The New Puerto Rican Resistance: Luma pa la Basura
Most Boricuas remain loyal to our Afro-Native American roots despite double colonialism and white supremacy trying to destroy what we have left of our culture and our dignity. The United States government has longed denied Puerto Ricans basic human rights and dignity. Yet, we remain resilient. We have yet to catch a break. Having been hit by Hurricane Fiona, a month and half ago, I can’t fathom why Luma hasn’t been thrown to the waste side. Their corporate leadership failures put profits over people. As a result, a number of elderly and disabled Puerto Rican people died. How many more of us must we lose?
Throughout all 530 years of double colonization, any Boricuas reading this, our mixed-race DNA helped us to survive. We are resilient beyond imagination. We are the most educated American ethnic community per capita; we produce the most PHD and MDs. We descend from the Borinqueneers who are the most decorated and lethal war regiment on the planet. Our DNA has survived ancestral genocide, white supremacy, religious indoctrination, racism, torture, and endless wars. Our tiny little island has put us constantly in the cross fires of colonial powers in the East; that is until the United States invaded. We can never catch a break. For over 5 centuries we’ve been fighting to exist and maintain our Native American culture. Our pasteles de yuca, maracas, Quinepas, barbacoa, canoas, bomba, la plena dances and even huracáns are all small pieces of our Native American heritage. I see the way we protest Luma and any other form of resistance and we all use Afro-Native American forms of resistance. I’ll be quite honest, the Puerto Rican Afro-Indigenous Resistance culture makes me most proud to be Boricua. As a human rights leader, Puerto Rican resistance culture is always at the forefront of my forms of protest. That’s how loyal I am to our roots.
I know so many other Puerto Ricans who feel the same. We call each other Boricuas. We refuse to identify as white or hispanic due to the racist connotations. Throughout history; we’ve denied the collective white identity. I looked at the draft cards for all of my grandfathers and great-grandfathers. I noticed all but one wrote down Boricua as their race. When I began researching the history of the Borinqueneers, my relationship with my grandfather immediately clicked. As a young girl growing up in the Puerto Rican diáspora of New York; he would always tell me we are Boricua. I didn’t fully understand why until my ancestry.com research left me asking questions, “Why did the Borinqueneers use Boricua as their race on draft cards?”
I went down the whirlwind rabbit hole of reading the history of the Borinqueneers while simultaneously connecting history to my real life experience. My maternal grandfather rejected the name “Hispanic” or “white” as a child I was confused as to why. I knew Boricua meant we were native to Puerto Rico and I believed he wanted me to be connected to the island despite the fact that I was being raised by white America. On my Borinqueneer investigation my eyes and heart opened and melted when my life and history intersected.
The Borinqueneers were originally named the Hispanic regiment. The U.S. Army intended to segregate black and white Puerto Ricans by color. The U.S. was a young country. Puerto Rico had been invaded 300 years before the U.S. even existed. When the U.S. invaded in the late 1800s and started drafting Puerto Ricans for war in the early 1900s, they were in for a rude awakening when the Borinqueneers refused to respond or engage in being called Hispanic. The origin of the name is inherently racist. It was intended to strip us of our Native American identity. Hispanic was supposed to be the name for white-skinned Puerto Ricans who spoke Spanish to segregate them from the darker-skinned Puerto Ricans. It was meant to identify them as Europeans who spoke Spanish and tie white Puerto Ricans to Spain. The U.S. Army intended to mix white-skinned Puerto Ricans with white Americans. Anyone who’s Puerto Rican knows all of our family members are different skin colors but at the same time we’re cousins and siblings. That’s the power of our multi-racial identity. When the Borinqueneers found this out they boycotted by writing Boricua on their draft cards.
Boricua is the Native American name of our tribe. The world knows us as Taínos, a mistake Christopher Columbus made that made its way in to U.S. textbooks. We remain calling ourselves by our original tribal name. The Borinqueneers did this to ensure they would stay together as a regiment. As a result of the white Boricuas boycotting along side the Afro-Indigenous Boricuas, they became known as the 65th regiment and were named the Borinqueneers to honor our Native American tribal name. This is why my grandfather never wanted me to identify as white or hispanic; he wanted me to honor and respect what he fought for which is our Native American identity. He wanted to ensure my loyalties were never lost despite me being born in New York.
