Ruth Reynolds, Solidarity Activism, and the Struggle Against U.S. Colonialism in Puerto Rico

Ruth Reynolds dedicated her life to solidarity activism for Puerto Rico’s independence that was grounded in exposing her fellow “continentals” to the discrepancy between the United States’s democratic ideals and its subjugation of Puerto Rico. Reynolds’s transformation into a leading voice of the US solidarity movement for Puerto Rico’s independence began after she moved to New York as a young woman in her twenties. The US government and the colonial government in Puerto Rico touted that the commonwealth status inaugurated in 1952 had ended the colonial relationship. Reynolds paid a high price for scrutinizing the legitimacy of US rule of Puerto Rico. Reynolds’s enduring solidarity work was evident in the updated preface to her finally published book, where she insisted at the time of writing it in 1988, toward the end of her life, that “Puerto Rico is still in bondage”.

Colonialism · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Solidarity · Gender Studies · Law · Race, History, and American Society