The deal that Puerto Rico didn't ask for and didn't want

[struggle4progress]

By Stephen Kinzer
MAY 11, 2018

PAINFUL TRUTHS SOMETIMES become so obvious that they must be faced. Let’s finally be honest. Even though I forced you to marry me, I never loved you — not even on our wedding day. I didn’t know a thing about you, so how could I? You always seemed strange, with your own language and habits. Over the years, we kept our distance. I tried to ignore you. Now, suddenly, you’re in trouble and want my help. Forget it! I’m not wasting my money on a spouse I picked up on a beach by accident and never cared for ...

The scale of destruction wrought by the hurricane is difficult to fathom. Most of the 3.4 million islanders were without power for months. Hundreds of thousands still are. Eighty percent of farm crops were destroyed. In some towns, nearly every building was blown away or severely damaged. Many schools and hospitals have closed. Jobs vanished. Over 100,000 people have fled to build new lives on the mainland, mainly in Florida. At least that many more are expected to do so this year ...

The root of this crisis lies in the nature of Puerto Rico’s relationship to the United States. In 1898 Puerto Rico accepted an offer of autonomy under Spanish rule. The American consul reported that citizens were “jubilant over the news.” They went to the polls and elected an impassioned newspaper editor, Luis Muñoz Rivera, to head their new government. Unfortunately, however, the United States was then launching a war in Cuba. Imperialists in Washington noticed that Puerto Rico is near Cuba, and decided to seize it. On July 25, 1898, American troops landed at Guánica, on the island’s south coast, and raised the American flag. From there they marched to San Juan and deposed the newly elected government. Three months later the United States officially annexed Puerto Rico ...

Puerto Ricans never asked to become part of the United States, and Americans never truly wanted them. The two were united in a marriage that more resembled a kidnapping. Affection was forced and sporadic. Nothing like love ever developed. The contempt with which the US government has treated Puerto Rico in its hour of need reflects the failure of this union.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/05/11/sorry-puerto-rico-the-never-loved-you/MZ2DFLqV69jeQVbnkOP8VI/story.html

[struggle4progress]

1. FEMA funding running out for hundreds from Puerto Rico

Justin Murphy
Published 1:23 p.m. ET May 11, 2018
Updated 8:45 p.m. ET May 11, 2018

... She worked at a hotel in Bayamón, Puerto Rico's second-largest city, before Hurricane Maria destroyed her house. She cleaned at a hotel in Orlando for a few months but left because she was only earning $2.50 per room. A friend in Rochester suggested she try her luck here, so she came ...

She wants to find work so she can bring her 5-year-old daughter, now living with family in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. More pressing, though, is that she needs a job to pay a deposit on an apartment, because she knows the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will soon stop paying for her hotel room at the Holiday Inn ...

She thought she had a job lined up at a hotel in Victor, but her uncertain housing and lack of transportation scotched the plan. She now has seven weeks to find something that will let her move into an apartment and bring her daughter with her ...

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2018/05/11/hundreds-puerto-rico-still-lack-housing-fema-rochester/602308002/

[struggle4progress]

2. Isolation leads to despair, suicide among older Puerto Ricans

By Sarah Varney, Kaiser Health News
Updated 3:47 AM ET, Fri May 11, 2018

Humacao, Puerto RicoA social worker, Lisel Vargas, recently visited Don Gregorio at his storm-damaged home in the steep hillsides of Humacao, a city on Puerto Rico's eastern coast near where Category 4 Hurricane Maria first made landfall last September.

Gregorio, a 62-year-old former carpenter who lives alone, looked haggard. He had stopped taking his medication for depression more than a week earlier, he said, and hadn't slept in four days. He was feeling anxious and nervous, he said, rubbing his bald head and fidgeting with the silver watch on his wrist. His voice monotone and barely audible, he told Vargas he had had thoughts of suicide ...

