Oscar Lopez Rivera moved from Puerto Rico to Chicago at age 14 and faced discrimination. He was later drafted and sent to Vietnam. After returning, he organized to improve conditions for Puerto Ricans, establishing bilingual education and encouraging university recruitment of Latino students. In 1981, he was arrested and accused of seditious conspiracy and being a member of FALN, and was sentenced to 55 years in prison. He was held in solitary confinement at a maximum security prison. Despite wide support for his release, Oscar remains imprisoned after 36 years.

2. At the age of 14, Oscar
moved from rural Puerto
Rico to Chicago, part of a
mass forced economic
migration of Puerto Ricans
from the island. In the U.S.,
he and the community faced
discrimination in every
aspect of their lives, to the
extent that public school
teachers told Puerto Rican
students that they had no
history.

3. Like many poor young Latino and African American men, in 1966 he
was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to Vietnam…
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4. “Something I could feel
immediately was the radical
change that had occurred in the
community. It was no longer the
silent and invisible community I
had left behind when I left for
the army. Even in the way that
Boricuas walked, you could see
the positive impact the riot had
in our community. But it was in
the youth that I saw the biggest
change. They were becoming
organized and radicalized. And
it was these youth who gave the
driving force and energy to the
struggles that emerged after the
riot.”
Caption 2

5. He joined these efforts,
organizing to improve the
quality of life for his people,
working to establish bilingual
education in public schools, to
encourage universities to
actively recruit Latino
students, staff and faculty, to
found educational programs
in prison, to create drug
treatment centers, to stop
police brutality, to end
discriminatory hiring
practices.

6. Like many young Puerto Ricans living in the diaspora, he learned the
history of Puerto Rico’s colonial occupation — by Spain and by the United
States — and his people’s consistent resistance to that occupation. He
understood more deeply that colonialism was the source of the problem.
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7. It was a time when the world was being transformed by anti-colonial and
anti-imperialist struggles, which took different forms…
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8. In 1980, 11 Puerto
Rican men and
women were arrested
near Chicago and
accused of seditious
conspiracy and
related charges, of
being members of the
FALN.

9. In 1981, Oscar was
arrested, accused of
the same seditious
conspiracy and
related charges, of
being a member of
the FALN. He
invoked the same
position under
international law,
and was sentenced
to 55 years in
prison.

10. When he arrived at the
maximum security prison in
Leavenworth, Kansas, prison
officials welcomed him with a
threat:
“You don't belong here. You're
a terrorist; you're a leader. You
belong in Marion and that’s
where we are going to send
you.”
Above: The National Committee to Free
Puerto Rican Prisoners of War and Political
Prisoners demonstrates at Leavenworth USP

11. At Marion, at the time the most oppressive prison in the U.S., he was
held in total isolation and sensory deprivation, conditions tantamount
to torture, conditions condemned by international human rights
organizations.

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14. Family visits, including from his daughter Clarisa and his granddaughter
Karina, and his sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews, have been a
mainstay, wherever the Bureau of Prisons has placed him.
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17. The same wide support
resulted in President
Clinton commuting the
sentences of Oscar’s
co-defendants in 1999,
releasing them from
prison after they served
16 to 19 years behind
bars, finding that their
sentences — some of
which were shorter,
some of which were
longer than Oscar’s —
were disproportionately
lengthy and that they
had served enough
time.

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20. And the same wide
support resulted in the
2010 release of Oscar’s
co-defendant Carlos
Alberto Torres, who
was also received with
a hero’s welcome, and
who is also living a
productive, law-abiding
life, fully integrated into
civil society.

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22. Three U.S. presidents — Truman, Carter, and Clinton — have used their
unlimited constitutional powers to commute the sentences of Puerto
Rican political prisoners: in 1952, 1979, and 1999.

23. It’s time for President Obama to become the fourth, to
exercise his unlimited constitutional powers to commute
Oscar’s sentence and grant him immediate release.