As I have communicated in other articles, Puerto Rico has always been my second home. I grew up between New York and Puerto Rico because all of my grandparents lived on the island. When I moved to Puerto Rico in 2020, I was looking forward to the opportunity to deeply connect to my heritage and experience daily life on the island. That quickly shifted when I realized how unnecessarily hard living in Puerto Rico is.
The insanely high sales tax on items that are native to Puerto Rico is shocking. The Jones Act is economic exploitation of Puerto Ricans, followed by the gentrification of Puerto Rico along with tax breaks given to U.S. citizens like Logan Paul who drive go carts on our beaches where critically endangered turtles reside. Then they trash our local icons like Bad Bunny not realizing what he represents and what he does for us because they don’t speak our language so apagón means nothing to them and their in home generators and multiple properties means they flee the island when we are left to suffer.
These issues are systemic. The catch of double colonization is the use of religion as a tool to manipulate people to vote against their own interest and vote in favor of the elites. This political trick as gone on since the adoption of religion. This is why Puerto Ricans keep voting in PNP (Puerto Rico’s Republican Party) which is controlled by white-Christian nationalist Republicans who don’t care about Puerto Ricans. They’ve been in power close to a decade and Puerto Rico’s electric grid, school system, and wages are in desperate condition. Yet, real estate profits for political elites is at an all time high and native Puerto Ricans are being forced out of their towns and villages.
It’s time we come to a reckoning as Puerto Ricans. We have the most educated women in the U.S. who are fit to lead. There are political parties like Victoria Ciudadana who are native Puerto Ricans who want to address the issues our islands and people face. Heck, even the Democratic Party is a better political alliance for Puerto Ricans. The Republican Party has been hijacked by white Christian nationalist which are religious extremists. We know from history that religious extremists politics always leads to white supremacy patriarchy. We’ve had enough of that. 1,000 schools in Puerto Rico have been shut down from the Trump Administration until present. Our children are losing out as a result. Is this what we want for the future generation of Puerto Rican girls and boys?
We must re-think how we move forward. That first step: Getting Luma off of the island. That has to be done strategically. We have to move to solar energy. Otherwise we’ll just trade in Luma for another predatory company searching for profits at the expense of Puerto Rican lives. Solar energy presents a path of liberation; its renewable, clean, and affordable. Everything our islands need. It moves away from nuclear energy which causes cancer and radiation. It also provided energy independence. Luma pa la basura must be more than just getting rid of Luma. It must be another form of Puerto Rican resistance.
If we are going to truly honor our Puerto Rican heritage we must have clean energy we can independently source from our endlessly sunny skies. Energy independence must be the top of mind. This is something the republican oil oligarchy would never support for Puerto Rico. There is no chance for independence if Puerto Ricans don’t have energy independence. It’s the first step towards liberation. The largest hurdle Puerto Ricans have is the affinity to voting in favor of politicians who claim to be religious Christians or Catholics. Are political lies worth Puerto Rican lives?
How many more of us must die? How many more of us must get displaced? How many more of us have to live in less than dignifying standards? How many more of us must lose our multicultural identity? How many more of us have to get harmed? We can break the chains of colonization; we have that power within us. Electing progressive Puerto Ricans is our opportunity to finally move forward. Our lives and culture is at stake.
There’s a congressional election on the horizon. If our only link to Washington D.C. is Republicans – Puerto Ricans will not live in dignity. White Christian Nationalist classify Puerto Ricans as undesirables. The same way Luma takes over a month to restore electricity is a telling future to how our relationship with Washington D.C. will play out if Puerto Ricans keep voting along religious lines and against our own interests. White nationalism is not the avenue to liberation and power. The Great Puerto Rican resistance is. That means demanding what is rightfully ours.
Luma pa la basura is about standing up to the white supremacist patriarchy and defending our Native American roots. We’ve done it before; now it’s up to our generation to make the same bold statements our grandparents and ancestors have made. Now, it’s our turn!
