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LAWRENCE, LOWELL, LYNN – As the national co-chair of the DSA’s Puerto Rico Working Group, I often hear the question from other organization members: “Why should a socialist here care about the territorial status of Puerto Rico?” My answer: “As an American citizen, it is your Congress who holds absolute control over the colony of Puerto Rico.”
Massachusetts is not merely a sympathetic bystander to Puerto Rico’s struggle. We are the fifth-largest hub of the Puerto Rican diaspora in the United States. Our Commonwealth is home to over 330,000 Boricuas, and within the jurisdiction of Boston DSA, we hold an immense, concentrated organizing power. Look at Lawrence, Lowell, and Lynn—cities where Puerto Rican flags hang from triple-deckers, where music echoes through the parks, and where the wounds of economic and social neglect are felt just as acutely as they are in San Juan.
These are not just “Latino communities” to be courted during election cycles; they are the frontline outposts of the Puerto Rican nation within the U.S. imperial core. These communities are the result of a colonial system that has displaced millions of Puerto Ricans. For Boston DSA, organizing for independence isn’t an abstract international solidarity gesture—it is local work, with local communities.
The political winds in Puerto Rico are shifting faster than the United States establishment cares to admit. For decades, U.S. policymakers and the archipelago’s colonial elite have tried to hide the imperialist nature of the relationship between the US and Puerto Rico. That narrative is dead. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria—where 4,645 Puerto Ricans were left to die by their colonial rulers, along with the imposition of a dictatorial financial control board that gutted public education and healthcare—the people of Puerto Rico have radicalized. They have seen the colonial model fail. They watched the colonialist local parties offer loyalty to Washington and receive only austerity in return. Today, a growing number of Boricuas are rejecting both statehood and the commonwealth, embracing independence out of a clear-eyed need for sovereignty and human rights. We see a clear generational shift with independence is the favored status amongst Puerto Ricans born after the Cold War.
This surge aligns perfectly with the organized leftist movements on the island, which have long championed independence as the only path toward a just, sustainable, and self-determined future. It is the generations that survived the violent repression of the independence movement during the Cold War that have passed the torch to a new and awakened youth on the path to freedom. From the organized political parties advocating for national liberation to the labor unions fighting austerity, the left in Puerto Rico understands that begging for rights within an imperial system is no longer an option. True prosperity can only be found in the collective freedom that an independent Republic of Puerto Rico would bring.
What is our duty as socialists residing in the metropolis? It is to understand the responsibility we have as the owners of the colony currently in a struggle for liberation spanning borders, right into our communities in Massachusetts. We must understand that the onus is on us. We must be consistent in our convictions as anti-imperialists and free the colonized people we collectively hold as a nation. Puerto Rico is not a distant issue we can ignore, but a reflection of who we are as an empire.
If we can say “Free Palestine,” we should be able to look inward and say “Vive Puerto Rico Libre.”
Colonialism is not an accident of history; it is the original sin of capitalism. As socialists, we are duty-bound to support the independence of oppressed nations. To do otherwise is to reveal ourselves as mere reformers of the empire, rather than its dismantlers.
This duty manifests in our daily organizing. For Boston DSA, it means deploying our resources to support the diaspora communities in Lawrence, Lowell, and Lynn—not as saviors, but as comrades. That entails broader support for neighborhood organizing in these communities. It means educating our broader membership on how the colonialism of Puerto Rico materially affects its inhabitants and how we can stand in solidarity with a growing national liberation movement, while amplifying the voices of the island’s citizens who fight everyday to survive the cruelties of an imperialist system. It means unequivocally calling for the full cancellation of debt that was created by a system that our country imposed. It means calling for a Puerto Rico that is free, sovereign and independent.
This is not a matter of political differences—anti-colonialism is non-negotiable for socialists and the people of Puerto Rico deserve our solidarity on their path towards freedom. Everyone, Puerto Rican or otherwise, has their own particular part to play. No part is too great or too small, no one is too old or too young to do something.
Let Boston DSA, and any other DSA chapter that takes up the call, prove that solidarity is a strategy and not a buzzword. The colony is here and the struggle is now. The only acceptable outcome is a free and independent Puerto Rico.
Dom S is a member of Boston DSA and a national co-chair of the Puerto Rico Working Group of the DSA International Committee.
The post OPINION: In Mass, Organizing for Puerto Rican Independence is Local Work appeared first on Working Mass.
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