GUEST BLOG: HANS PERL-MATANZO

“I am not willing to accommodate to injustice.”-Ramón Emeterio Betances

“The law of love and the law of sacrifice do not permit our separation. ...The victory of one Puerto Rican over another Puerto Rican is to vanquish our nation”-Pedro Albizu  Campos

To Puerto Ricans living in the United States: 

We have before us a unique opportunity to demonstrate what the student movement in Puerto Rico is really all about.

We should denounce acts that humiliate and degrade us. To remain silent or close ranks in the face of some of the actions witnessed yesterday would be tantamount to supporting the strategists of the same Administration that inflicted and continues to inflict so much damage to our University, our country, and Puerto Ricans everywhere around the world.

We have to act guiding ourselves by one of the most fundamental principles that have informed and defined us from the onset:

At the core of the University of Puerto Rico's student movement and its struggle against the Administration's intent to make permanent the current Human and Civil Rights crisis, is our endeavor to vindicate human dignity. We are not about usurping anyone's dignity.

To boldly and energetically confront those responsible for crass injustice and usurping from us the right to self determination should never be tantamount to an attack on the very human dignity we are demanding be respected and fostered through our defense of public education and exercising of fundamental Human Rights.

That is what defines our student movement. We are not only struggling to defend and nurture public higher education, self-determination and responsible government; we are endeavoring to vindicate, first and foremost, human dignity. 

 -Hans Perl-Matanzo Labor Law & Civil Rights Attorney