By Rafael Cancel Miranda on December 30, 2015
Open letter to Donald Trump
Photo: Bill Hackwell
Mr. Donald Trump: Either you are an ignoramus or passing yourself off as such; since America is a continent, it’s not a race. There’s no such thing as “the American race,” as you refer to your race. You are of the Caucasian race. Several races live within the Americas. You come from Anglo-Saxons, the ones that throughout history have committed many crimes against humanity. I never want to be part of you.
Now I’ll tell you what I mean, Mr. Trump. I am Puerto Rican. You all imposed your citizenship on us by force in 1917, even though the Puerto Rican parliament rejected it at the time. It was like slave owners imposing their surname on their slaves so that whoever owned them would be known. The surname didn’t make them into “whites” but having their roots snatched away undermined their being.
I have never accepted U.S. citizenship, nor will I accept it. You and your kind don’t have the power to make me into something I am not. Imposition of citizenship has cost the life of thousands of young Puerto Ricans -Two months after imposing citizenship on us they imposed obligated military service – in your wars of aggression against other countries including Latin American countries, brother countries to Puerto Ricans. Throughout history you have been murdering thousands of Latin Americans and have massacred my people on more than one condition.
Your people are the principal causes of the crisis the Puerto Rican nation – which you call a “possession” – is living through at the present time. Your spokespersons have had the gall to say that you can sell or cede us to another country if this happens to be convenient.
So then, Mr. Trump, if you win the so-called elections there in your country, not only take away the U. S. citizenship that they imposed on my country, but also take away your agencies of repression like the FBI, the so-called federal courts, and everything that smells of the colonial government. It’ll be appreciated. Meanwhile I’ll keep on fighting for as long as necessary.
Translated by Tom Whitney from Let Cuba Live
Translator’s note: Rafael Cancel Miranda is a member of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. In 1954 he and three other nationalists carried out an armed attack on the U. S. House of Representative. He was imprisoned from then until 1979, when President Jimmy Carter pardoned him. Cancel Miranda is an author and poet. The Cuban government awarded him the Order of Jose Marti in 2006.
http://www.resumenlatinoamericano.org/2015/12/30/puerto-rico-llevese-el-coloniaje-senor-trump/
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano