In June 1958, Carlos Padilla Pérez, a member of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, addressed a gathering of Argentines organized by the Amigos pro Líbertad de Puerto Rico in Buenos Aires. He thanked them, his “fellow citizens of Our América,” for their solidarity and evoked the image of a shared history and a common heritage. Just as the Argentines “crossed the Andes in pursuit of the enemies of freedom” during the wars of independence in the 1800s, so, too, did Puerto Ricans join the continental fight against Spanish colonialism. The Puerto Rican general Antonio Valero de Bernabe “fought for the independence of Mexico” and then hastened to continue the battle against Spanish colonialism alongside “the Liberator Bolivar in whose army he achieved positions of distinctíon.” Recognizing that the historical moment has changed-“the patriotic armies are no longer intertwined along the paths of Our América as they once were” -Padilla nonetheless urged Argentines to support Puerto Rico’s ongoing struggle against colonialism, now directed against the United States.
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