COLLECTION COLLAZO-GOLDWASSER-BROEKMAN (Puerto Rico)
The collection consists primarily of a film registration of Oscar Collazo’s daughter Carmen Zoraida (interview) made in Puerto Rico by Ira and Harriett Goldwasser Broekman in February 2012 (5 days of interviews). This collection is about Oscar Collazo (1914-1994) who attacked President Truman in 1950 and went to jail for twenty-nine years. The collection includes copies of the Trial and FBI reports.
The authors of the film collected material in different supports (original documents, prints, CDs, DVDs, newspapers, etc.). The materials that have been collected by Goldwasser Broekman are about Puerto Rico and the struggle for independence, particularly the aftermath of uprisings, the situation of political prisoners past and present; the lives of Puerto Ricans in the United States and on the island.
Carmen Zoraida Collazo is the only child of Oscar Collazo Lopez. Oscar Collazo Lopez was a member of the Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico, Movimiento Libertador de Puerto Rico.
There is also information on the commemoration of the birthday in San Juan of Oscar Collazo and the only member survivor of the attack on the Congress, Rafael Cancel Miranda. There are films on Puerto Rico, Hidden Colony, Hidden struggle, a production of Channel 4; the film La Operación about the Sterilization Policy of the US in Puerto Rico and an interview with Filiberto Ojeda Ríos one of the Macheteros assassinated by the FBI around 2006.
The collection has:
1. The Interview by Ira and Harriett Goldwasser Broekman: copy at the IISG
2. Detail of the Interview by Ira and Harriett Goldwasser Broekman
3. List of documents of the Collection COLLAZO-GOLDWASSER-BROEKMAN (Puerto Rico)
2) Detail of the interview by Ira And Harriett Goldwasser Broekman
DAY 1, January 9 2012
What is Puerto Rico
The History
The flag
Father Oscar Collazo Lope
Attack Blair House, 1-11-1950
The reason of the Uprising in Puerto Rico
The aftermath
The trial, See file
October 1954 – Attack on Congress
The 4 prisoners
1977 freedom for Andrés Figaroa Cordero
1979: Freedom of the 4 remaining prisoners, including Oscar Collazo (during the administration of Carter)
The struggle of the Taino against the Spaniards
The search for gold
Today the strip-mining inland Jayuya
[See Cd Pepe and flora song about the mining and the flat]
Personal History: how did the father explain the politics to his daughter. Amazing Puerto Rico is not free; What is a colony such Puerto Rico; and growing in the Bronx New York I a step-family (Oscar’s second marriage and she have already 2 daughters).
November 1-11 1950
How did she find-out herself when she was 15
The role of the FBI (Secret Service)
There was no news and she was arrested
The endless repeated questions
Her step-mother was in jail for 3 months and finally contacted with her father through a letter
Visit to Washington
The case was overshadowed by the Rosenberg Trial
Her father had the Death Sentence. Carmen collected signatures for support selling newspapers of the Partido Nacionalista. There were other arrests and they were rising money for prisonners in Puerto Rico who went to jail for 10 years in the US and Puerto Rico.
Step-mother in jail
DAY 2 Historical Overview
Uprisings in Puerto Rico
1868: El Grito de Lares
1937: Ponce
1950: Jayuya
Explanation flag of Partido Nacionalista
Juan Antonio Corretjer (the Nicolas Guillén of Puerto Rico) and Consuelo Lee Tapia
The Macheteros
Hartford Connecticut
Oscal Lopez
List of Parties on the left, Liga Socialista, the role of P.I.P (Partido Independentista Puertoriqueno)
July 25-1978: Cerro Maravilla, Local TV. , Radio
1979: Oscar Collazo coming out of jail starting “Comité Unitario”, starting relations between the parties
DAY 3
How did Oscar become political
End story about the father and the family
He passed away in 1994 after an illness
Although many people afraid to join politic, he “had touched their hearts”
Why do political prisoners refuse parole and the difference with what President Carter did
Why she doesn’t write to the political prisoners
What did Oscar say when he came out (more convinced to fight)
How did different groups react to their activities
Explain: statehood, commonwealth and independence-decolonization
Carmens’life:
Living in the projects of East Harlem with 6 children
Support Husbands and their politics
1972: she moved to Puerto Rico
Her jobs and the role of FBI
She explains tax break for companies in PR for 17years
Japanese Company
The case against the police. She took the Police to Court (see Day 3 E, Dey 3 D and F) and the FBI File
Puerto Rican in the struggle giving up American citizenship, the historic reason of losing the Puerto Rican nationality and becoming US citizens in 1917.
