Oscar López Rivera – Lessons from Puerto Rico, the Diaspora, and Internationally

Pre-Event Reception: 4pm-5pm

Main Event: Doors open at 5pm / Event begins at 5:30pm

TICKETS GO ON SALE FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020 AT 5PM!

$15 in Advance / $20 at the Door / $40 Reception (includes light refreshments, intimate book signing and admission to the main event at 5:30pm)

Presented by: La Peña Cultural Center, Bay Area Boricuas, Boricuas in Berkeley, and Alt Breaks Puerto Rico

Join us for an evening of tribute, music and conversation with Puerto Rican patriot and visionary, Oscar López Rivera. This event is part of a national U.S. speaking tour titled “Oscar López Rivera—Two Years Later: Resistance and Resilience”.

Two years after his release as a political prisoner for 36 years, Oscar López Rivera is returning to the Bay Area to share his current work in Puerto Rico post hurricanes Irma and Maria, and against a backdrop of a series of earthquakes that have stricken the island over the last few weeks.

Since his release in 2017, he founded the Oscar López Rivera Foundation, Libertá, through which he has been leading efforts to strengthen grassroots community organizing, demanding the auditing and cancelation of the island’s debt and advocating for the Puerto Rico’s sovereignty.

Pre-event Reception: 4pm-5pm

Tickets are $40 with light refreshments and intimate book signing and includes admission to the main event at 5:30pm. Please note: SPACE IS VERY LIMITED.

Main Event: 5:30pm-7:45pm

Tickets are $15 Advance / $20 Door / $15 Students and Seniors at Door

Featuring a talk, Q&A session and book signing with Oscar López Rivera, and honoring of Mr. López Rivera with music and dance by the Bay Area Bomba y Plena Workshop, poetry by Rico Pabon and more.

Oscar López Rivera Biography:

Serving 36 years in prison, Oscar López Rivera is the longest held Puerto Rican political prisoner in the history of Puerto Rico’s struggle for independence, regarded as the “Nelson Mandela of the Americas.” In 2017, as the result of a broad human rights campaign, Pres. Obama commuted his sentence only days before leaving office.

Since then, he has continued to energetically advocate an end to U.S. colonialism, and resumed his role as an organizer, deepening his relationship to the municipalities of Loiza and Comerio and working to establish a community center in Rio Piedras, from which to train organizers to develop the capacity for community self-reliance, mutual aid, and self-governance.

Of particular interest for Oscar on this Northwest US tour, is to educate students, academics, and communities about the campaign to audit Puerto Rico’s $74 billion debt.