To my niece,

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I’m writing to let you know that I’m proud of you. I admire you for going to Minneapolis, and I’m so glad you came back safe! You represented those of us too wussy to get on a plane and physically support the resistance. You took corporal risk, while we sat home and complained. Thank you for your service.

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You shed tears yesterday when I said that. You cried because you said no one thanked you for your service when you were in these streets fighting for Black Lives Matter.

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We need people like you, who are willing to sacrifice for what you believe in. You are a soldier. Imagine our society if there were more people like you, and fewer of us sheep, satisfied to graze wherever the grass is green and plentiful.

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You remind me of Lolita Lebrón. She was also a soldier. She’s famous for her role in organizing the 1954 attack on the U.S. House of Representatives. She and three other Puerto Rican Nationalists entered the Capitol Building as observers, and then, while Congress was in session, they shot up the place with Luger pistols to protest U.S. imperialism in P.R. They yelled “¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre!” while shooting their guns. Five senators were wounded.

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Lolita Lebrón was willing to die that day. When she and her comrades were taken into custody, they found a letter in her purse that began, “Before God and the world, my blood claims for the independence of Puerto Rico. My life I give for the freedom of my country…” She was jailed for nearly 25 years. After her release in 1979, she continued her activism in the form of civil disobedience protesting the U.S. military in P.R. until she died in 2010. La lucha continúa.

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She never backed down. She never apologized for what she did. Her commitment to liberation was admirable, poetic even.

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I see that same commitment in you, Niece. There have been no shifts in the establishment’s policy without action from the people. Civil unrest is as much a message to the citizenry as it is to the politricksters, letting them know what we won’t stand for.

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Perhaps you and I can work as a team? I can write letters and call senators; you can be the boots-on-the-ground. I need you to stay safe, though.

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Respect,
Auntie

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