When the Puerto Rican were pushed to move and were being threatened in their new neighborhood, they fought against the displacement from Lincoln Park in Chicago, which they called the seek of social justice. Later, it had become the Young Lords’ sought for self-determination for Puerto Rico, Latino nations and all oppressed nations across the country. The party’s effort covered three dimensions: people’s daily needs, social needs and the needs of education. They created community projects centralized around Latinos, such as free food, free health care service, free education about Latino history. They also demanded more environmental and political protections to the Latino community in New York City. Whether this movement was a successful one, it had pointed the Puerto Rican people a way to speak for themselves and to make changes. “Speak Up” and “Revolution” are their legacy.

The world is always changing, but society never spontaneously care for the relatively weaker group of people. The minority groups must fight for their rights. This process of fighting is a critical part of achieving democracy. According to Chantal Mouffe, the true democracy would be accomplished by different groups fighting for their own benefits and eventually they would reach an equilibrium point that every group would be happy about it. However, that point is a dynamic one. It is always changing because as the world keeps developing, the equilibrium would break, creating inequalities between groups. Hence, the groups will restart the process of fighting for benefits until a new equilibrium point is reached. In this manner, fighting is always necessary for the Puerto Rican people. In modern times, the social influence that Young Lords left is so minimal to be helpful for the young generations. From the movie “Millie and the Lords”, we can see that the Puerto Rican people are being marginalized and were too lost to find a way out of the living pressure. And the legacy of the Young Lords would raise their consciousness that it is not their fault that their life ends up like this; it is the failure of the society and they need to stick together and change it. The experience of the Young Lords would give them the guidance of how to fight for their rights and tell the people that success is not impossible

Z.L