The struggle around the islands of Vieques and Culebra.
The military taking up the island
The color of the PR flag
Filiberto Ojeda Rios
The book “American Gunfight” – Criticism, see file with the original interview by the writers. Day 3 G
DAY 4
Griselio Torresola
What led to the decision of President Carter to let them out
What happened during the WW II (many deaths 1937)
How did her own children adjust to East Harlem and Puerto Rico (Dissertation on “circular migration” –
Poem “Dos Alas”
National Anthem “La borrincana”
Columbus and the naming of San Juan de Bautista
The “Young Lords” in the New York City (material already in the IISG – “We took the Streets”, and “Tengo Puerto Rico en mi corazón”)
Still Photos: Oscar López on their t-shirt. He was a member of the FALN (Chicago)
DAY 5 Friday January 20th 2012
Commemoration of the birth of Oscar Collazo López in the Ateneo Puertoriqueno in San Juan
The speakers were: MC: Elma Beatríz Rosado (widow of Fliberto, graduating in History, working in dissertation)
1. President of the Atenero Puertoriqueno: Dr. Milton Solero M.D. Ateneo founded in 1878 by a group of intellectuals of pro independency- Cultural Center
2. Carmen Z. Collazo Ríos
3. Juan Manuel Delgado, Prof. At the University of Rio Piedras about the history of PR
4. Sebastián Castrodad Riverón, grandnephew of Oscar, son of Wilma
5. Rafael Cancel Mirand – Poems
6. Dr. hector Pesquera MD (of the MINH (Movimiento Independentista Hostosiano)
Claridad (weekly newspaper) Annual Festival From January 26 to February 1st.
STILLS
Photo 1 Oscar at age 17 – Jayuya
Photo 2 Oscar at age 11 in Jayuya
Photo 3 Filiberto Ojeda Rios – Macheteros killed by FBI
Photo 4 Filiberto Oscar and Blanca Canales after coming out of prison
Photo 5 Rafael Cancel Miranda, Oscar Collazo, Wilma Riverón, Irving flores, Lolita Lebrón and Wilma’s Secretary – They went to the UN in the early 80’s to be heard.
Wilma was for 5 years the information and representation of the Partido Socialista Puertoriqueno and she informed delegates about Puerto Rico at the UN
Photo 6 On the way from Leavenworth, Federal Prison to Puerto Rico in the friend’s house in New York City
Photo 7 Griselio Torresola – Oscar’s companion who died at Blair House 25 years old
Photo 8 Filiberto Ojeda Ríos
Photo 9 Oscar López, political prisoner, 31 years
Photo 10 Older photo of her father at an activity in New York city
Photo 11 Oscar arriving in Puerto Rico when coming out of prison + the President of Committee to Free the Five
Video 244 take I – video take II
Photo 12 Oscar at 22 years old
Photo 13 Oscar at the Airport PR with singer Danny Rivera and Lucecita
Photo 14 1977 Oscar and Carmen during a visit in the prison
Photo 15 Oscar and Filiberto some years after the prison
Photo 16 Wooden machete and a poem with pictures of the leader of the first Indian war, Betances, Albizu Campos (the Jose Marti of PR) and Filiberto
Photo 17 Viewing of the celebration of the year of birthday or Oscar in Casa Corretjer – Ciales
“Puerto Rico, one flag one nation”
Photo 18 Flag of PR
Photo 19 Death Mask of Oscar