“By understanding the state's gaze can we come to understand the current civil society it built? If so, does that allow us to dismantle its control over us now?

These questions are at the center of the book El Gobierno Te Odia (The Government Hates You). Rescuing a never before seen state surveillance archive, it reconstructs the visual history of one of the longest continuous surveillance programs on US citizens by their own government. From the 1940’s until 1987 a secret police unit was tasked with politically persecuting those advocating for independence from the US, feminists, labor organizations and environmental activists under the guise of national security.

The book appropriates images from the secret police archive, the manual they supplied their officers on how to watch as well as present day surveillance footage. It recontextualizes this largely forbidden and forgotten political history using the very receipts of its criminalization at a crucial time as Puerto Rico grapples with the suffocating effects of its colonial reality.”
–Christopher Gregory-Rivera

El Gobierno Te Odia was shortlisted for the 2023 Aperture/Paris Photo First Book Award

To read Littal Melnik’s interview with Christopher Gregory-Rivera, please click here.

Pages: 92
Binding: Screwpost
Paper: Mohawk Superfine, and Carnival
Size: 9" × 12"
Edition: 150 (first edition)
Printing: Risograph (Black), Foil Stamp (cover)
Design: Alejandro Torres Viera
Typeface: Quadrant Text – Vincent Chan & Public Sans – USWDS
Price: $150