Foreword Reflections on seeing the outline and selections from Jean Zwickel's Voices for Independence: In the Spirit of Valor and Sacrifice It is now nearly ninety years since the events euphemistically described as the "change of sovereignty" brought Puerto Rico under United States rule. Most of today's Puerto Ricans are four generations away from Spanish times, four centuries of exploitation that only the trauma of the new conquest could soften in nostalgic reminiscences. Some 40% of all Puerto Ricans live outside of Puerto Rico, scattered from the Virgin Islands to Hawaii. In Puerto Rico itself, four generations of school children have been taught that English is the language of advancement, that U.S. history is real history, that the only Puerto Rican heroes are those who rushed to serve the conquerors. The press and media are U.S.-owned or licensed or dominated, reporting the news with the deliberate and the unconscious biases which select United States events as news, blithely assume that the U.S. president is their president, and that the enemies of the State Department are their enemies as well. U.S. commodities fill the daily lives of people; the poverty of the colony is buffered with imported food stamps. And yet, in spite of the most intense and pervasive brainwashing, voices of independence are raised again and again. At times the struggle reaches crescendos of fury; at other times it is a whisper in the night, a scrawl on a wall, a rebellious school composition. Just as the governors and investors rejoice in the final decline of national feeling it is reborn in a new form. Some courageously proclaim their commitment to independence. For others it is a dream discard at daylight as the practical compromises of prospering in a colony dismiss the concerns which are seen as impractical. Political movements rise on tides of hope and collapse, crushed by force or demoralized by the seeming futility of so uneven a struggle. Jean Zwickel's Voices for Independence: In the Spirit of Valor and Sacrifice gives us an insight into the depth and resilience of Puerto Rico's cry for freedom. She has gathered together many voices, both impassioned and analytic, and has shown us not only the political thinking but also the personal experiences of independentistas, the daily existence within the nationalist community. It is important for many reasons: it presents us with a part of Puerto Rico's history, culture and present reality that is erased in the official line of how "we" brought them "the blessings of our advanced civilization." It also gives a sense of how history remains alive despite the Great Eraser, how when the experience of life in the colony rekindles the feelings of protest, there is a tradition to draw on which gives form to those feelings. And for people already committed to the struggle it provides materials for analyzing critically the ways of thought and feeling of a movement that has kept the spirit alive but has yet to triumph.     —Richard Levins, Professor, Harvard School of Public Health, Board Member, Puerto Rican Support Committee, Board Member, NY Marxist School