Puerto Rico, the colonial name of this archipelago, has been a colony since the arrival of Columbus on November 19, 1493, and was invaded by the US Navy on July 25th, 1898. Puerto Rico is still a colony of the US.
Puerto Rico, its people, all colonized territories (including reservations) across the planet have a natural right to liberation. Statehood is not a decolonial option. To decolonize is to practice the highest expression of self-determination, with the freedom to recapture our original essence and evolve in that essence. Statehood would absorb and eventually dissolve Boricua-ness, our identity and essence.
Today we witness the escalation of land grabs across our archipelago, the exploitation of our resources, the destruction of our environment, the deforestation of our coastlines for development—a threat that leaves us more vulnerable to flooding and coastal erosion in these times of climate-change. So-called development has also literally flattened hills in our northern karst region, home to caves and aquifers that are supposedly protected natural resources. These are flattened by machines and trucks to erect foreign shopping centers and other corporate-capitalist ventures. We see the displacement and disfranchisement of Indigenous communities, like the battle faced daily in Hawai’í. We continue to suffer the effects of a deliberate colonial dependence on food imports coupled with US cabotage laws, making our food more expensive than in the US, then combined with a tax higher than any in the states. We continue to battle through telecommunications injustice and the disaster of incessant power outages from our energy supplies privatized and distributed by an outside corporation. Whereas many see this as a healing, restful vacation destination, those living here continue to endure the decline of education, mass school closures, dwindling medical care, less job opportunities, sky-rocketing real estate pricing us out, and more.
My work in this area focused on visibilizing our freedom fighters, deemed subversive and erased from history lessons and the media; revealing this suppressed history; education initiatives through my work with institutions such as Taller Puertorriqueño in Philadelphia and El Museo del Barrio in NYC; independent talks and workshops at community organizations and campuses, and working in the Puerto Rican liberation movement. After two decades working as an artist and activist around Puerto Rican liberation, in 2014 I left New York City where I was born and raised and moved to my parents’ birthplace of Borikén, committing holistically, body, mind, and spirit, to this work. Rematriating Boriken has broadened my perspective on liberation and the pursuit of it. Puerto Rican liberation is the nexus from which I experience all else in this island, this archipelago, this Diaspora, this world, in this lifetime.
"Soldaderas: Blanca Canales", 2021. Yasmin Hernandez. Acrylic on brown paper, 48”x 36”. Contemplating ten years since my Soldaderas mural, I began this series of women fighting continued US imperialism. Blanca Canales Torresola was the leader of the 1950 revolution that began in her hometown of Jayuya and spread throughout the main island of Puerto Rico.
"Soldadera: Lolita Lebron:" 2021, Acrylic on Brown Paper, 55”x36”. Contemplating ten years since my Soldaderas mural, I began this series of women fighting continued US imperialism. Lolita Lebrón Sotomayor was born on November 19, historic day of Columbus’ 1493 landing. Born in the mountain town of Lares, site of the 1868 revolution, she was destined to be a Soldadera. A member of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, Lolita is most known for leading an armed revolt at the US Capitol on March 1st, 1954, for which she was held for 25 years as a Political Prisoner of the US on sedition charges.
"Dignity/ Dissent" (Pedro Albizu Campos) 2017, Yasmin Hernandez. Dignity/ Dissent 2017. Acrylic on canvas, 12" x 12". Created for the CitiCien Defend PR exhibition, commemorating 100 years of the Jones Act that imposed US citizenship on Puerto Rico, strategically the same year the US entered WWI, enabling the draft of our men. Nationalist Party leader Pedro Albizu Campos is pictured here in his US Army uniform that same year and later in a gesture representing his fierce fight against US colonialism. The central cross and black and white are of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party flag.
"La Libertad" (Oscar López Rivera) 2016. Yasmin Hernandez. Mixed media on canvas, 24" x 36". Created for the traveling exhibition, Una Sola Voz which brought together over 50 artists in support of the release of Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Oscar Lopez Rivera, pictured here among many other heroes that have defended Puerto Rico's natural right to liberation. Included is an excerpt of our original revolutionary anthem, La Borinqueña by Lola "Vamonos ya que nos espera ansiosa la Libertad".
