The legacy of the Young Lords is something that has followed me throughout my adult life as a New York–born-and-bred child of Puerto Rican immigrants. The Young Lords’ unrelenting calls for Puerto Rican independence, their various interventions in local politics, their unyielding solidarity with colonized and working-class people everywhere, their stunning presence (often augmented by […]
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“Women like me aren’t supposed to run for office,” began the now-legendary campaign ad for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, released just four weeks ago. What followed was a powerful, viral video, called “The Courage to Change,” that addressed racial and gender identity and meshed seamlessly with one about her social class position. “I wasn’t born to a […]
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In the aftermath of the horrific Valentine’s Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in South Florida, a new movement has emerged that constitutes the strongest voice for changing laws about automatic assault weapons since the Columbine massacre of 1999. Emma González, the face of this movement, took a leadership role with a passionate […]
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Last semester, a student of mine named Fernando came to speak with me after the last meeting of my class on Latino identity. He thanked me for getting him to think about not only his roots but his connections with other Latinos, and our contributions to history and culture. He was an engineering student of […]
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When I first saw the word Latinx – best described as a gender-neutral term to describe US residents of Latin American descent – in print it seemed strange, alien, and unfit for proper pronunciation. But rather than perceiving it as my enemy, I came to embrace its enticing, futurist charms. The term Latinx arises from […]
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With almost no power and shortages of water and medicine, this island is full of people suffering from PTSD. By Ed Morales October 13, 2017 San Juan—As Donald Trump’s rule-by-disinformation strategy intensifies, three weeks after Hurricane Maria, a reeling Puerto Rico is becoming more of a sideshow for his callous stereotyping and ruthlessness. He is […]
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May 15 2017, 11:09 am ET In April I was invited to Yale Law School to attend a conference put together by the American Bar Foundation for their research initiative “The Future of Latinos in the United States: Law, Opportunity, and Moblity.” The gathering featured 50 “key stakeholders”: lawyers, academics, political activists, and members […]
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I woke up Wednesday with a hole in my head. It was a large enough hole that I decided we can’t let this happen. This sudden emergence of America’s long-brewing racist undercurrent brought on by a relentless process of worldwide wealth inequality that its creators have decided must be mitigated by violent conflict between marginalized […]
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The 2016 Presidential campaign has been a very significant one for Latinxs, often referred to as the “sleeping giant” of the electorate. While Republican candidate Donald Trump astonished most media observers with his set of shifting, unorthodox political positions, it’s been his crudely racist and sexist discourse that have become the campaign’s central focus. Yet […]
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The dominant narrative about Latinxs in the U.S. goes like this: A rapidly growing segment of the population, Latin(o)(a)s are a force to be reckoned with, and now that Donald J. Trump has continually demonstrated that he really is an unrestrained bigot preparing to unleash a deportation brigade on a sanctuary city near you, he […]
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ED MORALES 