Prisoner's Writings

Why We Celebrate Three Kings Day by Oscar López Rivera

We often hear the comment that Puerto Ricans are up for celebrating just about anything. There are celebrations upon celebrations. The celebration of Three Kings Day is part of our culture and traditions – so it is not just another festive moment in lieu of nothing better to celebrate. For Christians, it’s the day of the Epiphany – the day commemorating the manifestation of the infant Jesus to the Gentiles by the Magi (the Three Wise Men) – but in the Puerto Rican tradition, it has become a day to celebrate the sharing spirit manifested by parents sharing with their children. That sharing spirit also manifests itself in the community. The sharing can take the form of gifts or special treats. At the community level, it can take the form of music and food.

It’s the spirit of sharing that’s the most fundamental element of the tradition of celebrating Three Kings Day, because such a spirit cannot be commodified. We can look at the way a group of Puerto Ricans decided to share that spirit with the children of Vieques during the campaign to get the Navy out of Vieques. It decided to provide the children with a very festive day including giving them non-violent and non-military gifts. The children, every year since the group started the project, have been provided with gifts and with activities that are true expressions of the sharing spirit. It’s becoming a tradition. The same could be said about the Puerto Rican community in Chicago. A group of people have been celebrating Three Kings Day by sharing with the children gifts and by involving the community in this important and significant celebration.

By Puerto Ricans celebrating Three Kings Day in the Diaspora, we are being shown that we can observe and celebrate our traditions wherever we are. Let’s keep celebrating Three Kings Day and passing the tradition down to future generations. It’s always good to maintain a celebratory spirit, even when conditions are hard. Enjoy this holiday.

En resistencia y lucha, OLR.

¡NOS VEMOS PRONTO!

Letter from prison by Norberto González Claudio

A Fathers’ Day Visit:

“And grandfather, why can’t I be there with you?

The visit by some of my children, grandchildren and my wife should have been one of beautiful sharing, of beautiful family sharing. And it was that way, to some extent . . .

My girlfriend, wife, lover and comrade (my favorite young person) and more to my daughters and sons, arrived from the Puerto Rican Nation, to visit a husband, father and grandfather to an imperialist prison: Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility. And, do you know what happened? That already the grandfather, father, husband, comrade, Political Prisoner, has been condemned – without trial, without due legal process and without committing any infractions in that prison – in fact I arrived to go directly to solitary confinement – and treated like a complete “criminal” that has to be shut away and isolated for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in a solitary jail cell. In absolute solitude! In absolute solitude! But I am strong and combative even under these conditions. Long live love! Long live life! Long live the class and freedom struggle of our Puerto Rican working class!

In a solitary cell, in solitude and combative. We talked about Fathers’ Day. Between 9:30 and 10:00 in the morning, the prison guards came to tell me that I had visitors – in fact, they congratulated me for being a father – they handcuffed me and we went to another cell where they removed my handcuffs and shackled my feet. I sit in a chair, pick up the telephone and in a small computer monitor my family appears. They have to take turns to be able to see me and for me to be able to see them and speak with them.

“And grandfather, why can’t I be there with you?” This is the question that my small grandson asks me in his pure and childlike innocence. It is likely that this question reflects the dehumanizing and cruel nature that characterizes the current system in the United Sates. A visit that should have been one to raise the spirits of a prisoner – that hasn’t been tried or condemned – can become another form of torture. And that’s the way it is, yet another form of torture, cruelty and insensitivity. It is this type of behavior that one is referring to when you explain or say that the U.S. Empire is cruel, brutal, bloody and dehumanizing. It is clear that we do so without forgetting the invasions, deadly bombings against other nations and the looting and ransacking of these.

“And grandfather, why can’t I be there with you?” This points out clearly the insensibility and cruelty of these invaders and abusive imperialists.

When I informed my “counselor” Devonis that on the weekend my family would come to visit and asked if something could be done for me to be able to see my family more closely, the response – cutting and clear – was that nothing could be done.

That it how you live and die in the nation of supposed great democracy and civil and human rights of the first order. Or, who knows, if it’s second or third order . . . Democracy or the falsehood of democracy? Civil and human rights or the falsehood of civil and human rights?

A human being that is accused but not convicted is in solitary or as we say out there, in the hole. Without being convicted but being simply accused. YES, SIMPLY FOR BEING ACCUSED! For being a POLITICAL PRISONER! FOR BEING A PO-LI-TI-CAL PRI-SO-NER!

It’s astounding! THE EMPIRE’S STENCH! IT STINKS AND SEEKS TO MAKE US INSIGNIFICANT AND SMALL . . . IT BRUTALIZES AND TRIES TO DRIVE US MAD!

That is how you live and die in a dehumanizing empire at its hands and at all costs. An empire of terror, of lies and deceit. An empire whose days are already numbered to the benefit of all human beings and for the benefit of humanity and the good of the Planet Earth, OUR LARGER HOME!

May peace, love and wisdom always accompany us! ALWAYS!

Norberto González Claudio, 09864-000Husband, father, grandfather, comrade to many men and women workers and POLITICAL PRISONER.

WE WILL SEE ONE ANOTHER SOON!

English Translation by Frank Velgara, ProLibertad Freedom Campaign

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