The Print
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Linda Zamora Lucero, Lolita Lebrón ¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre!, 1975, screenprint on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, 1995.50.34
Linda Zamora Lucero
born San Francisco, California
Lolita Lebrón, ¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre!
1975
screenprint on paper
Gift of Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, 1995.50.34
Lucero learned about Lolita Lebrón, a radical Puerto Rican nationalist, when she traveled to Cuba as a college student. Lebrón became a symbol of Puerto Rican independence. Lucero, who sympathized with her cause, wedded Lebrón’s likeness and words to the Puerto Rican flag, which appear beneath her pensive portrait.
The Person
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Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection, LC-USZ62-138954
Lolita Lebrón
born 1919 – Lares, Puerto Rico
died 2010 – San Juan, Puerto Rico
“My life I give for the freedom of my country.”
Lolita Lebrón was a Puerto Rican nationalist leader. In 1954, she and three others fired shots into the U.S. House of Representatives and demanded full independence for Puerto Rico, which had become a U.S. commonwealth two years earlier. Five members of Congress were injured. For her role as the leader of the attack, Lebrón served half of a fifty-year prison sentence before she was granted clemency by President Jimmy Carter. She continues to be an iconic figure in the ongoing movement for Puerto Rican independence.