Join us for Oscar López Rivera Tour: Resistance and Resilience – Puerto Rico’s Recovery from Debt, Hurricanes, and Colonialism. West Coast tour with former political prisoner and freedom fighter Oscar López Rivera, author of Between Torture and Resistance.
Tour Schedule
Tuesday, February 18th from 2pm to 3pm
The University of Washington in Seattle, WA
Henry Art Gallery and Allen Center for The Visual Arts (HAG)
Saturday, February 22nd from 5:30pm to 8:30pm
La Pena in Berkeley
3105 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA 94705
Sunday, February 23rd from 12pm to 4pm
Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco
2868 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110
Monday, February 24th from 12pm to 2pm
California State University – East Bay
University Union, MPR 1001 A
25800 Carlos Bee Boulevard Hayward, CA 94542
Monday, February 24th from 6pm to 7:30pm
San Jose State University
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library
150 E San Fernando St, Room 225, San José, CA 95192
About Oscar López Rivera
On January 17, 2017, President Barack Obama announced the commutation of the sentence of Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Oscar López Rivera. López Rivera was sentenced to 55 years in prison in 1981. He spent 36 years in federal prison—12 of them in solitary confinement. In 1999, López Rivera was offered clemency by President Clinton but refused to take it when the offer was not extended to all of his co-defendants. While in prison he became an avid painter.
López Rivera was born in San Sebastian, Puerto Rico in 1943. His family moved to Chicago when he was 14 years old. His ideas about Puerto Rican Independence were shaped while serving in the Vietnam war (he was drafted at 18 and received a bronze star) and after returning to Chicago while working as a community organizer. His work in Chicago allowed him to witness first hand the many Puerto Ricans and others who were deprived of basic medical care, housing and quality public schools. This experience led to him becoming a community activist, and active in the Campaign to Free the Five Puerto Rican Nationalists during the early 1970’s and was forced underground due to the surveillance and repression of the USA, along with Ida Luz Rodríguez, Haydee Beltrán and Carlos Alberto Torres, in 1976.
Among the many people calling for López Rivera’s release prior to his commutation were 10 Nobel Peace Prize winners--including Pope Francis, former President Jimmy Carter and the Reverend Desmond Tutu . Senator Bernie Sanders, former Illinois Congressman Luis V. Gutiérrez, playwright/composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, federal, state, and local elected officials, and faith leaders all rallied for López Rivera’s release.
Since returning to Puerto Rico, López Rivera has continued to advocate for an end to U.S. colonialism and has resumed his role as a community organizer. He is working to establish a holistic community center in Río Piedras. He is also focused on deepening his relationship in the underserved municipalities of Loíza and Comerío where he is working on educational and community-based projects.