Ahead of the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York on Sunday, members of the Puerto Rico Not For Sale campaign are set to protest on Friday outside National Puerto Rican Day Parade Inc.’s scholarship gala at Gotham Hall in Midtown Manhattan.

The recent image of a car stuck in a massive pothole in Humacao, Puerto Rico makes a fine metaphor for the state of Puerto Rico today and the role played by the pro-statehood Gov. Pedro Pierluisi and his New Progressive Party in the deterioration of the island.

On Sunday, August 28, a coalition of Puerto Rican independence groups and their allies gathered outside a hedge fund’s office building in Midtown Manhattan to protest its predatory lending practices.

Protestors gathered outside the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House on December 17 to confront Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi and the Fiscal Oversight and Management Board at its 31st open-to-the-public meeting.

“Not doing so could spell disaster for hundreds of thousands,” the letter said.

“Without sovereignty there is no autonomy, and without autonomy there is no accountability. This is where Puerto Rico finds itself, fundamentally disempowered through its colonial status,” Boricuas Unidos en la Diaspora spokesperson Diana Isabel Sotomayor said.

Signers are encouraging the Senate to hold a hearing in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to properly investigate the conflicts of interest on the body and the level of accountability and transparency achieved by the public agency.

In one word: NO.

Chicago is home to one of the nation’s largest and most organized Puerto Rican communities in the United States.

Sign-on letter condemning the actions of the Puerto Rican government on May Day and demanding justice for the Puerto Rican people