On 109th Anniversary of U.S. Invasion of Puerto Rico, Martin Espada Reflect on Ongoing Struggle for National Rights

Over a century later, Puerto Rico is still a US territory. Puerto Ricans have had US citizenship since 1917 but residents of the island cannot vote for President and lack voting representation in the US Congress. Debate continues over Puerto Rico's political independence and US military and corporate presence on the island.

Puerto Ricans currently make up about 2.5% of the US population, and after multiple waves of migration over the past two centuries, the continental population is now larger than the population on the island itself.

Today we'll speak with two prominent Puerto Rican voices.

• Martin Espada. Award-winning poet and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he teaches creative writing and the work of Pablo Neruda. He is called “the Latino poet of his generation" and has published thirteen books as a poet, editor and translator. His eighth book of poems, "The Republic of Poetry," was published last year and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

• Frank Espada. Puerto Rican documentary photographer and civil rights activist. He was born in Utuado, Puerto Rico in 1930, grew up in New York City and now lives in San Francisco where he teaches photography. Last year he published a book of his photographs from 1970 to 1985 that chronicle the lives and stories of Puerto Rican communities across the United States. The book is called "The Puerto Rican Diaspora: Themes in the Survival of a People."