“U.S. imperialism controls our country socially, politically and economically. They control the mass media, the schools. They indoctrinate us from the time we’re children…When you believe they’re all powerful and we’re powerless, you’re already on the mat before they even throw a punch at you. But our people are becoming aware of their own strength, which is what the colonial powers fear”

From his book Puerto Rico: Revolution is a necessity

On March 2nd, 2020 Rafael Cancel Miranda passed on to the ancestors. He was 89. In 1954 Rafael and 3 other Puerto Rican Nationalists including Lolita Lebron, shot several US representatives. He was imprisoned for 25 years, then later pardoned by Jimmy Carter. Rafael was and continues to be one of the many freedom fighters of Borinquen. Resistance was not something new to Rafael, as a child he saw his mother return from the Ponce Massacre, her white dress covered with blood from all the dead. The next day at school Rafael refused to pledge allegiance to the American flag. He was 6 years old. As a young man he refused to be drafted for WWII and was jailed.

May the ancestors receive Rafael in a good way,

his resistance be remembered, we must always remember the sacrifice he made for Borinquen, for our freedom

I affirm his revolutionary spirit become the reality for Puerto Rico

His resistance will always continue.