The legacy of the Young Lords is something that has followed me throughout my adult life as a New York–born-and-bred child of Puerto Rican immigrants. The Young Lords’ unrelenting calls for Puerto Rican independence, their various interventions in local politics, their unyielding solidarity with colonized and working-class people everywhere, their stunning presence (often augmented by […]
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The island recently withstood several earthquakes, hundreds of aftershocks, and governmental turmoil. It needs progressive change in policy from the U.S. [Originally published in The Hill February 18, 2020] It’s been such a rocky start to the year 2020 in Puerto Rico that hundreds of locals decided to tear it all up and start from […]
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Originally published on NBC Think Sept. 5, 2019, 6:14 PM As Hurricane Dorian spun erratically past Puerto Rico’s northeast corner last week, most of the island breathed a deep sense of relief. The storm did batter St. Thomas, a U.S. Virgin Island, and the offshore island-municipalities of Culebra and Vieques, and has wreaked havoc on the Bahamas, where […]
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Protesters in San Juan left more than 100 pairs of shoes outside the Capitolio, home to Puerto Rico’s legislature, as a silent rebuke to the government for undercounting the number of residents who died last year from the effects of Hurricane Maria. A Harvard University study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine […]
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This originally appeared in The Village Voice. Illustrations: Omar Banuchi Words: Ed Morales Written by Ed Morales, Illustrated by Omar Banuchi Originally published in The Village Voice, March 19, 2018
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Last semester, a student of mine named Fernando came to speak with me after the last meeting of my class on Latino identity. He thanked me for getting him to think about not only his roots but his connections with other Latinos, and our contributions to history and culture. He was an engineering student of […]
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When I first saw the word Latinx – best described as a gender-neutral term to describe US residents of Latin American descent – in print it seemed strange, alien, and unfit for proper pronunciation. But rather than perceiving it as my enemy, I came to embrace its enticing, futurist charms. The term Latinx arises from […]
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With almost no power and shortages of water and medicine, this island is full of people suffering from PTSD. By Ed Morales October 13, 2017 San Juan—As Donald Trump’s rule-by-disinformation strategy intensifies, three weeks after Hurricane Maria, a reeling Puerto Rico is becoming more of a sideshow for his callous stereotyping and ruthlessness. He is […]
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The Trump administration’s delay in sending real aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria is a distasteful display of colonialist racism. But it’s par for the course: our citizenship has always been second-class. “We’re American citizens. How can Trump turn his back on us?” This is one of the pleas I’m hearing over and […]
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The island has become a target not only for rapacious vulture funds but also for exponents of Katrina-style “disaster capitalism.” September 27, 2017 Hurricane Maria has created a humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico. Much of the capital city of San Juan is flooded; there is contaminated water in the streets, shortages of gasoline and […]
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ED MORALES 