Understanding the FALN: Reasons, Motives, and Platform
Examining the Member Base
Pinning down the exact number of FALN members that existed throughout the organization's lifespan is a difficult task, as primary source documents do not reference membership count for security reasons. However, what can be inferred is the make-up of that membership, particularly by observing census data and scholarly work on the Puerto Rican diasporas. The term 'diaspora' refers to the dispersion of people from their homeland, and Puerto Ricans have migrated to the United States in vast quantities since the middle of the twentieth century. Although a great deal of Puerto Ricans lived in the United States already since the 1920s, particularly in New York, migrations escalated after World War II following rapid industrialization and subsequent rising unemployment on the island. Puerto Rico's infrastructure could not handle a rising population, resulting in a great deal of that 'run-off' being siphoned off to the U.S. mainland. These early waves in the 1940s and 1950s were attracted to the mainland by the same type of labor burgeoning back home, predominantly low-skilled manufacturing jobs in major urban centers.
While determining the number of FALN members is difficult, estimating the number of Puerto Rican migrants during this period is not. Approximately 88,300 Puerto Ricans migrated to the U.S. between 1955 and 1960, followed by 96,100 between 1965 to 1970, and a further 100,360 between 1975 and 1980. Over time however, these migrant waves formed an increasingly dwindling group of Puerto Rican-born people in the U.S. Of note, Puerto Rican migrants comprised 19% of the self-identifying Puerto Rican population in 1960, then 16% in 1970, and finally 12% in 1980. Furthermore, each wave featured increasingly younger migrants than prior periods. Although the overall number of Puerto Ricans leaving the island increased, second and third generation Puerto Ricans were quickly outnumbering first generation migrants in the mainland. What's more, half of incoming migrants to the mainland were female, suggesting that any broad popular support for the FALN would represent both male and female members in nearly equal number. As will be discussed later, however, certain Puerto Rican nationalist tropes may suggest some conflict between idealized gender roles in the struggle for Puerto Rican independence.
Studying the Politics
Knowing that most migrants and nonmigrants were increasingly young and pursued low-skill labor opportunities in urban and agricultural centers, it's of little surprise that the FALN opted to follow a Marxist-Leninist political platform. If the FALN were actively drawing from local colonia in places like New York City, then persuading new recruits that the United States operated a capitalist and colonial regime of exploitation on the island and on the mainland would not be an entirely foreign concept to grasp. As outlined in the FALN's political position, the FALN bases its ideology off "directing the armed and political struggle in accordance with the Marxist-Leninist principle of a broad front including all popular sectors willing to join the armed struggle."
In addition to attracting struggling migrants working in low-skill labor, the FALN sought allies from other independence and minority movements. The FALN identified itself as part of a larger struggle against international colonialism. For example, the communique pictured here, Communique No. 1, makes mention that corporations and "Yanki monopoly capitalism" is "responsible for the robbery and exploitation of Third World countries in order to make greater profit and increase their capital." International solidarity took many forms, from championing the cause of groups like the Black Panthers in condoning armed self-defense in the face of institutionalized racism to the anti-war movement protesting the war in Vietnam. Finally, the FALN identified two key obstacles on the road to Puerto Rican independence: the U.S. government and the colonial regime installed on the island. Frequently, the FALN criticized Puerto Rican government officials for supporting U.S. policies, especially the continuance of commonwealth status on the island. Therefore, the FALN were just as eager to turn their sights on the 'Yankis' as they were other fellow Puerto Ricans.
An Implicit Influence: Masculinity in Resistance
However, underneath the surface, there are other elements at play that define the structure and motives of the FALN. Notably, there is an element of machismo, that uniquely Latin American construction of masculinity and ideal male gender roles. This is not to say that the FALN were overtly misogynistic, as they encouraged both males and females to join in the fight for Puerto Rican independence. Many female activists in the FALN protested for women's rights, and the FALN itself declared its solidarity alongside international women's rights many times in communiques and political documents. Yet, communiques also often cited assaults on Puerto Rican women, including mass sterilization and social experiments conducted on Puerto Rican families. While some of these experiments have been exaggerated by the media and even scholarly literature, the impact of this threat should not be underestimated when studying the motives of groups like the FALN.
The FALN calling attention to mass sterilization as an attack on Puerto Rican women may stem from a trope common in Puerto Rican literature of the colonizer as a rapist and women as items to be protected. Early Puerto Rican nationalist authors often described the interplay between Puerto Rican colonists and Spanish colonizers as a contest for the right to romance, labor, and family. The FALN, through their political position and communiques, built up the ideal Puerto Rican man: a revolutionary willing to fight for their right to work and to start a family. It is no surprise then that the FALN found support in places like New York, where disgruntled and increasingly young Puerto Rican migrants or second generation sons may have found the cause of defending the right to work and life, underneath a socialist banner, a cause worth defending.
Finally, it is important to note that these masculinist themes in armed revolutionary struggle did not mean that Puerto Rican women shied away from partaking in the fight for independence. Women in the FALN navigated through these deeply rooted gendered tropes in Puerto Rican nationalism, mobilizing these assumptions of typical female gender roles while also playing against them. Lolita Lebrón, an earlier nationalist of the 1950s that inspired groups like the FALN in the 1970s, spearheaded the 1954 shootings of the House of Representatives in Washington D.C. By her leading the group of rebels into the House, she portrayed herself as both a guiding mother leading her sons into battle and a staunchly proud and independent women capable of fighting her own battles. Lebrón's example was taken up by women in the independence movement, just as the FALN's leadership could not afford to exclude half of the migrant and nonmigrant population if it wished to create a broad front of popular support.