Diaspora, if you are listening…
Puertoricans form a community fastened by ancestors and family, marked by images and experiences nested in our memory.
I have the right to a citizen’s opinion and the freedom to express it. Within this privilege I can share these with you in this blog. So… I now make an urgent call to the Puertorican Diaspora, that wide sector of Boricuas that reside up North in the continent, those who retain the insoluble identity that distinguishes us, our roots and our ethnicity. A community fastened by ancestors and family, marked by images and experiences nested in our memory and our senses to claim belonging.
People who are dispersed into so many states: New York and New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois and Florida, among other cities where we parade with pride. There are more Puertoricans living up north (4.6 millions) than in the Island (2.3 millions); you have the fundamental right to vote and the representation we are denied. You constitute a political source to be reckoned with, particularly in view of the delicate and fluid condition of contemporary US politics.
I am not a friend of vitriol and I find grand eloquence disturbing, when not delirious, but our current situation is very serious. President Donald Trump has repeatedly treated Puerto Rico with indifference and disdain, and he acts with disrespect towards the Office. If the impeachment initiatives do not progress, it is a civic responsibility to vote him out of office.
The Puertorican Diaspora can play a significant role in the 2020 Presidential election.
The Puertorican Diaspora can have a significant part in that action. It is of utmost urgency for all adults to register, to remain vigilant to actions and strategies that limit your participation, and to vote. The moment calls for everybody’s activism, always consistent with personal means and preferences. A call to overcome indifference, to enhance pride in solidarity and progress.
Adversity is not to be underestimated. We live in times of gross individualism and it is so easy to divide us by personal opinions. Be in favor of a coalition to overcome this President, who goes overboard with erratic behavior and gives us the sense that we have seen the worse. I have also learned not to say it can’t get worse: because it can!
Paisano, you who live on the other side, please do what we, on the island, cannot; vote this President out of office. Get together, activate all your resources, mobilize immobility; whatever it takes so he will cease to put lives at risk, disdain the truth, and undermine democratic institutions.
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Copyright 2019 by José M. Umpierre. Photos in the public domain or used under the “fair use”proviso of the copyright law.