Olga Viscal Garriga

Olga Viscal Garriga
Garriga on trial for refusing to recognize U.S. authority over Puerto Rico
Born	May 5, 1929 Brooklyn, New York
Died	June 1995 (aged 65) San Juan, Puerto Rico
Political party	Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
Movement	Puerto Rican Independence
Children	Pedro, Olga, and Maria Luz

Dr. Olga Viscal Garriga (May 5, 1929 – June 1995), was a public orator, political activist, and a descendant of an 18th-century governor of Puerto Rico. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she moved to Puerto Rico, where she was a student leader and spokesperson of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party's branch in Rio Piedras. As an advocate for Puerto Rican independence, she was sentenced to eight years in a U.S. federal penitentiary, for refusing to recognize the sovereign authority of the United States over Puerto Rico.

Olga Isabel Viscal Garriga was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1929.) Her parents, Francisco Viscal Bravo and Laura Garriga Gonzalez, had moved there from Puerto Rico in the early 1920s. Olga was one of seven children born to the couple. The children were the fourth-great-grandchildren of Field Marshal Don Juan Andres Daban y Busterino, who served as the Spanish-appointed Governor and General Captain of Puerto Rico from 1783-89. Her parents returned with the family to Puerto Rico, settling in Rio Piedras. Viscal was raised and educated there, after having witnessed discrimination against Puerto Ricans in New York. As she grew up, she strongly disagreed with U.S. policies that limited human rights, freedom of speech, and self-determination in Puerto Rico.

Viscal enrolled in the University of Puerto Rico, where she earned her Doctoral Degree in Political Sciences. During the late 1940s, and while finishing her Ph.D., she became a student leader and spokesperson of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party's branch in Rio Piedras. The Party was headed by Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos, and favored the forceful expulsion of the U.S. from Puerto Rico.