Puerto Rico's Protest Art Calls for the Island's Independence
Posted
June 19, 2017
Views
59,137
Likes
1,314
Comments
662
Engagement
3.34%
June 19, 2017
59,137
1,314
662
3.34%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
4:06Now PlayingStreet art in Puerto Rico has long channeled widespread frustrations about the island’s century-long status as a U.S. territory. The work of La Puerta is one such example. The anonymous collective voicing ideas of identity and politics exploded throughout San Juan over the last year, but now, their protest art might come at a cost.
In May, the country’s penal code was amended to punish acts like disrupting school activity and painting on public walls with jail time. Human rights lawyer Ariadna Godreau-Aubert worries, “These new amendments are trying to implicate street art as well as every other kind of free speech activity against austerity and the government.”
La Puerta’s street murals often advocate for the island’s independence, a political debate revived by the fiscal crisis. On June 11, a referendum took place where Puerto Ricans voted between statehood, free association/independence, and the status quo.
Leading up to the vote, VICE News followed the La Puerta collective as they took to an expressway that’s become the go-to spot for their political messages.
Subscribe to VICE News here
Check out VICE News for more
Follow VICE News here:
More videos from the VICE network
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