Gregorio's descent from heartbroken but determined storm victim to this moment of despair is a path traveled by many older people here in Puerto Rico. Psychologists and social workers, like Vargas, say elderly people are especially vulnerable when their daily routines are disrupted for long periods. Those who were once active, she said, now stay home alone ...

"We have elderly people who live alone, with no power, no water and very little food," said Adrian Gonzalez, chief operating officer at Castañer General Hospital in Castañer, a small town in the island's central mountains. The loss of routine has created widespread anxiety among the elderly, he said. "We have two in-house psychologists and right now their <schedules are> packed" ...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/11/health/puerto-rico-elderly-suicide-partner/index.html

[struggle4progress]

3. No deeds, no aid to rebuild homes

by Nicole Acevedo and Istra Pacheco
May.08.2018 / 7:07 AM ET
Updated May.08.2018 / 7:15 AM ET

... Medina said she has lost count of all the times FEMA denied her individual assistance application because she couldn’t prove to them that she owned the home that was destroyed almost eight months ago ...

In order to be eligible for FEMA aid under the individual assistance program, applicants need proper documents to provide proof of home ownership.

As of May 1, “FEMA has received 1,118,862 million registrations for disaster assistance,” said FEMA spokesperson Ron Roth in a statement to NBC News. ”The number of approved registrations for FEMA grants totals 452,290. The number of registrations deemed ineligible is 335,748” ...

“In rural areas, sometimes you have a grandpa who owned a land that was passed down generation after generation and they never registered the property,” said Michelle Sugden-Castillo, a housing nonprofit consultant in Puerto Rico. A lot of these pieces of property go by a family's name, but they still lack the proper paperwork ...

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/puerto-rico-crisis/no-deeds-no-aid-rebuild-homes-puerto-rico-s-reconstruction-n868396

[struggle4progress]

4. Maria made Puerto Rico vulnerable to exploitation

Milton Carrero Galarza
Special to The Morning Call

... “The perception that someone was going to come to solve the problem has been destroyed because, seven months after the hurricane, some of us Puerto Ricans are still without electricity and our homes are in worse condition than ever,” Manuel Cidre, who ran for governor as an independent candidate in 2016, says about Hurricane Maria.

The government response: closing hundreds of schools and supporting the privatization of vital services such as electricity, water and roads. In addition, the board that oversees finances on the island voted recently to amend labor laws, slicing a third of the public spending, cutting pensions, reducing minimum wage and vacation time from public employees, eliminating the Christmas bonus and doubling tuition for students at the University of Puerto Rico.

“What is happening is so outrageous that you would expect everyone to take to the streets to protest,” Brown says. “But most of the people don’t understand because of the great confusion caused by the blow of Maria” ...

“The hurricane has turned the island into a ‘ganga,’ a clearance deal,” Dennis says. “And it’s now on the verge of the possibility for the entire infrastructure becoming one giant ATM for Wall Street” ...

http://www.mcall.com/news/puerto-rico-recovery/mc-nws-morivivi-puerto-rican-identity-hurricanes-20180508-story.html

[struggle4progress]

5. Missing the mark on Puerto Rican statehood

BY MELISSA MARK-VIVERITO
05/10/18 12:15 PM EDT

... Puerto Rico needs to rebuild. Tens of thousands of homes remain without power, 8 months after the storm, and hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans – all U.S. citizens – continue to be displaced in states all over the mainland. Now is not the time to play politics with the aspirations of the people of Puerto Rico ...

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/387100-gov-scott-misses-the-mark-on-puerto-rican-statehood

[KY_EnviroGuy]

6. Thanks for these much needed reminders, S4P.

Puerto Rico is being forgotten to a degree due to sensationalism over Trump's insane administration. I fear this situation will be an excuse for international billionaires to simply buy out the land and run off native people. They will gentrify the whole damn island if not stopped. I think we should do what's right and fully fund reconstruction, or at least as much as we would do say, for New York or Miami.

Just got a mailer from Mercy Corp. asking for help for Puerto Rico and intend to send them what I can afford.

...........

[malaise]

7. Raw naked

imperialism