"Dedebt/ Decolonize" 2017. Yasmin Hernandez. Mixed media on canvas, 18" x 14". Created for Occupy Museum’s Debt Fair installation at the 2017 Whitney Biennial. The Puerto Rican archipelago is presented within a nebula. From the main island emerges the face of Oscar López Rivera, held as a Political Prisoner of the US for 35 years on sedition charges for participation in the Puerto Rican liberation struggle. His sentence was commuted by US President Obama 1 week after I completed this work. The work was still on exhibit when Oscar was released in May of 2017.
"Eso que llamamos la libertad", 2016. Yasmin Hernandez. 2016 Acrylic on canvas, 30" x 24". Portrait of artist, poet, professor, former Puerto Rican political prisoner Elizam Escobar. I include a quote I heard during his presentation at a conference: "That which we call freedom is not a state of being, it is a practice." I painted him dressed in a nebula to reference a transcendence and liberatory practice embodied by Elizam in his art, actions, and words. Elizam left this realm in January of 2021.
"Esas estrellas" 2015 (Rafael Cancel Miranda) Yasmin Hernandez. 2015, Acrylic on burlap, approx 30" x 39" Tribute to Rafael Cancel Miranda, former political prisoner who served 25 years on sedition charges for his participation in an armed revolt in Washington DC in 1954. The quote comes from the dedication of his book, Mis Dioses llevan tu Nombre (2000). “Hay estrellas en el cielo que no vemos porque no las buscamos. La razón de este libro es ayudar a encontrar a esas estrellas en nuestros propios cielos.” (There are stars in the sky that we do not see because we do not seek them. The reason for this book is to help find those stars in our own skies.)
"Somos Muchos" (Oscar López Rivera) Yasmin Hernandez. 2015, Mixed media on canvas, 30" x 24". Created for the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez conference, Luchas de Ayer, Ahora y Siempre (?) on Puerto Rican political prisoners past and present. Oscar Lopez Rivera is presented among a selection of ancestors who sacrificed their lives for the liberation of Puerto Rico. Within his portrait we see a selection of the comrades who like him have served as political prisoners for wanting the freedom of their country.
Quienes Somos, Who we are. Superimposed over the "Somos Muchos" painting are the names of all the Puerto Rican freedom fighters collaged into this portrait of former Puerto Rican political prisoner of 35 years, Oscar Lopez Rivera.
"Querer ser libre" (Dylcia Pagan) 2006. Yasmin Hernandez. 2006, Acrylic, seashells and peacock feathers on canvas. 24" x 36". Portrait of my dear friend and mentor, former Puerto Rican political prisoner Dylcia Pagán as I remembered her during an afternoon we spent at the sea, behind her home in Loíza, Puerto Rico. The quote is of Ramon Emeterio Betances, (The desire to be free is to begin being free)
"Raising Revolution" 2004, (Pedro Albizu Campos). Yasmin Hernandez. Mixed media on canvas, 48" x 30" This portrait of Pedro Albizu Campos shows him in his US Army uniform, but the piece itself focuses on the many revolutionaries who received their training in either the US military or US schools. Puerto Ricans were made citizens of the US in 1917, strategically the year the US entered WWI. However, as a colony Puerto Rico could never vote in presidential elections, having no say in the commander of chief of the many who serve the US armed forces.
"Pesar y orgullo" 2004. Yasmin Hernandez. 2004, Mixed media on canvas, 48" x 24". This portrait of Puerto Rican Nationalist Lolita Lebron shows her at the time of her arrest having led an armed protest at the US Capitol on March 1, 1954. She is nude with prison bars glazed over her flesh, marking the double standard imposed on women revolutionaries and the violation of their bodies as political prisoners. The collage features revolutionary women of color. This piece was in response to the 2004 Washington Post Magazine article with Lolita’s image on the cover and the title: When Terror Wore Lipstick. I was asked to contribute artwork to that article. I asked for assurance that she would not be presented in a negative light then was mortified when it was published with that cover. In a public chat with the author, people criticized Lolita for abandoning her children, making references to domestic responsibilities that male revolutionaries are never challenged on. With this work, I contemplated her body as a cell, a site of oppression that the empire wages violence on.
