This work is inspired by the protests that have emerged in the past few years both in the United States and Puerto Rico, two nations that have been joined politically, economically, and culturally since the USA invaded PR in 1898 during the Spanish-American war.

Puerto Rico is currently a commonwealth and, while we have US citizenship and supposed self-rule, we are ruled by the US government without being able to vote for the Presidency or Congress. We only have one representative with voice and no vote in Congress. We get some federal benefits, don't pay federal taxes, and have fought in US wars since WW1. US economic policies have led Puerto Rico to bankruptcy and we are currently under the control of a Fiscal Control Board, appointed by a Republican Congress, that imposes neoliberal policies and austerity measures on Puerto Rico. The political party in power in Puerto Rico is a right-wing pro-Statehood party that is ideologically aligned with the Fiscal Control Board, so we are enjoying a clear view of what right-wing economic and social policies have to offer. In all of Puerto Rico's government offices and buildings, the US and PR flags fly together, a reminder that our realities and politics are intertwined.

The connections between PR and the US (where more Puerto Ricans live than in our islands) and our struggles under Republican control and Trump's presidency inspired me to create the @TinyProtests bot, which initially generated both US and PR themed protests. I recently forked this bot into @TinyProtests for the US and @Protestitas for PR. For the past few years, these bots have been informed by real protests, incorporating different protest configurations and slogans to highlight the poetic qualities of real protest language, as it is chanted, carried in signs, and circulated in social media. The bots frequently go on thematically focused solidarity protests with whatever real protests and marches in the US and PR.

This e-poem brings both bots together under one protest configuration — the street march — and intersperses a selection of their slogans. We are united in a struggle against the same social ills our right-wing governments currently support — racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, imperialism, xenophobia, nationalism — and in favor of responsible economic, environmental, and social policies.

This work is dedicated to all who struggle!

Credits: This work adapts the code of Milton Läufer's "God" published in Taper #1, or as I like to call it, "the God code." I am very grateful for Milton Läufer's help in developing this piece.