Puerto Rico’s Senator Ana Irma Rivera Lassén was in New York City last week to take part in meet and greets and to talk with some the city’s more than half a million diaspora Puerto Ricans. She attended events in the Lower East Side, East Harlem, and the Bronx, and then marched with Puerto Rico gubernatorial candidate Juan Dalmau up Fifth Avenue in the 67th annual National Puerto Rican Day Parade.
An attorney who once served as president of the Puerto Rico Bar Association, Rivera Lassén is long known for her feminist, LGBTQ+, and pro-Black advocacy work. Now, after serving as a member of the Puerto Rico Senate since 2021, Rivera Lassén is campaigning to be elected Puerto Rico’s sole representative in the U.S. Congress, in a role known as Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner.
“The resident commissioner is not exactly the same as a congressperson,” Rivera Lassén told the AmNews. “She is in Congress, she has a voice, she does not have a vote, but she represents Puerto Rico and everything that has to do with what affects Puerto Rico: She promotes legislation, she can present legislation, but she does not vote on the floor. That means that [they have] to look for people who support the issues and everything that she does, so that it can then be voted on in the committees and then on the floor of the House. It is a very complex position, but it is different from the traditional congressperson.”
Usually the person elected to serve as Puerto Rico’s U.S. congressional representative leans heavily on the partisan ambitions of the political party they come from. Jenniffer González-Colón is the current resident commissioner––the first woman to hold the office––and has helped sponsor bills that are in line with the New Progressive Party (Partido Nuevo Progresista; PNP), which is Republican Party-aligned and wants Puerto Rico to become a U.S. state. The other major political party on the island is the Democratic Party-aligned Popular Democratic Party (Partido Popular Democrático; PPD), which promotes the continuation of Puerto Rico’s current commonwealth status.
Rivera Lassén is campaigning for resident commissioner while representing the party she helped found, the Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana (Citizens’ Victory Movement; MVC). The MVC has allied with the Puerto Rican Independence Party (Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño/PIP) during this electoral cycle because they are both ultimately fighting for the decolonization of Puerto Rico.
If elected resident commissioner, Rivera Lassén said she would caucus with the Democratic Party, Congressional Black Caucus, Democratic Women’s Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Congressional Equality Caucus. She would also like to caucus with other U.S. territories about the common issues they face. One thing she’d like to emphasize in Congress is that people in Puerto Rico have a right to federal funds and should not have to beg for them. There will need to be more transparency about the use of those funds to avoid corruption, but guardrails can be put in place so that the funds can be used to help support the economy. The senator said she would look to have the island’s ongoing political status question resolved with “a process that is immediate, that is participatory and democratic. That means that the people of Puerto Rico should have all the information about each of the status options that we know of––statehood, independence, and free association––that they should have all the answers to all the questions they may have, that they should know how long each transition process takes with any of those options, and that it should also be binding. That means that the United States accepts the decision made by the people of Puerto Rico once this process is over.” And, as resident commissioner, Rivera Lassén says she wants to represent all the people of Puerto Rico—including those in the diaspora. “I have a vision far beyond the territory of Puerto Rico,” she stressed, “I believe that the Puerto Rican identity should be included when we talk about who represents us.
“What I am emphasizing is that in addition to the people in Puerto Rico, the resident commissioner should also be seen as representing and looking after the interests of the Puerto Rican people who are in the United States, in the diaspora. … And it is important to use the term of unity with Puerto Rico, because the people who live here and vote here can always help us, by helping to create awareness about the people who are in Puerto Rico, so that when we are––in my case––in the Congress, they will support Puerto Rican causes.”
Diaspora needs to have a seat at the table too
Melissa Mark-Viverito, the former New York City Council speaker, was born in Puerto Rico. She is volunteering to support Rivera Lassén’s candidacy and helping to coordinate the senator’s meetings with diaspora Puerto Ricans. “She believes the diaspora needs to have a seat at the table, too, in these conversations,” explained Mark-Viverito. “This is something I deeply respected, because I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and I know that there are elements on the island that see us in the diaspora very dismissively, they don’t value or even consider us as real Puerto Ricans, right? And they say that we shouldn’t have anything to say about what happens with Puerto Rico. She sees it differently, so when the MVC party was founded, they actually created a chapter in the diaspora, and that chapter in the diaspora has votes and voting power in the assemblies and in the decision-making processes for the party on the island. That’s why she came here: one was to walk alongside Dalmau in the parade, to uplift the alliance, but two, it was to engage in conversations with us because she values us, and she believes that we have a role to play.”
The MVC, a political party that was only created in 2019, has already shaken up the political landscape in Puerto Rico. In its first electoral effort, the MVC was able to win two senatorial seats: one for Rivera Lassén, the other for Rafael Bernabe Riefkohl. This year, the MVC was campaigning for the November 5 general elections with two candidates for at-large seats in the House of Representatives and two for the Senate. Just this past Tuesday, June 10, though, the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico disqualified four of MVC’s five national candidates, leaving the party with only the resident commissioner candidacy of Rivera Lassén. The disqualification was based on a lawsuit initiated by one of the island’s major political parties.
By founding a political party, Rivera Lassén is in line with Afro Puerto Ricans who have founded and/or led major political parties on the archipelago. The attorney Pedro Albizu Campos was the president of and spokesperson for the independence-minded Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico. Dr. José Celso Barbosa, a medical doctor whose work among the island’s poor Blacks led him to push for the creation of a health insurance system, led the island’s first statehood movement and founded the Republican Party of Puerto Rico in 1899.
As a senator, Rivera Lassén has underwritten progressive policies such as a restorative justice bill and Senate Bill 1282 (PS 1282), the island’s version of a CROWN Act, which bans discrimination against people based on their hair styles.
Mark-Viverito said, “When she called me to tell me that she was going to run, I cried. I cried because I just know the significance of what her candidacy represents for us, and what we can aspire for Puerto Rico to be. This is another Puerto Rico that she represents, and she wants that Puerto Rico to lead and to govern and to be respected.
“It’s very important, at the crossroads we’re in, not only Puerto Rico, but also what we’re going through here, to have people like Ana Irma running for office and get them elected. It’s very much needed if we’re going to change and build a more inclusive society.”