BY RAFAEL CANCEL MIRANDA  
MARTÍN KOPPEL: How can the majority be won to the perspective of independence?

CANCEL MIRANDA: We have to reach out to the greatest number of our people with the truth and the need for independence. Independence is not simply a nice ideal. It is a necessity.

We have to reach the new generations, so they will continue the struggle until the time comes when different forces in the world come together and strengthen our struggle. We are part of the world, and what happens all over the world affects our country.

The United States uses our young people as cannon fodder in their wars. In the Vietnam War, Puerto Rico had a disproportionately high number of casualties relative to its population compared to the United States. The same thing happened in the Korean War.

They sent us to kill Dominicans in the Dominican Republic in 1965. When they invaded Panama in 1989, they sent us to kill Panamanians, who are our brothers and sisters….

I asked on the radio the other day; “What are Puerto Ricans doing in Bosnia?” If Rockefeller wants to send his sons to fight in Bosnia, let him do it. But he’s not going to send his sons to Bosnia. He’s going to send your sons, the sons of John Doe and Mary Jane.

So young people are affected by this colonial reality. We have to show workers why independence is in their interests as workers; so they can be the owners of their country and their factories, so they can be the owners of what they produce. So that everything doesn’t end up in the coffers of Wall Street. So that it stays here for their development.

We have to explain what annexation would mean. If Puerto Rico were to be made a state, they would treat us exactly like they treat our communities in New York, Connecticut, Chicago, and Los Angeles….

As Pedro Albizu Campos¹ said sixty years ago, if we don’t free ourselves, we will go from being masters to being serfs, from being owners to being squatters.

KOPPEL: The revolutionary government of Cuba has campaigned on behalf of the independence of Puerto Rico and the release of the Puerto Rican political prisoners. What is your view of what the Cuban revolution represents?

CANCEL MIRANDA: The hope of us all. As long as Cuba is there, there is hope that we will be able to go through those doors. If Cuba falls, our struggle will take many more years. I’m not referring just to Puerto Rico but to all our peoples. So far, Cuba is the only country that U.S. financial and military interests don’t control.

Cuba is also a psychological weapon for our peoples, because they instill these complexes to make us think that without the Yankees we just can’t survive. The sun would stop shining. The moon would fall.

Yet Cuba has survived. Not only without the Yankees. In spite of the Yankees, and in spite of all the confrontations and the U.S. blockade. Without that blockade, Cuba would not have to go through these crises. But it has weathered the crisis and has survived.

For me, Cuba goes much beyond a question of economic survival. It gives you a sense of the dignity of life. Before, when you saw a Latino in the U.S. movies, we were either someone’s sidekick, or we were a “Latin Lover” to entertain them. They ridiculed us.

But ever since Fidel [Castro], they learned to respect us. Because Fidel and the Cuban revolutionaries are no one’s sidekick. Fidel makes me proud, just like the pride Sandino² gives me.

In Cuba today, life is not dictated by appearances as it is here. Here under this system, your worth is measured by how much you carry in your pockets—even if you’re a gangster. Your person isn’t worth anything. You’re worth something if you have a luxury car, a Volvo, a Mercedes-Benz, whatever. Your worth is measured by the car you own, not by how you use it. But even a monkey can drive a Volvo, and it doesn’t stop being a monkey.

²Augusto César Sandino led an army of workers and peasants against the U.S. military occupation of Nicaragua between 1927 and 1933.  
 
 
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