This November, Puerto Rico is bracing itself for two different elections that will have great repercussions for its future. The US general election could reshape policy towards the unincorporated territory in the years to come, particularly if Democrats regain the presidency and the senate. This is even though its residents, who are nominally American citizens, […]
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Written by Ed Morales, Illustrated by Omar Banuchi Originally published in The Village Voice, March 19, 2018
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“In 1984, bankruptcy protection was arbitrarily taken away from Puerto Rico by Congress.” “The Puerto Rico debt should be audited to reveal possible illegal transactions, as well as Wall Street abuses, not only in the sale of the debt but also debt swap underwriting.” “There should be no fiscal oversight board. Puerto Ricans alone should […]
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Last week on Living in Spanglish radio, I interviewed PPT Candidate for Governor Rafael Bernabe, who spoke about various aspects of the Puerto Rico debt crisis. We spoke about the fiscal oversight board included in a House bill designed to impose austerity measures and colonial control over the island’s economic functions as a a way […]
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Looks like there’s clearly been a problem with postcolonial representation. Some times you gotta put on the mask to take off the mask.
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It’s a bittersweet moment in San Juan this summer as the pressure mounts on the island to pay a debt that was near impossible to avoid, on the backs of the poor and working class, since the middle-class mirage of the ’60s and ’70s has all but ended. There is a depopulation and disinvestment syndrome […]
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Puerto Rico, a de facto colony of the US, is usually not in the news outside of the travel and style sections. But as it stumbles towards a September default deadline that threatens to shut down government operations, the island territory has been a fixture in the business press, with headlines like: “Puerto Rico Faces […]
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Cuba y Puerto Rico son/Cuba and Puerto Rico are De un pájaro dos alas/Two wings of the same bird Reciben flores y balas/They receive flowers and bullets Sobre el mismo corazón/With the same heart –Lola Rodríguez de Tío The “momentous” yet seemingly long-planned announcement that the US and Cuba have agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations […]
Read moreWhat do I love most about Puerto Rico? I guess it’s the cocos. They’re like my head. Hard. Then again, there are the plátanos. They stain my skin. In a good way. Anyway, I’ve gotten some bugging from certain social media interests to compile my own list of songs that make me “Happy” about being […]
Read moreHere’s the first paragraph in this week’s New York Times story about Puerto Rico’s manufactured debt crisis: “Standard & Poor’s downgraded the debt of Puerto Rico to junk status on Tuesday, intensifying a cash squeeze for the commonwealth, whose financial condition is of outsize importance to the rest of the United States because its debt is widely […]
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