, would it be aggressive and strong? No. These traits of 
personality are part of the way we are taught to be. 

A little boy wears blue. A little girl wears pink. A little 
boy is given trains, trucks, toy soldiers and baseball bats to 
play with. Little girls get dolls and suzie homemaker sets. 
Litde boys wear dungarees and can play rough and get dirty. 
Little girls wear dresses and stay at home near their mothers 
to play and watch them cook. When a little boy talks about 
what he wants to be when he grows up he dreams of being a 
fireman, a doctor, a lawyer, a cabdriver, a revolutionary. A 
little girl can dream, but everyone knows what she will be — 
a mother, a housewife. Anything else is strange and 
temporary. Any other job she has must be something for her 
to do part-time until she can quit and stay home. If she has 



31 



to work she then has two jobs — the main one is the home. 
Women cannot exist in this society without a "man to 
protect them." Women who have no men are forced to make 
it in a world that doesn't accept them. Welfare mothers are 
women with no men. Women compete against each other to 
"get a man." So we don't just have division between men and 
women, sexism divides women against each other. 

By the time a baby is six months old it has already been 
treated differently if it is a boy than if it is a girl, and acts 
and responds differently. Baby boys are more active. Baby 
girls cry more. 

Because Puerto Rican society is structured in a sexist 
way, it is very difficult to fight against things that we are not 
aware of. If we want to change this society and develop a 
new one that no longer oppresses anyone we must try to 
eliminate the sexism that we "non-consciously" retain in our 
rViinds. We must become instead of men and women — new 
humans, revolutionary people. 

Men should learn to cook, to care for children, to be 
open to cry and show emotions because these are all good 
things — needed to build a new society. Women must learn 
to be leaders, to speak out, to use tools and weapons, because 
our army must be made up of brothers and sisters. One of the 
ways that brothers can figure out if they are oppressing 
sisters is to ask themselves if they would treat another 
brother the same way. If you lived with another brother, 
would he always cook the meals and do the housework. If 
you lived with another brother and friends came over would 
you do all the talking? Sisters can judge their passivity the 
same way. How would you repair machines if there were no 
men around? Who would protect you if you were attacked? 
We must think about all the ways we have been brainwashed 
unconsciously and fight against it. It is a hard struggle, 
because everything around us is sexist — the books we read, 
the t.v. shows we watch, the institutions of our society. We 
will never«be free until we have broken all the chains of our 
"non-consciously ideology" and our colonized mentalities. 



32 



THE PARTY & 
THE STATE 

We are a colony of the yankee. We have been kicked and 
pushed around, and forced to work for the lowest wages 
while we do the hardest work. All major decisions that 
concern Puerto Rico and our people are made by racists in 
Washington, by crooked politicians who represent their 
bosses, the capitalists that own the factories and tourist trade 
of the island. One third of our people were conned into 

coming to the united states so that they could divide and 
control us better. We are programmed or mis-educated to do 
whatever the yankees desire. If they say Puerto Rico should 
be a state, we are Supposed to bow our heads down like good 
Puerto Ricans or spies and agree. 

We are allowed the privilege to vote for some of our own 
oppressors like badillo or hernandez-colon. Soon they think 
they will give Puerto Ricans the "privilege" to vote for the 
pig president of the united states. By keeping us from coming 
together they have been able to remain in control. Whenever 
we make attempts to liberate our people, they use whatever 
force they have available to prevent it from happening. When 
the Nationalist Party was becoming successful in educating 
the people, they were crushed, by having their leadership 
jailed and assassinated, and they succeeded in terrorizing the 
people. 

Now the Young Lords Party is becoming the force to 
organize the nation for a struggle for national liberation, a 
struggle where the whole people will be organized to fight 
against the colonizer. We are the Party which through our 
practice, has raised the consciousness of Puerto Ricans in the 
U.S. to the point that "Viva Puerto Rico Libre" has become a 
household word and "Power to the People" is replacing the 
unhappy good-byes. We have come to understand that 
without a revolutionary Party based on scientific analysis, 

33 



we will not be able to gain our national liberation. A Party is 
necessary because there has to be a leading body to give 
direction. The revolution is not made by a bunch of 
individuals running around doing their thing. Our problem 
has been that we have too many individuals and little groups 
doing their thing and forgetting that the struggle for national 
liberation is our thing. What we need are leaders thalj come 
from the poor people and who place in their hearts the 
interests of the poor people and oppressed above anything 
else, and who are prepared to die for the liberation of the 
people, struggle is for "power", power to determine the 
direction in which we and our people move. That power 
means a struggle for control of the churches, hospitals, 
schools, police departments, political system. Any struggle 
that builds the consciousness of the people to control their 
institutions, helps the national liberation. A struggle that 
raises consciousness abo ut the reactionary and corrupt 
commonwealth or amerikkkan state and government is good. 
While we fight to control and destroy the old government 
organization, at the same time is being formed the new 
people's government which grows as we fight. This concept 
we refer to as the Party and the State. 

