Dylcia Pagán is one of the 11 Puerto Rican former political prisoners granted clemency by President Clinton in September 1999. She immediately returned to Puerto Rico, where she and her compañeros/as were met with a huge welcome celebration.

The background description below is adapted from Can't Jail the Spirit (March 1998).

Dylcia Pagán was born in "El Barrio" in New York City on October 15, 1946. She attended Brooklyn College were she majored in Cinematography and Sociology, participated in the struggle for students' rights and founded the Puerto Rican Students Union. She taught social studies in the New York City school system, worked for ABC, NBC, and CBS and also for the daily newspaper El Tiempo.

Dylcia was captured April 4, 1980 along with other comrades, for participating in the underground wing of the Puerto Rican independence movement. She is serving a 55-year sentence on charges of seditious conspiracy, among others. She completed an 8-year state sentence. After years of separation, she has been reunited with her son Guillermo.

Dylcia's patriotism has manifested itself in many artistic forms which include painting, ceramics, poetry and her writings. She has participated in the production of a video about her life and lives of her compañeros in the struggle. While in prison, she helped direct a documentary about the Puerto Rican Women Prisoners of War.

Her biography has been published in Puerto Rican Women: A History of Oppression and Resistance. Dylcia's poetry has appeared in Have You Seen La Nueva Mujer Puertorriqueña? Part of Dylcia's life story was also included in a book by the anthropologist, John Langston Gwaltney entitled, The Dissenters: Voices from Contemporary America.

Throughout her capture, trial and incarceration she has maintained her position as an anti-colonial prisoner of war (POW) resisting the illegal U.S. occupation of her homeland.