Hurricane Maria has left 3.4 million Puerto Ricans facing shortages of food, health care and transit, an American humanitarian crisis fueled by the US territory’s May 2017 bankruptcy.
Levi Gahman, The University of the West Indies: St. Augustine Campus and Gabrielle Thongs, The University of the West Indies: St. Augustine Campus
The Caribbean is facing its second deadly hurricane in as many weeks. This isn’t just bad luck: the region’s extreme vulnerability to disaster also reflects entrenched social inequalities.
In Puerto Rico the Trump administration’s ‘energy dominance’ policy echoes colonial practices by fast-forwarding fossil fuel projects over community resistance.
Over the years, Puerto Ricans have in fact been granted three different types of U.S. citizenship, but questions about their rights and equal treatment as citizens still remain.
Low-income residents in Puerto Rico are fighting disposal of toxic coal ash in their communities. They’re also campaigning to shift from coal energy – the source of the problem – to solar power.
Congress just passed a bailout for Puerto Rico – in the nick of time – yet it’s not enough to solve the island’s biggest challenge: returning to growth.
Puerto Ricans can’t vote in the general election, but the way they vote in the primary can predict how well a candidate will do with a key demographic.
Pedro Caban, University at Albany, State University of New York
Puerto Rico’s economic woes have led some analysts to compare it to Greece. Paradoxically, Puerto Rico’s colonial status explains both its growth and the impending financial debacle.
Senior Research Fellow, Muslim Philanthropy Initiative at IUPUI and Journalist-fellow, Religion and Civic Culture Center, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences