Civic Life Lunch - The Oldest Colony in the World: Perspectives on Puerto Rico's Political Future
Journalist and author Ed Morales and international human rights lawyer and Tufts alumna Annette Martínez Orabona, F08, discuss Puerto Rico’s political status. With unique perspectives from the island and from the Puerto Rican diaspora in the U.S., our guests discuss legal, political, historical, and sociocultural aspects of Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States and of the various options to resolve the island’s unequal political status. Alberto Medina, the Communications Team Lead at Tisch College’s CIRCLE research group, and a native of Puerto Rico who has written extensively about this issue, serves as moderator.
This event was conducted fully in Spanish with live interpretation in English provided for all attendees. Watch the Spanish-language recording of the event.
Ed Morales is an author, journalist, poet and lecturer at Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race and CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He is the author of several books, including Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture, which was shortlisted for the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding by the British Academy in 2019, and Fantasy Island: Colonialism, Exploitation, and the Betrayal of Puerto Rico. As a journalist, his work has been featured in The Nation, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Rolling Stone, the Guardian, and more.
Annette Martinez-Orabona, F08 is an international human rights lawyer and activist. She is the Executive Director of the Caribbean Institute for Human Rights and the Human Rights Clinic Director at the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico. Experienced in national and international human rights protection systems, Martinez-Orabona coordinated testimony before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights as well as UN Special Procedures on the human rights crisis after Hurricane Maria. She previously served as the President of the Board of Amnesty International. This event is generously cosponsored by the Political Science Department, JumboVote, the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora and the Office of Alumni Engagement.