The talk, which is part of the Puerto Rican Studies Association (PRSA) 13th Biennial Conference, is titled “The Myth of the Freely Chosen Status: Government Persecution of Puerto Rico’s Independence Movement.”

Oscar López Rivera
An advocate of Puerto Rican independence and former lead of the FALN (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional), López Rivera spent 36 years in U.S. federal prison for “seditious conspiracy.” He was released in 2017, after international pressure convinced President Obama to commute his sentence.

Ivonne Acosta-Lespier
A Puerto Rican historian, Acosta-Lespier authored La Mordaza: Puerto Rico 1948-1957, the classic study of government repression in Puerto Rico during the 1950s. Now in its 5th edition in Spanish, the book has just been released in English.

Johanna Fernández
An assistant professor of history at Baruch College, Fernández filed a ground-breaking law suit that forced the New York Police Department’s release of more than 150 boxes of secret surveillance records it compiled on radical groups during the 1960s and 1970s.