We are afraid to lead, because we are taught to be followers. We have been told that we are docile so long, that we have forgotten that we have alway… - Denise Oliver-Velez

So many things were changing in our world. We looked, and we searched in revolutionary literature. Maybe we found a few pieces, but there really wasn't much because the world had never really dealt with this. We did take as heroines of our struggle Lolita Lebrón and Blanca Canales because they had been in the Nationalist Party struggle in Puerto Rico. We looked to women like Angela Davis. There were two women in the Panther 21 case at the time, Afeni Shakur and Joan Bird, who had been arrested with the brothers. We were proud that women were going on posters. That was real important because this was new. The face of the civil rights movement had been male.

Puerto Rico is being turned into the "showplace colony" of the united states. American corporations are everywhere, all over the island, using Puerto Rican people as cheap labor. Everything that cannot be sold in the states is dumped in Puerto Rico-plastic palm trees in people's homes instead of the real thing that grows outside, makeup that is not needed, wool maxi-skirts and boots to be worn in 80 degree weather. And the people are brain-washed into buying this shit. The radio blasts American music and advertisements-"radio San Juan-turns me on." We turned it off. You get better service if you speak English, the tourists act like they owned the island and the Borinquenos are just there to be servants and part of the scenery.

The role of women, initially, in a cultural context, was, on one hand, to be passive. That’s what we were programmed into believing. But when we started studying history—and Juan, as minister of education, made sure that we learned about radical women leaders in Puerto Rico. And so, for most of us, including those of us who had been to college, we had never heard of people like Mariana Bracetti. We had never heard of even Doña Fela, who was the mayor of San Juan for so many years. And we began to examine—remember, the women’s movement was also—the second wave—was also coming along. We laid out our newspaper at The Rat, which was taken over by women. So, we began to push back against the ideas of—in the program, it said revolutionary machismo. And we said, “That’s really ridiculous. Machismo is not revolutionary; it’s oppressive.” And the young men in the organization joined with us women, and we made that change.