#vaganbond

“I’m not made to settle for injustice.” - Betances

There are people who come into this world who are not designed for oppression. People who cannot stand by and just allow injustice to stand. Since 1493 when Columbus came ashore the island nation of Borinquen (now known as Puerto Rico) with designs to plunder the wealth and resources through the mechanism of colonization, there have always been those who have always resisted against it and that resistance has always come at a price.

The price that has been exacted from Dylcia Pagan has been high, higher than any of us can imagine. Dylcia is a former US held Puerto Rican Political Prisoner and Prisoner Of War. She was a member of the FALN, the Fuerzas Armadas Liberaciòn Naciònalistas – the Armed Forces of National Liberation. The FALN were a clandestine armed organization that believed that they were at war with the US government, who have been a colonial power in Puerto Rico since 1898. Shortly before Dylcia went underground she gave her newborn child to strangers who were sympathetic to the Puerto Rican independence movement to raise. Shortly after that she was arrested in Evanston Illinois and charged with seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 65 years. She would not see her son for ten years and she would not get out of prison for another 10 years after that.