Veronica Colon Rosairio. Executive director of Fundacion de mujeres en Puerto Rico was founded by women in the Diaspora and within Puerto Rico, which promotes social justice and supports the economic security, safety, health, reproductive autonomy and general empowerment of women, girls and gender-fluid individuals in Puerto Rico. Why is this so important? The women and outer communities of PR have continuously been left on the margins, particularly women, since colonial times of the island and it has been a corporate tax free haven to exploit folks and keep them in poverty. Think Hawaii 2.0.

After Hurricane Marie hit her home country of Puerto Rico, Veronica went back home to leverage her US top tier educational background, with an 11 year career within a Washington, DC think tank, to help rebuild the country through an ecosystem of non-profits creating an entrepreneurial environment to help communities see ownership and organizing women at the forefront to lead a new transformation of Puerto Rico.  Veronica and I discuss the importance of this new leadership and a socio-economic change for women to be at the forefront due to the history of Puerto Rico and the US relationships over the years. Particularly the big corporations and Pharma which has had a long history of creating clinical trials with the first birth control pills tested on Puerto Rican Women which were hugely controversial and was also known as  The Pill Trials to lead into the first testing distribution of Opioids in Puerto Rico. The history of Puerto Rican people has long been colonized by Spain and the US by creating more profits to the wealthy since the early 1900’s as per this documentary we refenced call “La Operacion '' which at minute 7, is where we see the economic displacement begin of the farming communities and lower income neighborhoods, then by sterilizing women to control the populations. There is a lot to unpack in this episode, but the goal is to start discussions of our histories that are slowly being erased and how these policies of colonization, which clearly opened our eyes to the concept through social media with Gaza and Israel, has long been a thing here in the US starting with the Indigenous populations. It’s time to start healing and moving forward by learning more and advocating for those that are not resourced to live humanely.  By providing women leadership and entrepreneurial skills to help rebuild communities, creates a pathways for the right investments getting to the people that need them the most, not to those who profit from the land ownerships and corporations that feed the broken policies of Puerto Rico. It’s time for us, women of color and our allies, to invest in social equity that  builds communities into better women’s healthcare and a new economic sustainable society for future generations. 

For context in this episode, we referenced the Madrigal sisters which is in reference to the Madrigal ten, which was a legal case of  Madrigal v. Quilligan in Los Angeles California  from the 1970’s challenged  the forced sterilzation of latina women without their consent. But this is not anything new, and can not be forgotten, just as UnidosUS provides us with more information and context on forced sterization of Latinas here that is also happening in ICE detention centers. 

Thank you for supporting this episode. If you’d like to get in touch with Mujeres en Fundación de Puerto Rico, Inc. you can visit them at the website here and follow them on social media here If you would like more information about Latinasb2b.com, please reach out to us at [email protected].

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