This collection contains documents detailing the various struggles of Puerto Ricans against foreign invaders from the arrival of Spanish Conquistador Juan Ponce de Leon in 1493 to the current occupation by the United States of America. Beginning in 1898, the U.S. invaded Puerto Rico and established a colonial government that intended to destroy Puerto Rican identity by replacing the people’s history, language, and culture with its own. This occupation caused widespread unemployment and stimulated a massive migration of Puerto Ricans to the U.S. People of the Puerto Rican diaspora were made to feel ashamed of their culture as they were pressured to become “American” and leave behind the language, culture, and history that unite Puerto Ricans as a sovereign nation. Often, these materials were some of the first and only exposure that the diaspora had to its own history. These documents were meant to unite Puerto Ricans through exposing this history of oppression in hopes of inspiring solidarity with the independence movement.

“Once we begin to see ourselves and our oppressed condition in the clear lightof our own truth, then the process of change, revolutionary change, which leadsto a revolutionary struggle, begins to take place.” – Puerto Rico Our People’s History