The governor of Puerto Rico signed Senate Bill 1282 (PS 1282), the Law Against Discrimination Over Hairstyles, into law on July 24, bringing new legislation that would ban public and private sector businesses from discriminating against Afro Puerto Ricans when they wear protective hairstyles like braids, cornrows, twists, or locs, or when they sport their hair in a naturally curly crowned afro.
The bill was passed in the Senate in April and by the House in June. After waiting for the governor’s signature for almost an entire month, members of the “Mi Cabello Es Mi Corona/My Hair is My Crown” coalition requested an official meeting with Gov. Pedro Pierluisi to find out what was going on.
More than 30 artists, stylists, organizations, and individuals had worked to push the law this far: it had been introduced to the Puerto Rican Senate by Senators Ana Irma Rivera Lassén and Rafael Bernabe Riefkohl of the Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana (Citizen Victory Movement).
The Mi Cabello Es Mi Corona coalition held months of educational events across the archipelago, informing people about ways they can grow and maintain African textured hair. During a Jan. 23 public hearing in front of the Senate’s Human Rights and Labor Affairs Committee, Afro Puerto Ricans had testified in the Capitol building about the discrimination they’ve faced: jobs that were taken away, access to schools and private establishments denied, and time and expenses wasted on chemical straightening treatments that only damage a person’s hair. All because kinky hair was not deemed socially acceptable.
The legislation was sitting on the governor’s table, but there were rumors that Pierluisi was being pressured not to sign it––private sector businesses didn’t want this law passed. They pointed out that the island already has constitutional protections against racial discrimination. But coalition members spoke with one of Pierluisi’s advisors about what passage of PS 1282 could mean to the Black community.
“One of the things that we mentioned in the meeting,” reports Sacha Antonetty-Lebron, founder of the Afro Puerto Rican magazine Revista Étnica, “was that this bill has not only importance for the Black people and Afrodescendant people of Puerto Rico, but also to people in the Americas, and that we have been receiving a lot of international coverage and people were watching what was going to happen with Puerto Rico in terms of this because this is a common experience of Black people throughout the world.”
As Puerto Rico has become a prolific vacation destination, it’s brought more Black travelers to the archipelago. The coalition mentioned that without the bill’s passage there remained the risk that Afro Puerto Ricans and Black people visiting Puerto Rico could face arbitrary discrimination that would damage the reputation of the island’s growing tourist industry. Pierluisi signed the bill on July 23, but the announcement that he had done so did not come out until the 25th of July. Antonetty-Lebron thinks that this was also strategic: Pierluisi had been reminded that July 25 is International Afro-Descendant Women’s Day and having PS 1282 become law would be ideal on that special day.
“This law is very important because right now they have to review a few of the laws that are in our public sector. They have to revise the municipalities’ code. They have to revise the Department of Education. And they have two more laws that are from the Department of Labor that they now have to revise to include this protection of rights,” notes Antonetty-Lebron.
Mi Cabello Es Mi Corona coalition members like the anti-racist and Afro feminist groups Colectivo Ilé and Colectiva Feminista en Construcción are now ready to move onto the second phase of their campaign. They say they’re prepared to help private sector businesses––places like private schools, small and medium-sized companies, and local stores––who might need guidance as they try to update their code of conduct and non-discrimination standards.
“It’s not that we just want to ensure that they enforce the law, but also we want to educate people about why the law is important,” Antonetty-Lebron said. “We are so happy, it’s like this is not just for, you know, for the next generation, for our children who are here, that are present, our youth. But we know that this has been very important, like a reparation thing for our ancestors. The opportunity to create a public policy that will give us so many reparations for the past and also the future, it’s like, it’s incredible. The feeling is incredible.”