“If People Had Not Been Willing to Give Their Lives for the patria or There Had Not Been the Political Prisoners, Then We Would Be Nothing.”

Abstract

In this annotated interview Lolita Lebrón explains that the racism she experienced as a factory worker in New York City led her to join the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. She also discusses her position as the leader of the 1954 attack on the US Congress, the attack itself, gender relations in the party, Pedro Albizu Campos, male supremacist attitudes toward her on the part of her male compañeros, the Nationalist Party's relationships with other political forces, and how she analyzes the long-term impact of the 1954 assault.