José Luis Rodríguez Twenty-four-year-old José Luis Rodríguez made good use of his freedom between conviction and sentencing, to join in a Grito de Lares celebration in San Francisco. He had been out on $25,000 bail since his arrest in Chicago two years ago, and had finally received a conviction of "seditious conspiracy." He knew it could bring him a sentence of up to twenty years. Handsome, well-groomed, quiet and modest in manner, he lent little credence to attempts to brand him as a terrorist and a threat to the United States government. His speech at the celebration dealt mostly with the importance of the 1868 Lares rebellion against Spanish colonialism. He could have been a Thomas Jefferson or a Patrick Henry speaking out for freedom in those almost forgotten days of our own struggle for independence. I had met José Luis at the home of Doña Consuelo. It was inspiring to know that not all Puerto Rican patriots lived in Puerto Rico. New York City and Chicago are the two main centers of nationalism, because of the consolidation of Puerto Rican communities. There is some activity in San Francisco, but Puerto Rican families there are more widely separated. José was born in the activist-oriented Puerto Rican section of Chicago. With a B.A. from the University of Illinois in political science, and a minor in Latin American history, he chose to do volunteer community service. He tutored students with reading problems and helped the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in its efforts to preserve the Puerto Rican national heritage. On trial with José Luis had been three others, including Alejandrina Torres, 47-year-old wife of a United Church of Christ minister. For two years she was confined in the women's mind control unit of Lexington Prison, Kentucky. Twenty-three-hours-a-day confinement and sensory deprivation took their toll on her health. She experienced dizziness, depression and weight loss. The purpose was to reduce her and two other political prisoners to a state of submission essential for their ideological conversion and hopefully to the point of becoming desperate enough to destroy themselves. The others arrested had taken the position of prisoners of war, maintaining that the United States had illegally and militarily invaded Puerto Rico and that they were in their full rights to resist. José Luis himself had taken the position of political prisoner. There were, at that time, fifteen POWs and ten political prisoners. Though not a member of the clandestine armed struggle, José Luis declared himself to be in full support of it, maintaining that any method of liberation was justifiable. In view of his taking a different stand than the others, he was given a suspended sentence with five years probation. The other three, Edwín Cortés, Alejandrina Torres and Alberta Rodríguez were given thirty-five years each. His plans are now to continue his involvement with the independence movement, particularly in support of the incarcerated POWs and other political prisoners.