We recognize that a Party has to exist to give political 
direction (revolutionary theory), that it has to show people 
how to organize themselves, how to move against their 
landlord, a government agency, a factory boss whatever, and 
how to build organizations that last (revolutionary 
organization), and the Party also supplies revolutionary 
examples of what to do, for example, when we seized the 
People's Church, or Lincoln Hospital, or the National 
Students' Conference of September 23. This revolutionary 
Party is composed of the most active, most politically 
conscious, disciplined and committed revolutionaries in the 
nation. We understand that the Party will be a minority in 
number compared with the masses. But because we serve and 
protect and are one with the interests of the people, we 
represent the majority. The Party cadre (members) are all 
leaders of the battle of the people, and will coordinate the 
national liberation struggle. 



3A 



We see that there have to exist other organizations which 
we call People's Organizations. These organizations are 
massed based, try to get as many people as possible involved 
in struggle. They are not cadre organizations, like the Party. 
They have a specific are of work to control; for example, 
student organizing, workers organizing, community 
organizing. We think as many people's organizations as 
possible should be formed. These organizations work closely 
with the Party and have Party members in them, or working 
with them. We see this method as preparing the revolutionary 
state, the People's government, in th at the people are 
braining themselves how to run their own society. 

As the People's organizations grow, there will then be 
two powers in the Puerto Rican nation-the power of the 
reactionary present government, police, and businessmen, 
and the power of the poor people, people's organizations, 
and Party. These two cannot exist peacefully side by side. 
There will be conflict until one destroys the other. And as 
the people gain in strength, the revolutionary movement, 
together with the People's Army, will destroy the old state 
and set up a new revolutionary government. 

Many people ask, who will make this revolution? 
Everybody? The Young Lords Party feels most of our people 
would live better in a socialist society. But there are two 
classes of people that will fight harder for the new society, 
because they have been most oppressed in this present 
society. The lumpen-worker alliance is the name we use for 
the two classes who will lead the revolution. It means that 
according to our analysis of Puerto Rican society, the two 
most important parts of Puerto Rican society are the 
lumpens and the workers. The lumpens are the prostitutes, 
drug addicts, welfare mothers, hustlers, the street people, 
unemployable because the system has no jobs for them. They 
don't want jobs because they know already how much the 
sys tem makes off of them. They are the prisoners in the jails, 
all political prisoners, colonized and messed over by the 
system. They come out of school into no jobs, no future, 
nothing but drugs, wine, gambling. They try to find 
something worthwhile in their lives and only find racism and 
greed, or a pimp ready to make money off of them. 

35 



The workers, the majority of the population, work five 
and six days a week for a lousy $100 more or less, they work 
in hosp itals, post offices, trains, and buses, in restaurants and 
hotels, in construction, in factories big and small. They are 
the housewives and working women oppressed at honie or on 
the job, who have nothing to do but come home to bills, 
credit, T V , and beer, who will never get anyplace though 
they have lots of dreams. The lumpen understand the 
oppression best, that is why the y and the students (who 
come mostly from petty-bourgeois or middle class) are the 
first to get involved. The lumpen also form the hard core 
fighting force, once they are disciplined, because the 
individualism of the streets is still very strong with them. The 
workers are usually a little more conservative, because they 
have at least an apartment, even if there is no heat, and a car, 
even if it's mortgaged, and a job, even if it pays nothing, and 
they are afraid to lose their little bit. But they also have the 
most power. With their labor they built the society, and with 
a strike they can paralyze the whole island or a city. It is 
from the labor of the workers that the capitalist gets all the 
goods he sells. The workers know how to run the factories, 
the hospitals, the schools, the restaurants. They will run, 
along with the lumpen and students, and a small group of 
professionals, the new society, but first they must be 
educated to join with the lumpens and students to wage the 
war. Lumpens on drugs and having nothing, are divided from 
workers who fear getting robbed by them. Workers who have 
a few crumbs, are afraid the lumpen will steal it, so the two 
classes fight each other. The duty of the Party and the 
People's Organizations is to unite the two classes into a 
fighting force, the main force of the revolution. 

