Luis Rosa Pérez: Life as a Puerto Rican Political Prisoner of War Available to Purchase

Luis Rosa Pérez I was born in struggle. Hours before I took a breath into this world, my mother, Hipólita Rosa Pérez, was made a widow. I come from a matriarchal family, in which the women were both nourishing and supportive and defenders and promoters of culture and compassion. We did not lack love. Although I was active in school and athletics, I was drawn toward contributing something positive in my community and, later, to my nation, Puerto Rico.

I always saw my political involvement and my political-military involvement as something necessary, natural, and organic. I don’t regret my participation, and I internalized the consequences for it. I was nineteen, a third-year university student, and the father of a two-year old, when I was captured along with ten others and sentenced to 108 years for armed political actions for the cause of Puerto Rico independence. After nineteen plus years of imprisonment for seditious conspiracy and belonging to the FALN (Armed Forces for National Liberation), I returned to Puerto Rico to continue the fight for Puerto Rico’s independence. I married here and I am raising a family. Here I remain.