The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and Transnational Solidarity: Latin American Anti-colonialism versus the United States during the Cold War

This paper will explore the efforts of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party to build and employ Latin American solidarity in its struggle against U.S. colonialism in the island during the 1950s.  It will also examine how, why, and in what fashion different individuals, organizations, and governments throughout Latin America did or did not extend solidarity with the anti-colonial movement in Puerto Rico in general and Nationalist Party political prisoners in particular.   To discuss this, I will focus on three events and their aftermath:  the October 30, 1950, Nationalist Party uprising in Puerto Rico; the related November 1, 1950, attempt by members of the Nationalist Party to assassinate President Harry Truman in Washington, D.C., and the 1954 attack on the U.S. Congress carried out by members of the Nationalist Party.  These events offer a prism through which I will examine the appeals made by the Nationalist Party to trans-Latin American solidarity, the varied responses of Latin Americans to this request, and the impact their gestures of solidarity had on both the Nationalist Party and the U.S. government.              The 1950s was the height of the Cold War and U.S. hegemonic power in the region demanded unity in the face of the “communist” threat, which is how it characterized any opposition to its imperial control.  Thus, when the U.S. government accused the Nationalists of being terrorists and of having ties with the Communist Party, it fully expected the rest of Latin America to fall in line.  This is not what happened, in ways and for reasons that this paper will discuss.  In addition to discussing the Latin American responses, this paper will explore the U.S. government reaction to the protests of leading Latin Americans to the imprisonment of the Nationalist Party prisoners and threatened execution of Nationalist Party figure Oscar Collazo.