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PUERTO RICAN RESISTANCE
EDUCATION GUIDE
TEMPORAL
The MoCP is supported by Columbia College Chicago, the MoCP Advisory Board, the Museum Council, individuals, and private and corporate foundations. The 2019–2020 exhibition season is generously sponsored by the Illinois Arts Council Agency, the Efroymson Family Fund, and the Philip and Edith Leonian Foundation. Temporal is partially supported by a grant from the Office of Academic Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Columbia College Chicago.
Mari B. Robles López,
Paro Nacional, julio 24, 2019
INTRODUCTION
Temporal: Puerto Rican Resistance explores Puerto Rico’s contemporary history as a United States
unincorporated territory. The exhibition traces the continued impact of three recent major events: the
enactment of the US federal law titled the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability
Act (PROMESA) in 2016, the US response to Hurricane María’s landfall on the island in 2017, and the
mass protests in July 2019 that forced the governor’s resignation.
Temporal, which roughly translates to “storm,” takes its name from a Puerto Rican plena song. Plena,
a style of music with Afro-Caribbean origins dating back to the early 1900s, has been referred to as
the “sung newspaper” of the Puerto Rican people and is often incorporated into protest chants on the
island. The exhibition follows the storytelling style of this traditional Puerto Rican musical genre, show-
casing the documentation of protests, life during and after María, and the art of the resistance.
Temporal is organized by MoCP curatorial fellow for diversity in the arts Dalina Aimée Perdomo Álvarez.
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Dennis M. Rivera Pichardo, Last night without power, Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, July 12, 2018
FEATURED ARTISTS
Erika P. Rodríguez
Puerto Rican, b. 1988
Mari B. Robles López
Puerto Rican, b. 1993
Christopher Gregory-Rivera
Puerto Rican, b. 1989
Eduardo Martínez
Puerto Rican, b. 1974
Adriana Parrilla
Puerto Rican, b. 1983
SUPAKID
Puerto Rican
Ojos Nebulosos
Puerto Rican, b. 1995
Rogelio Baéz Vega
Puerto Rican, b. 1974
Dennis M. Rivera Pichardo
Puerto Rican, b. 1988
Edra Soto
Puerto Rican, b. 1971
Natalia Lassalle-Morrillo
Puerto Rican
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1954 Four Puerto Rican Nationalists shot semi-automatic pistols off in a balcony in the House of Representatives chamber of the United States Capitol as representatives were debating a bill on immigration. Five representatives were injured but all recovered. The action was to protest the US colonialism over the island and to call for independence.
1985 Massive floods caused by a tropical wave result in the deadliest landslide on record in North America, killing 130 people and causing approximately $125 million in damage.
2005 Independence leader Filiberto Ojeda is murdered by the FBI.
1957 Ley de la Mordaza (the Gag Law) was repealed based on the law being considered a vi- olation of freedom of speech under both Puerto Rican and United States’ constitutions.
1978 Police murder two pro- independence activists on Cerro Maravilla Mountain.
2000 Sila María Calderón Serra is elected—Puerto Rico’s first female governor.
2019 — 2020 A series of damaging earthquakes swarm Puerto Rico, crumbling homes and businesses.
1998 Approximately 500, people participate in a two- day general strike endorsed by over 50 unions in protest of a plan the government made to privatize the Puerto Rico Telephone Company. The strike cause malls, hospitals, banks, and public offices to close, bringing awareness to then Governor Pedro Rosselló’s attempts to privatize many services on the island and threatening worker’s rights.
2010 University of Puerto Rican students protest budget cuts, tuition increases, and the proposed privatization of the school. The strike caused the school to close for 80 days.
2016 The Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) was put into law in attempts to restructure Puerto Rico’s debt. While intended to provide a path forward to manage finances, many see PROMESA as a move that has further stripped agency from Puerto Rico as the law gives power to a Fiscal Control Board, appointed by and reporting to the President of the United States. Additionally, PROMESA allowed for the federal minimum wage to drop to $4.25 per hour for workers in Puerto Rico under the age of 25.
