Rafael Anglada López Papers

Rafael Anglada López is a lawyer and a civil rights activist. He was a member of the Federación de Universitarios Pro Independencia (FUPI-Federation of Pro-Independence University Students), a delegate for the Puerto Rican Socialist Party before the United Nations, and a reporter for Claridad, the major proindependence newspaper. Anglada has dedicated his life to the struggle for Puerto Rican independence from the United States and, as an attorney, defending the rights of political dissidents.

Anglada was born June 4, 1950. His mother, Gladys Paulina López Cabrera, was a medical secretary and his father, Jaime William Anglada Pérez worked for the Department of Education of the Government of Puerto Rico. The family lived in Santurce during his childhood and then moved to Río Piedras, where he enrolled in the prestigious University of Puerto Rico High School.

During his high school years, he was inclined toward activism and discovered an affinity with leftist and revolutionary causes. The Vietnam War and the student protests at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) raised his awareness and sparked his interest in political issues. Consequently, he joined a pro-independence student group along with individuals like Juan Manuel Carrión Morales, Ricardo Alegría, Jr., Alejandro Ortíz, Cynthia Ferrer, Jorge Hernández and Karl Fromm.

While Anglada’s political activism began in high school, it was his entry into the Río Piedras campus of the UPR in 1967, which would shape his future course. At the start of his academic career, he refrained from joining any of the militant leftist groups on campus, although he participated in a hunger strike that lasted eleven days and had been organized by Miguel Pérez de Otero, President of the Juventud Independentista Universitaria (University Youth for Independence). Gradually he became more involved and before the end of his freshman year, he had become a member of the FUPI. By the spring of 1970, Anglada became more radical in his politics and assumed a leadership role in the FUPI, serving as its Secretary of Finance. Among his accomplishments was developing fund raising strategies for the FUPI such as the sale of leftist books on campus and a wider distribution of the newspaper, Claridad. In the summer of 1970, he joined the Victoria de Girón Brigade and went to Cuba to help with the sugar cane harvest with several close associates including Lipio Vélez Velares, founder of the Movimiento Pro Independencia (MPI), which would later become the Partido Socialista Puertorriqueño (PSP-Socialist Party of Puerto Rico).

In October of that same year, he was expelled from the UPR. Along with other members of the FUPI, he was persecuted by the police and forced to go into hiding as a consequence of the burning of the ROTC building on the Río Piedras campus.

From 1971-1973 Anglada represented the FUPI in Prague, Czechoslovakia where he attended a world youth conference and met with leaders of groups such as the International Student Union, The World Federation of Democratic Youth and the World Peace Council. The two years he spent in Prague were important for his political work and he was able to bring the issue of Puerto Rican independence to the international arena and to place it on the Soviet agenda. These years were personally gratifying and included trips to countries such as North Korea and North Vietnam and meetings with world leaders such as Amilcar Cabral, a key figure in the African independence movement. In 1973, before returning to Puerto Rico, he attended the Tenth World Youth Festival in East Berlin.

Upon his return to Puerto Rico, Juan Mari Brás, Secretary General of the PSP named him Party representative to the United Nations. Anglada moved to New York and he worked as a delegate alongside José Antonio González y González from September until March 1978. At the UN he labored tirelessly presenting and lobbying for resolutions in favor of the decolonization of Puerto Rico. In that time period, the PSP forged ties with the Communist Party of the United States and together they organized activities such as the “Bicentennial Without Colonies” and two “International Solidarity Conferences for the Independence of Puerto Rico” held in Havana, Cuba in 1975 and in México City in 1979.

In 1977, Anglada returned to Puerto Rico and took advantage of an amnesty offered by the UPR to students who had been expelled for political reasons. He completed his BA degree in the social sciences and was admitted to the UPR’s Law School, attending classes during the day and working nights as a reporter for Claridad. He finished Law School in 1982 and returned to New York where he was employed at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Anglada later participated as a defense attorney in the notorious case against members of “Los Macheteros,” a pro independence group whose members were accused of robbing seven million dollars from the Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford, Connecticut.

Since 1989 Anglada has been in Puerto Rico practicing as a criminal lawyer in the Federal Court system. He remains strongly committed to the cause of Puerto Rican independence and is active on behalf of the case of Puerto Rico before the UN Decolonization Committee.

The Rafael Anglada Papers are an important resource for documenting leftist movements and radical politics in Puerto Rico and the United States. They are particularly informative regarding the role of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party in the United Nations. His work with Puerto Rican political prisoners is also well documented.