Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Anti-American Art: When Will You Shut Up and Get Gone?*


1960s or 70s poster from Cuba's OSPAAAL for the Sept. 23 Day of Solidarity with Puerto Rico. Clever photo montage on a Yankee Go Home theme showing symbols of American military might tossed in a wastebasket labelled "Go Home." Until not so long ago, a number of (beautiful!) smaller islands off the coast of Puerto Rico were used as testing grounds by the U.S. military.

Puerto Rico was seized by the United States in the Spanish-American war along with Cuba, the Philippines and Guam. Unlike Cuba, which was made an independent client state of the U.S. right away, and the Philippines, granted independence after the second World War, Puerto Rico and Guam remain in a sort of partially autonomous partially colonial associated netherworld with the U.S. today. Independence movements like the radical and Cuban-allied Puerto Rican Socialist Party, the urban guerrilla movement FALN, and the more mainstream Puerto Rican Independence Party suffered tremendous repression and disruption at the hands of the U.S. government. The PIP continues to exist today, but does not perform well in local elections.

(* extra credit.)

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