Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Oscar Lopez Rivera is a Puerto Rican Independence Fighter who has been a political prisoner in U.S. prisons for 33 years. He is also an avid health enthusiast and long time vegetarian. Below is a letter to his granddaughter Karina about his struggle to maintain his healthy lifestyle behind the bars of federal prison. We encourage you all to learn more about Oscar and the struggle for his freedom click here.
A vegetarian in prison: Letter of political prisoner Oscar López Rivera to his granddaughter Karina
By Oscar López
Dear Karina,
When you were small, you were curious to know what they gave me to eat, and in your visits, you would ask me if i missed candy or ice cream. In your childish mind, that was the way you projected your legitimate concern to understand how they were feeding your grandfather.
If it is hard for most vegetarians to keep their diet while living a normal life in freedom, imagine how hard it is to be a vegetarian in prison. It is almost impossible. Only the tenacity and determination to maintain one’s principles even regarding what one eats makes it possible for me to be able to keep considering myself a good vegetarian despite the years of confinement.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
This does not just consist of complying with some dietary precepts that exclude all forms of meat. i admit that, at times, there has been no alternative but for me to eat what they put on my plate in order not to die of hunger, but in my heart i have remained firm in the conviction that i would not do that if i had another option. This is what matters in life and in matters so apparently trivial such as what one eats: the steadfastness of the idea.
Much of the food they give us is what they call “junk food,” containing chemicals and preservatives that are harmful for one’s health. Sometimes, to avoid eating meat, I’ve had to eat spoiled fruit and a piece of stale bread. It comes in little bags that are wrapped with a sign that says “for institutional use only” –meaning that it is only good for prisoners.
Some nutritionists warn that if a food wrapper lists more than five ingredients, with many of them based on unidentified chemicals, one shouldn’t eat it. The food that they serve “for institutional use only” has at least 25 different ingredients and it is difficult to identify them. So i avoid it whenever i can.
The first five years that i spent in prison, i didn’t have problems with my diet -- i arranged to have access to vegetables, grains, and cereals. But when i was sent to the maximum security prison in Marion, everything changed. What they gave me was almost always inedible. i had to compromise sometimes and try some fish or chicken, cooked in some way that was hardly healthy, but i denied myself completely when it came to pork or any kind of red meat.
One day, the warden of the prison asked me if i had any problems and i explained that with the dim light that there was in the cell i could neither read nor draw. He had compassion and ordered them to give me a 180-watt lamp. One day, it occurred to me that if i put a piece of cardboard over the lamp, i could heat water. That’s how i began to make coffee for myself. Later, with the help of that blessed little bulb, i learned to put frijoles, vegetables, and garlic in a plastic bag and, within an hour, i would have a hot meal with all the ingredients necessary for a balanced diet. The creativity that can be found in the prison cell is not imaginable for people who have never been exposed to such a hostile and sterile environment. We have been without a microwave for months. But we are sufficiently creative to know how to overcome the challenge. And, in the same way, we try to overcome it when we do not have access to the showers or areas of exercise.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Nowadays, i am approaching 72 years. i try to consume oatmeal, whole grain rice, noodles, and black beans. Sometimes, i buy the tuna that comes in the little bags that they sell in the prison commissary. Those little bags have more water than anything else, but nothing canned is permitted here.
What do i want to eat when i get out of prison? So many things, and nothing. Maybe i will make do by nibbling on a blade of grass while looking at the sea. The main hunger that i have is for the human warmth of the people and this will sated by embrace of so many good Puerto Ricans who i know are waiting for me.
In resistance and struggle, your grandfather.
Oscar López Rivera
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Make sure you buy a copy of his book, Oscar Lopez Rivera: Between Torture and Resistance