Geography Archives: Puerto Rico

Poverty is rising in one of the world’s oldest colonies: In Puerto Rico, 41.7% of people, including 57.6% of children, live in poverty. This is nearly four times the U.S. rate. And Puerto Rican workers are getting poorer even while unemployment falls.

In attempting to analyze the situation of the black woman in America, one crashes abruptly into a solid wall of grave misconceptions, outright distortions of fact and defensive attitudes on the part of many. The system of capitalism (and its after birth… racism) under which we all live, has attempted by many devious ways and means to destroy the humanity of all people, and particularly the humanity of black people.

The people of Puerto Rico woke up on the morning of September 19 only to relive a nightmare. Two days before Hurricane Maria’s five-year anniversary, on September 18, Hurricane Fiona made landfall on the island’s southwest coast. The storm caused widespread flooding, landslides and power outages. At least 16 people have died as a result.

Protesters denounce increased power outages, while power prices have risen several times since LUMA began operating Puerto Rico’s electricity system.

For the first time in its history, the people of Puerto Rico are seeing the total collapse of the island’s colonial administration, mainly due to the open corruption of the two traditional parties, both of which promote integration into the United States and/or the permanence of the colonial regime.

I write this article with the purpose of revealing some details about the Anglo-Saxon-supremacist jurisprudence that gave rise to and govern this colonial territorial status.

Protesters have condemned that power outages have increased, while prices have gone up since LUMA began operating Puerto Rico’s electricity transmission and distribution system in June 2020.

The discontent comes just weeks after a federal judge in the U.S. approved a restructuring plan to repay creditors at a discounted rate. Even at that the creditors are first in line to be paid over public workers.c

On Wednesday, February 9, teachers across Puerto Rico called for a national strike to protest the government and the Fiscal Control Board’s (FCB) cutting of wages and pensions.

A few days ago, athlete Jasmine Camacho-Quinn won a gold medal for PR in the 100-meter hurdles at the Tokyo Olympics.

On April 14, 2021 the House Committee on Natural Resources held hearings on two competing bills to end Puerto Rico’s colonial status. H.R.1522, the Puerto Rican State Admission Act and H.R.2070, the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act.

Lear Corporation—one of the world’s largest auto parts manufacturers—rose to position 148 on Fortune magazine’s famous list of the 500 largest firms in 2018. It operates with roughly 148,000 workers spread across 261 locations.

For him to think he can keep governing for another year and a half as if nothing has happened is insulting to our core.

The protesters’ immediate demand is for governor Ricardo Rosselló to resign, but the mobilizations have also highlighted the widespread rejection of Puerto Rico’s status as a colony of the U.S.

GOVERNOR of Puerto Rico Ricardo Rossello has called for the “elimination” of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and announced that a summit of opposition leaders will be held on the occupied U.S. island later this month.

Naomi Klein gives a stirring account of the struggle against disaster capitalism in Puerto Rico after 2017’s Hurricane Maria, finds Ellen Graubart.

The movement for people’s agroecology seeks to empower the peasantry of the island through encouraging collectivism and cooperatives.

This Monday saw a session of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization, and the approval of a draft resolution that would call upon the U.S. to facilitate the island’s self‑determination.

Colorlines talks to Philadelphia poet laureate Raquel Salas Rivera about their new book, “lo terciario/the tertiary,” which revisits Karl Marx’s “Capital” to examine Puerto Rico’s debt crisis from a queer decolonial lens.

A recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine estimates the number of deaths caused directly or indirectly by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico at over five thousand.