2019 People unite in mass protest to demand the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló. The protests—initially led by a group known as the Colectiva Feminista en Construcción— began after two top members of his administration were indicted on charges of federal corruption and a series of text messages were released with language that was derogato- ry towards women and mocking those who suffered after Hurricane María. The governor’s resigned two weeks after on August 2, 2019.^1
- Romero, Simon, Frances Robles, Patricia Mazzei, and Jose A. Del. “15 Days of Fury: How Puerto Rico’s Government Collapsed.” The New York Times. The New York Times, July 27, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/27/us/ puerto-rico-protests-timeline.html.
1970 Antonia Martínez Lagares—a 20-year-old student at the University of Puerto Rico—is killed by police while criticizing police violence at a student protest. This became a turning point in the escalat- ing tensions between the government, university, and student demonstrators.
1999 The US Navy kills a Puerto Rican security guard while setting off test bombings on the US military training base on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. This sparks historical protests, causing President Clinton to remove the training base in 2003.
2017 The category five storm, Hur- ricane María, devastates the islands of Puerto Rico, Domi- nica, and St. Croix, becoming the worst recorded natural disaster in the history of the island, killing 3,059 people and costing an estimated $91.6 billion in damage.
Puerto Rican nationalist Os- car López Rivera is released from prison after 35 years, having been convicted on federal charges of seditious conspiracy to overthrow US authority over Puerto Rico. His sentence was commuted by President Obama.
A few months later, Hurricane Georges—a category four storm—crosses the entire island, resulting in $2 billion in damage and killing eight people.
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PLENAS
AND PROTEST
Plena in contemporary Puerto Rico is nearly always present in protests, functioning as an unofficial
soundtrack to resistance movements. This exhibition follows in the storytelling style of plena folk music
with each gallery referencing specific songs. The curator used the bookPlenas: 12 Grabados de Lorenzo
Homar y Rafael Tufiño (1953) and its companion muralLa Plena (1952–1954) by Rafael Tufiño as
conceptual inspiration for the exhibition. As the mural demonstrates, the threat of a storm looms over
everything, always complicating existing social and infrastructural problems.
For examples of la plena, please listen to the playlist created for this exhibition by Dalina Aimée Perdomo Álvarez.
Rafael Tufiño, La Plena, 1952-1954, collection of the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan
- Temporal (Storm)
- Cortaron a Elena (They Stabbed Elena)
- Tintorera del Mar (Shark of the Sea)
- Fuego, Fuego, Fuego (Fire, Fire, Fire)
KEY THEME
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THE US RESPONSE
TO HURRICANE MARÍA
Hurricane María struck Puerto Rico in September of 2017, destroying the power grid and leaving
1.5 million people without electricity and water. The US government was criticized for not sending
enough aid to restore services to the island as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
was depleted of funding and supplies from storms on the US Virgin Islands two weeks prior. 2 Further
complicating the issue, the US government hired a small contractor based in Montana, Whitefish Energy,
to oversee the restoration of the grid at inflated costs, depleting the budget, delaying progress, and
contributing to additional deaths of an estimated 3,290 people.^3 Full power was not restored to the
island until August 2018—nearly eleven months after the storm.
KEY THEME
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- Robles, Frances. “FEMA Was Sorely Unprepared for Puerto Rico Hurricane, Report Says.” The New York Times. The New York Times, July 12, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/us/fema-puerto-rico-maria.html.
- “The Disappearing Schools of Puerto Rico.” The New York Times. The New York Times, September 12, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/12/magazine/ puerto-rico-schools-hurricane-maria.html.
Erika P. Rodríguez, Parranda, Dec. 16, 2017
MARI B. ROBLES LOPEZ
PUERTO RICAN, B. 1993
EDRA SOTO
PUERTO RICAN, B. 1971
Mari B. Robles López merges found objects with her
photojournalist practice. By printing photographs on FEMA
tarps, pots and pans used in recent noise protests, she
displays documentation of protests and Hurricane María in
a way that removes the images from a news media context
and transforms them into sculptural forms.
FEMA distributes blue tarps after hurricanes to function
as temporary waterproof roofing material. After Hurricane
María, approximately 78 percent of the 1.23 million homes
on the island were damaged from the storm and needed
tarps. Today, approximately 30,000 homes are still using
these FEMA tarps as roofing material due to a lack of
federal housing assistance—more than 2.5 years after the
storm hit.^4
Interdisciplinary artist Edra Soto’s ongoing projectGRAFT
is an intervention of vernacular Puerto Rican architecture
modeled after two forms:quiebrasoles—ornamental concrete
blocks that provide shade from the sun; andrejas—wrought
iron fences or screens used as a protective barrier on homes.