"Sin Miedo" (Para Lolita). 2003. Yasmin Hernandez. Acrylic on canvas, 36" x 18", private collection. This painting of fearless revolutionary Lolita Lebron at the time of her arrest on March 1, 1954 after leading an armed protest over a meeting of the US House of Representatives, demanding that they Free Puerto Rico. Lolita & her comrades served 25 years before Jimmy Carter commuted their sentences in 1979.
Albizu Elevao. 2006. Yasmin Hernandez. Acrylic on Burlap, 72" x 39 1/2" Ay como lo escupieron Como lo empujaron Como lo llevaron a crucificar -excerpt from the salsa song "El Todopoderoso" (Oh how they spit on him, how they pushed him, how they took him to crucifixion). This work references the radiation experiments that the US government conducted on the father of Puerto Rican Nationalism Pedro Albizu Campos. These were secretly administered in the form of bright white or multicolored lights that would flash in his cell & in his hospital room. Albizu suffered burns & seizures, ultimately passing from cancer in 1965.
Patria Ensangrentada (Filiberto Ojeda Ríos). 2016. Yasmin Hernandez. 2006, Acrylic on canvas, 63" x 40". Patria Ensangrentada pero jamás desecha. (Nation bloodied, but never undone). These words of Puerto Rican Nationalist poet Julia de Burgos come from her poem 23 de septiembre, about the 1868 Lares revolution. On the same date in 2005, the FBI assassinated revolutionary leader of Los Macheteros, Filiberto Ojeda Rios, who had been in clandestinity for 15 years. 72 years-old at the time, he solely held a shoot-out with them wearing a bullet proof vest, but was left to bleed to death behind his front door in Hormigueros, PR from a single bullet to his clavicle. The town had been under siege in the planned attack on his home. No ambulances were allowed to pass.
Independence Day, 1998. Yasmin Hernandez. Mixed media on canvas, 6' x 4'. Created for the AmeRican Borders centennial of the US invasion of Puerto Rico exhibition at Taller Puertorriqueño in Philadelphia. This scene of the arrests of 4 Puerto Rican Nationalists outside of the US capitol on March 1st, 1954, a Puerto Rican flag glazed over the landmark. The background is an inverted copy of the US constitution & the foreground, upon which they stand is an inverted copy of the US Declaration of Independence, colonialism turned on its head. I lived 5 blocks from Independence Hall in Philly at the time.
Follow the Leader 1996 (Pedro Albizu Campos). Yasmin Hernandez.
The Ponce Massacre, 1997. Yasmin Hernandez. 1996. Oil, collage on canvas, 51" x 34" Created in the underpainting/ glaze technique, this image borrows from the composition of Paul Revere's The Bloody Massacre. The Ponce Massacre, took place in my parents' hometown when the US colonial police chief revoked a parade permit on Palm Sunday commemorating the abolition of slavery. When the people marched anyway, the police opened fire on them killing 21 & wounding around 200.
Estadista? 1996. Yasmin Hernandez
51st State, 1995. Yasmin Hernandez. Oil on canvas. 48" x 37 1/2". Painted during my junior year/ BFA program at Cornell University. 51st State is technically my first portrait of the 4 Nationalists arrested in Washington on March 1st 1954. Lolita Lebrón is the star and Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irving Flores, and Andres Figueroa Cordero are the rifles. Together they dissolve the colonial relationship of Puerto Rico to the US, hence the falling stars and the Navy blue of both flags.
Pedro Albizu Campos, 1994. Yasmin Hernandez. Silkscreen on Paper, 14" x 8". This first portrait of mine of Pedro Albizu Campos was inspired by the book that sparks every young Puerto Rican's journey into their hidden history, Ronald Fernandez' Prisoners of Colonialism. Today that book may very well be Nelson Denis' War Against All Puerto Ricans. I was 19 and eagerly researching all things Don Pedro. Black and white are the colors of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.