When I was a kid, Vieques was paradise. Bioluminescent bays, unreal sunsets, beaches that stretched forever. My family would go there on weekends, escaping the chaos of the main island. Sometimes we’d join the local fishermen, casting lines into the sea. But the silence of the waves was always broken—not by waves, but by the deafening roar of U.S. Navy fighter jets ripping through the sky.

One of my earliest memories of Vieques is standing there with the fishermen, watching those jets blast overhead. They raised their middle fingers to the pilots. I asked my dad why. "They scare the fish," he said. "But it’s more than that. It’s what the Navy represents. They took their land.”

In 1941, the U.S. Navy took 77% of Vieques, pushing families into a narrow strip of land in the center of the island. The east side became a bombing range. The west side? A weapons stockpile. For decades, warships fired live rounds onto Vieques’ beaches while amphibious landing drills turned it into a playground for U.S. imperialism. Generations of Viequenses grew up to the sound of explosions in the distance, breathing in toxic fumes, watching cancer rates skyrocket.

The U.S. government even floated a "solution"—a plan to relocate the entire population of Vieques to St. Croix. Just like that, an entire island community was almost erased to make way for war. The people refused. They stayed. They fought back.

Blockades, mass protests, occupations—resistance in its purest form. And in 2003, after relentless civil disobedience, they won. The Navy packed up and left—a rare victory against U.S. empire.

But here’s the thing about colonialism: it doesn’t end just because the military pulls out. The land is still fenced off, still contaminated with unexploded bombs, still filled with toxic waste. The people of Vieques still don’t have control over their own island.

In 2013, I went back to make a short film for subMedia, marking 10 years since their victory. I wanted to show that decolonization is possible. That resistance works. But also that the fight never really ends. The land still isn’t clean. The people still aren’t free. Decolonization isn’t about kicking out the military—it’s about taking back the land.

Vieques isn’t just a Puerto Rican story. It’s a Palestinian story, a Kanien’kehá:ka story, a global story of land stolen for colonial militarism. Right now, in Gaza, Israel is openly talking about wiping out the entire population and replacing them with settlers. Just like Vieques. Just like how the Kanien’kehá:ka have had their land stolen, militarized, and occupied under the excuse of “security.”

These stories aren’t separate—they’re part of the same colonial project. And that’s exactly why we’re making A Red Road to the West Bank. We’re traveling across borders, across struggles, to expose how settler-colonial states use the same tactics—militarization, displacement, and repression—to erase Indigenous peoples from their land. But just like in Vieques, just like in Gaza, the people fight back.

This film is about connecting these struggles—not just to understand them, but to build solidarity between them. Because if resistance can win in Vieques, it can win anywhere.

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