Both quiebrasoles and rejas are prominently used on the
island. Here, Soto uses their patterns to transform the gallery
into a space that recalls familiar Puerto Rican architecture.
Viewfinders are embedded into the holes of the structure,
revealing images the artist has taken while in Puerto Rico
immediately after the passage of Hurricane María.
QUESTIONS FOR LOOKING
- Consider the material this image was printed on. How might this photograph read differently if it were printed
on paper?
- Do these images in this gallery differ from photojournalistic images you have seen in the news of the aftermath of
Hurricane María? How or how not?
QUESTIONS FOR LOOKING
- Notice the overall color palette of images in this gallery. What mood or temperature do the colors convey?
- Look closely at the images embedded in Soto’s installation. Why might the artist present images in this way?
How does the act of looking through the graft change the way you read the images?
ARTIST HIGHLIGHTS
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Edra Soto, GRAFT, 2020
Mari B. Robles López, Encubrimiento, 2017–
- Agrelo, Justin. “30,000 Blue Tarps, 2.4 Million Downed Trees, Billions Short: 5 Ways Puerto Rico Is Still Struggling to Recover from Maria.” Mother Jones, August 29, 2019. https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/08/blue-tarps-million-downed-trees-tens-of-billions-short-ways-puerto-rico-is-still-struggling-to-recover-from-maria/.
INFRASTRUCTURE
The state of Puerto Rico’s infrastructure has been declining in recent history. In the 1920s, Puerto
Rico’s economy was thriving due to an increased price in sugar—the primary export of the region. As
a result, the government invested in building new roads, bridges and schools. The island’s economy
slowed once the great depression hit, but infrastructure was maintained from funding provided by
Roosevelt’s New Deal. In 1947, Luis Muñoz Marín of the Popular Democratic Party, proposed what
would come to be known as Operation Bootstrap. Influenced by Roosevelt’s New Deal, Operation
Bootstrap was designed to shift Puerto Rico’s economy from one based on farming to one that thrives
on industrial production. This shift allowed an industrial middle-class to flourish and brought in larger
economic incentives for outside companies to invest.
In the 1970s the government began to offer tax incentives for companies to build factories in the
southern portion of the island. The Puerto Rican Electric Power Authority (PREPA) built several
generating facilities with 70% of Puerto Rico’s power generated on the southern portion of the island
while 70% of the population resided on the Northern portion of the island. When the tax breaks expired
in 1996, many US companies left, causing the company to rely on international creditors to provide
loans. With limited funding, PREPA began to overlook maintenance issues and generator failures and
blackout rates increased dramatically.
KEY THEME
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NATALIA LASSALLE-MORRILLO
PUERTO RICAN
Concerning the effects of an already failing infrastructure, Natalia Lassalle Morillo’s three-channel video installation takes
audiences through a tourism route built in 1974. The route is now known for its poor road infrastructure and relative
isolation from the populated metropolitan area, resulting in a loss of histories that took place there.
QUESTIONS FOR LOOKING
- This video installation is projected on sustainable fabric screens prepared by a Puerto Rican textile worker.
Why might the artist choose these materials to use as a backdrop for her film? Do these materials add to
the narrative? How or how not?
- Lassalle-Morillo states that Puerto Rico is “a country that lives in constant state of reimagining and therefore,
redefining a sense of collective and individual identity.” As you view this video installation and walk further through
the exhibition, how is this sense of a constantly redefined identity as a US territory conveyed by the artists?
ARTIST HIGHLIGHTS
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Natalia Lassalle-Morrillo, Still from La Ruta, 2018
FEMINIST MOVEMENTS
IN PUERTO RICO
In Puerto Rico and around the world, the feminist movement and the fight for women’s rights has
strong roots in the fight for worker’s rights. At the turn of the 20th Century, middle class and working-
class Puerto Rican women began demanding the right to vote, questioning their patriarchal society and
calling for a higher standard of living. Founded in 1920, the Popular Feminist Association of Women
Workers of Puerto Rico was a defining part of the labor and suffrage movement. Women workers
rallied, marched, and created petitions expressing their right to vote. In 1929 literate women were given
the ability to vote, but it took another six years before all women were granted the right to vote in 1935.