**Let me say at the risk 
of seeming ridiculous tiiat 
a true revolutionary is 
guided by great feelings 

of love*' CHE GUEVARA 

36 



THE PARTY 

AND THE 
INDIVIDUAL 

The ideology of the Party is the framework from which 
we move. Evelrything we do relates to the principles on this 
paper. Ideology doesn't only talk about what the Party 
believes but also where the Party sees itself going. On the 
basis of those prfnciples and Weas we do our work among 
.the people. We call this practice. 

As the Party grows and develops, we are going to be 
developing a bigger more defined ideology and we will be 
faced with a continuous problem; how do we keep building 
that Party of our people that will put the ideas into practice. 
It is no good to have an ideology if all you can do is talk and 
not practice. Tn order to be involved in good practice, two 
things must de dealt with; first on the level of organization, 
and then on the level of the individual. 

On the level of the Party, we ask ourselves, how do 
we develop the type of organization that can lead our people 
in a liberation movement? How do we structure it? How do 
we run the Party? We must remember that the structure is 
not for any one part of our people, it must suit the needs of 
all our people-lumpen, worker, student. Also, it must help 
develop people into good revolutionaries. 

The Party is divided into levels of leadership and 
ministries. The levels of leadership are the branch, the 
leadership of the branch, and the leaders and coordinators of 
the Party in general. The ministries. Defense, Staff, Field, 
Information, Economics, and Education are specific fields o' 
responsibility assigned to party members. The level of 
leadership is the army that does the organizing of the people, 
and the ministry is the function that aides the Party. 

37 



We have learned the hard way, through trial and error 
some of the problems involved. It is very important for parts 
of the Party to communicate with the whole. If this is not 
done, there will be no unified Party. Communication is done 
in many ways, regular reports, telephone, mail, personal 
visits. One of the most important things besides 
communicating is education. Without ^a structured 
educational system in the Party it is very hard for the Party 
to organize all sectors of the people. It is also hard for any 
individual to develop without political education. 

Two of the cores of the Party are the general membership 
meeting, where democratic discussion and decision-making 
are done, and criticism - self-criticism, the key to Party 
democracy. The structure is still changing, but we should 
never be afraid of changing to progress. 

On the level of the individual the question comes up, how 
do we train cadre? What is cadre; How do we develop 
individuals from different sectors of the society at the same 
time? In this field the Party went through many changes. We 
were organizing high school students, lumpens, college 
students, workers, and other sectors at the same time and we 
had to fight the bad traits that each group brings with it, like 
the impatience of high school students, the individualism of 
lumpen, the conservatism of workers, and the intellectualism 
of college students. 

What is a cadre? A cadre Is a person in the Party who has 
gone through a change in himself or herself from just another 

Puerto Rican to leader of the people, a revolutionary. This 
change does not take place right away. First, a person 
becomes political, then they join the Party, then, after a 
period of time, they become a leader of the people. But it 
isn't as simple as that. There is a big change in the whole life 
of the individual. This change can be broken into two parts. 
First, losing the bad traits from the class they originated 
from, like individualism, machismo, sexism, racism 
intellectualism, superiorities and inferiorities. This is called 
"de-classizing". Once you become a cadre of the Young 
Lords Party, you are no longer a student, or a lumpen 

38 



street-person, or a worker. You have that background, but 
what you are is able to organize best that class' that you 
came from because you understand it best, have dealt with a 
lot of the negative parts of it, and have recognized the good 
parts. 

Second, is the big change that the individual has in 
getting rid of the scars that capitalism has left in the person's 
mind , like liberalism (not doing something you know is 
right), pessimism, and the biggest of all, colonized mentality. 
Colonized mentality is the effects of oppression. Because we 
are taught that a spic is a lower form of human, we end up 
believing it and acting as if it were true. We shy away from 
responsibility, we think negative, we don't think we can learn 
and then wre takeut on ourselves, persecuting ourselves and 
fighting with others. We call this change, "de-colonizing". 
This doesn't mean that before yiu become a Lord, you have 
completely succeeded in getting rid of bad traits-that takes 
years-but that you have made an effort and are succeeding. 
The change in the individual of de-classtzing and 
de-colonizing goes on at the same time and both complement 
each other. The developing of the Party should be seen as 
preparing internally for the prolonged war demands 

constant development and change. 




