What precisely do we mean in Puerto Rico when we talk about democracy? What does democracy mean in an island that has only ever known colonial rule? And to a people that have never exercised a true democracy?

For decades, the west end of Calle Fortaleza has been a site for protest where social groups and movements, along with trade unions, have often converged to articulate their demands. The #Ricky Renuncia movement also re-signified the ways people protested and the spaces where those events took place. During the Summer 2019 uprising, the street was renamed by protesters as “Calle de la Resistencia” (Resistance Street) after thousands of people met there every night for more than two weeks demanding Rosselló’s resignation despite the violent efforts of police to disperse the protests. The street continued to display its new name long after he stepped down.

There are three identifiable understandings of corruption and anticorruption in the case of the Puerto Rican Summer: 1) colonial corruption and anticorruption policies implemented by the US government in PR; 2) corruption as a form of governmentality, and the Puerto Rican government’s anticorruption policies that focus on petty corruption, while ignoring the corruption of the powerful; 3) and decolonial approaches to corruption and/or the Puerto Rican Summer of 2019 as forms of decolonial justice.

Who constitutes the great racialized Puerto Rican family? What political role did Black women play in the protests of Summer 2019? How has Black feminism (re) emerged in Puerto Rico, from musical performances – bomba, plena, rumba and reggaeton – and platforms such as the NEGRAS radio program? What is the importance of the intersections of race and gender in the analysis of what happened in Summer 2019? These are some of the questions I try to answer in the next section of this brief intervention.

Poems Puerto Rico’s 2019 Summer Protests