The Boricua Summer: Keys from a Human Rights Perspective

• Published date: 01 May 2020
• Date: 01 May 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20911702
• Subject Matter: Commentaries

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20911702

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 232, Vol. 47 No. 3, May 2020, 117–128

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20911702

© 2020 Latin American Perspectives

117

Commentary

The Boricua Summer

Keys from a Human Rights Perspective

by

José Javier Colón Morera

Translated by

Mariana Ortega-Breña

There is no rest in the fight for human rights. We may be condemned to the

arduous and Sysyphean task of endlessly advocating for the rights and

freedoms of despised races and marginalized peoples, tortured women and

men, those who have been silenced, the disappeared.

—Luis Rivera Pagán, 2019

The Boricua summer1 of 2019 (as the series of popular demonstrations against

the administration of the then-governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló

Nevares, has been termed) was a complex social event with significant potential.

Some of its features are specific to the social context of one of the world’s last

colonies, a body politic that is still fighting for full decolonization and the expan-

sion of its democracy in the face of an austerity agenda that has intensely affected

the vulnerable sectors of the population (Colón Morera, 2016; Negrón-Muntaner,

2019; Rivera Ramos, 2019). In another sense, however, reflect a new anti-neolib-

eral activism that is common to very diverse contexts and significantly transna-

tional (Bandy and Smith, 2004; Cotto Morales, in this issue; Díaz Lotero, 2019).

The Boricua summer became part of an extensive process of citizen empower-

ment linked to the country’s struggle to escape the colonial entrapment of its

current territorial Commonwealth’ arrangement (Colón Ríos, 2016; Fonseca,

2019; Negrón-Muntaner, 2019).2 For this reason, it demands further analysis and

presents the enormous challenges of capturing a process in full motion.3

It has been suggested that, because of its diversity and creativity (Colón

Rodríguez and Rodríguez López, 2019), the movement that succeeded in

removing Puerto Rico’s governor (then leader of the Partido Nuevo Progresista

[New Progressive Party—PNP]) serves as a model of citizen action.4 Others

have highlighted its mainly nonviolent character (Pita, 2019). At the same time,

it raises many questions with regard to its potential political development.5 Its

connection with international human rights discourse and a more participatory

José Javier Colón Morera teaches political science at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus.

He is coeditor, with Idsa Alegría, of Puerto Rico y los derechos humanos: Una intersección plural (2012) and

coauthor, with Ramón Bosque Pérez, of Puerto Rico under Colonial Rule: Political Persecution and the Quest

for Human Rights (2006). Mariana Ortega-Breña is a freelance translator based in Mexico City.

911702LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X20911702Latin American PerspectivesColón / Commentary

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