During the 1970s, feminism in Puerto Rico experienced a surge and many organizations were
formed with the goal of protecting women against gender-based violence and calling for equal rights.
Contemporary feminist organizations started the protests that led to the resignation of Governor
Ricardo Rosselló in 2019 due to the government’s lack of action or investigations of the rising murders
of women on the island since Hurricane María.
Currently, women in Puerto Rico have become active leaders in the sociopolitical landscape on both
the island and in the continental United States. After Hurricane María, local women-owned businesses
greatly aided in restoring the economy. Since the early 2000s, Latina entrepreneurship has grown
exponentially and in 2013 the Center for American Progress estimated that Latinas brought in revenue
of $65.7 billion to the island’s economy—accounting to approximately 60% of Puerto Rico’s gross
domestic product.^5
KEY THEME
16
- McGough, Annelise. “Puerto Rico’s Women Entrepreneurs Are Doing What Trump Wouldn’t.” Fast Company. Fast Company, November 29, 2017. https://www.fastcompany.com/40493785/ puerto-ricos-women-entrepreneurs-are-doing-what-trump-wouldnt.
OJOS NEBULOSOS
PUERTO RICAN, B. 1995
Exploring the roles of women in a failing economy in the aftermath of María and PROMESA, the installation by Ojos
Nebulosos titledKiskeya Salón is inspired by the two salons owned by the artist’s Dominican aunts. The installation
highlights women-owned businesses, calling attention to salons in Puerto Rico as places where people gather socially to
discuss issues. While topics including the hurricane, protests, migration, immigration to the island and the US, and
women’s rights are discussed, TVs often play in the background.
QUESTIONS FOR LOOKING
- Like the plena songs, discussions in hair salons are another way for people to learn about the news and to
share their thoughts on current events. How do you learn about news in your own life? How do you share and
process this information with others?
ARTIST HIGHLIGHTS
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Ojos Nebulosos, Kiskeya Salón, 2015–
THE THREE MAJOR POLITICAL
PARTIES IN PUERTO RICO
DEEPER READING
Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño
“Puerto Rican Independence Party”
The Puerto Rican Independence Party
campaigns for the independence of
Puerto Rico from the United States.
Followers of the independence status
call themselves “independentistas.”
Independentistas usually identify
themselves by their party’s green flag
with a white horizontal cross, or by
waving a sole Puerto Rican flag. This
latter as a symbol of Puerto Rico alone,
without the US relationship.
Partido Popular Democratico
“Popular Democratic Party”
The Popular Democratic Party
advocates maintaining the current
political status of Puerto Rico as that
of an unincorporated territory of the
United States with self-government.
Followers of the commonwealth
status call themselves “populares”
or “estadolibristas.” They identify
themselves by waving a white flag with
a red “pava,” (a figure of a man wearing
a straw worker’s hat), or by waving a
Puerto Rican and American flag, as
symbols of the relationship of Puerto
Rico in union with the US.
Partido Nuevo Progresista
“New Progressive Party”
The New Progressive Party believes
that full American Citizenship and a fair
and equitable permanent relationship
with the United States can only be
achieved by becoming a full state of
the United States. Followers of the
statehood status call themselves
“estadistas.” They usually identify
themselves by waving their party’s
flag, white with a blue palm tree in the
center or by an American flag.
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CHRISTOPHER GREGORY - RIVERA
PUERTO RICAN, B. 1989
Providing a historical background to the resistance movement through a contemporary lens, Christopher Gregory-Rivera
presentsLas Carpetas, a series of photographs exploring an archive in Puerto Rico. His images document pages from a
collection of physical file folders created and kept by the Puerto Rican Police Department in collaboration with the FBI for
a surveillance operation aimed at silencing the independence movement on the island.
QUESTIONS FOR LOOKING
- As you view evidence from the archives, what can these documents tell us about the United States’ role in the
history of colonialism and political oppression within Puerto Rico?
- How do the political parties in Puerto Rico listed above differ from your understanding of US political parties?
ARTIST HIGHLIGHTS
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Christopher Gregory-Rivera, Las Carpetas, 2014–