39 



ANALYSIS OF 

PUERTO RICAN 

SOCIETY 

In May, 1970, the Young Lords Party studied the 
divisions in our people, divisions that make us weak. We call 
this the "analysis of Puerto Rican Society." This is how we 
are divided in classes. Every Puerto Rican fits into one of 
these classes. Your class is determined by how you make 
your living, how you survive everyday in this crazy 
amerikkkan-controlled world. 

Industrial Workers : The majority of the population are 
workers. We work in factories and in government 
employment, in sweat shops and petroleum refineries, in 
construction and restaurants. We make $40, $60, $100 a 
week and hardly stay alive while our bosses make hundreds 
of thousands off our hard work. We don't like to get into 
trouble, because we might lose our job, or our project or 
casserio apartment, or our children might suffer. We are the 
housewives and working wome, who are oppressed not just 
on the job but at home by our own husbands, who beat us or 
mistreat us because they don't know any better. We are 
afraid of the lumpen, because they rob us; but we know that 
this is the result of the system that forces them into drugs 
and prostitution. They are our brothers and sisters, 
compatriots, oppressed by the same enemy. We will join with 
them to free Puerto Rico, and after the yankees are kicked 
out, we will take over and run the factories for the good of 
all the people. 

Lumpen: Are men and women who are unemployable, on 
drugs, prostitutes, welfare mothers, people in jail. Most of us 
never had a chance for a decent life. We are young, poor, 
there were never any jobs waiting for us, there was no future, 
so we tjrned to drugs and crime. The society calls us 



AO 






worthless, good for nothing. But all we are is oppressed 
human beings. We rob from our own people because we're 
prisoners, of drugs, of our conditions. We don't bring the 
drugs into the community, the businessmen and government 
di to keep us pacified. We are waking up and uniting as a 
class with the rest of our people to destroy the real 
enemy-- the yankees. 

Agricultural Workers: We are the last of the campesinos, 
who had our lands bought up or stolen by the amerikkams, 
who were tricked intJ slave-like migrant labor and shuttled 
back and forth from the u.s. to Puerto Rico, to pick 
tomatoes or other cr jps. The Petty-bourgeois are people who 
don't work for anyone else or who work with their mind? not 
their hands, but who also don't employ anyone or any other 
people. In other words, they live off their own labor. There 
are three main types of petty -bourgeois: 

Bodeqeros: We own our own store or businesses. We have 
anywhere from 1 to 5 people who work for us. We make 
enough to live on if we work hard ourselves. But now the 
amerikkkan chain stores or the Cuban gusanos are running us 
out of business. If we don't joint the other oppressed classes, 
we wilt soon be destroyed by the amerikkkans and Cuban 
gusanos (exiles). 

nan j-^al[ | ^i;t f ^ pd Traitors: These are the few Puerto Rican 
capitalists, like Ferre, and the big traitors, like Sanchez Vile 
lla, Badillo, Hernandez Colon, alt the politicians and others 
whose lives are tied up with the amerikkkan occupation. 
There are also the thousands of Cuban pigs, who were kicked 
out of Cuba by Fidei. We will kick all of them out of Puerto 
Rico to establish a free, independent, and socialist nation. 

The lumpen and workers, allied together, will lead the 
revolution. The students, bodegeros, and professionals will 
join with them. Some professionals, vendepatrias and 
capitalists will be against us , but in the long run, we will win 
and Puerto Rico will be free. 



^1 



University Students: We are mo | ^ ^00° 08 7 802 5 2 
families are 'jwell off. Some of us, though, come from poor 
families, but at the university they are working on our minds 
trying to make us think middle class. They want us to join 
white amerikkkan society. We will fight against that. We are 
Puerto Rica lis imd we will determine our own lives. We will 
use these skill s to help our own people, not t> oppress them. 

Professionals : These are the professors, engineers, 
doctors, directors of poverty programs, middle level 
manaqement of amerikkkan. They are well off, but 
the colonialism and racism of the Yankees always reminds 
them that they are spies , not gringos. Some of them will join 
with the people in the national liberation war. Many of them, 
though, will fight against us, and will be alcahuettes of the 
amerikkkans. 

Source

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