SPECIAL ISSUE. ¡Vivas nos queremos! The Femicide and Gender Violence Epidemic in Puerto Rico and the Diaspora
Editoras invitadas / Guest Editors: Diana Aramburu and Tania Carrasquillo Hernández
ENSAYOS / ESSAYS
Introduction: From Victimization to Feminist Revolution: Performing Decolonized Bodies as Acts of Collective Rebellion in Puerto Rico
Diana Aramburu and Tania Carrasquillo Hernández
Section 1
Intimate Partner Violence and COVID-19: A Victimological Perspective
Sara Camerón Morales
Discourses of Complicit Denial and their Relationship to Gender-based Violence in Puerto Rico
Noralis Rodríguez-Coss
Narrativas de resistencia ante la violencia de género en Puerto Rico
Elithet Silva Martínez, Diana Valle-Ferrer, and Suzette Álvarez Soto
Vulnerabilizadas e invisibilizadas: la violencia de género en las mujeres de adultez mayor en Puerto Rico
Gabriela I. Rebollo Becerra
Cuando Yemayá dejó a Ogún, o imaginando lo inimaginable
Alaí Reyes-Santos
Section 2
Estado de emergencia ante la violencia de género: una conversación con la coalición feminista puertorriqueña Coordinadora Paz para las Mujeres
Elena Ríos Ruiz
TODAS contra el feminicidio: recursos cibernéticos, activismo e ilustración digital feminista en Puerto Rico
Fernanda Díaz-Basteris
TODAS, un periodismo solidario que lucha contra la violencia machista y visibiliza las necesidades de las mujeres en Puerto Rico
Elithet Silva Martínez and Tania Carrasquillo Hernández
Section 3
El género como estrategia política en Puerto Rico: los grupos conservadores cristianos, la politización reactiva y los ciclos electorales del 2015-2016 y 2019-2020
Cris Seda Chabrier
“Deconstruimos la educación patriarcal desde el lente feminista”: Construyendo una educación liberadora en clave antirracista, feminista y decolonial
Aurora Santiago Ortiz
Section 4
Vivir sin miedo: las artes contemporáneas ante la violencia de género en Puerto Rico
Elena Valdez
Resisting Gendered Barriers: Bomba and Activism in Puerto Rico and the Bay Area
Vanessa Marie Fernández
Section 5
Intimate Terrorism: Violence against Women in La casa de la laguna by Rosario Ferré
Tania Carrasquillo Hernández
A Feminicide Vocation?: Examining the Gender Violence Crisis in Ana María Fuster Lavín’s La marejada de los muertos y otras pandemias
Diana Aramburu
RESEÑAS DE LIBROS / BOOK REVIEWS
Making Livable Worlds: Afro-Puerto Rican Women Building Environmental Justice, by Hilda Lloréns
Reviewed by Sarah Bruno
Salsa Consciente: Politics, Poetics, and Latinidad in the Meta-Barrio, by Andrés Espinoza Agurto
Reviewed by Christopher O. Badillo Cabrera
A Contested Caribbean Indigeneity: Language, Social Practice, and Identity within Puerto Rican Taíno Activism, by Sherina Feliciano-Santos
Reviewed by Melinda Maxwell-Gibb
Amor y anarquía: escritos de Luisa Capetillo. Edición revisada, ensayos críticos y testimonios, edited by Julio Ramos
Reviewed by Rodney Lebrón Rivera
Our special issue aims to shed light on the increasing gender-based violence and feminicides in Puerto Rico, particularly in the aftermath of catastrophic events like the economic crisis, Hurricane María, and the COVID-19 pandemic. We also highlight the vital resistance efforts undertaken by feminist collectives, artists, authors, journalists, musicians, and teachers. A major contribution of this issue is revealing how the crisis has been neglected by the State and its institutions, prompting feminist collectives and shelters to lead the fight against government inaction and indifference. Some contributors of this special issue question the effectiveness of the State of Emergency, recognizing it as a performative gesture reinforcing a heteropatriarchal culture that fosters gender-based violence. For this reason, this special issue has sought to give visibility to how Puerto Rican women experience this cycle of violence and its effects as well as testify to how visual arts, music, journalism, literature, and personal testimonies can all be instruments of empowerment and change. Additionally, some articles stress the importance of implementing gender perspective curricula, starting at the earliest educational levels, to combat the gender violence and feminicide crisis and promote social justice and antiracist feminist pedagogy. It is crucial for academic institutions to adopt this antiracist feminist approach, creating awareness of the subjugation and colonization mechanisms used by the heteropatriarchal State and its institutions.