We Shouldn't Need a Fictional President to Save Puerto Rico
…but an infrastructure one. Puerto Rico has a lot of resources, but also the most corrupt government in our history. Republican Governor Jenniffer Gonzalez Colón is a small replica of…
Search Results for: Liza Colon-Zayas
Why “Colonial Stockholm Syndrome” Matters
…emerge between colonized populations and colonial systems. It examines how generations living under colonial rule may develop complicated loyalties, emotional dependencies, and identity negotiations that make resistance difficult even when…
Premiering at LALIFF, "Mataron a Pedro" Revisits Puerto Rico’s Colonial Wounds
Kristian Mercado’s Mataron a Pedro carries the weight of history, memory, and Puerto Rican colonization into LALIFF. Premiering at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (LALIFF) on May 28,…
Ana Paula Maia and the Booker Prize's History of Nominating Latinos
…once tortured and murdered. The state builds a penal colony in the wilderness to ‘rehabilitate” inmates, who can never leave. The novel opens decades later, as the operations are winding…
Star Wars Princess Leia is Based on this Mexican Revolutionary
…that inspired Princess Leia’s legendary hairdo. Meet Colonel Clara de la Rocha, one of the many unsung female heroes of the Mexican Revolution, best known today as adelitas. So who…
In "Lone Yellow Flower," Poet Erika Gill Interrogates Identity & Change
…colonization, the trauma of history, disability, and queer, Black, and Latine identity. They explore the internal conflicts they face between desire and disappointment, darkness and redemption, presence and emptiness. In…
"A Body to Live In" Links Pain, Spirituality, and Cultural Appropriation
…faded from view. Madsen’s documentary sits squarely inside that contradiction. It celebrates the queer and artistic communities that forged radical understandings of the body while interrogating the colonial echoes embedded…
"La Brega" Season 3 Lets Puerto Rican History Breathe
…Spanish. This latest season comes at a time when Puerto Rico and its colonial status are top of mind, thanks to reggaeton star Bad Bunny’s performance at the Super Bowl…
Op-Ed: Why I Tell the Story of a Mexican Queen in "The Other Moctezuma Girls"
…After Hernan Cortés arrived, Moctezuma gave his daughter to Cortés as a “gift,” and the colonizers baptized Tecuichpoch with the Spanish name, Isabel Moctezuma. She then survived the smallpox epidemic…
With Sharp Irony, Puerto Rico May Lose the Bad Bunny & Residente Film
…my research on Colonial Stockholm Syndrome, I examine how colonized populations can internalize loyalty to systems that constrain their autonomy. It is not a matter of ignorance or weakness. It…