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Karen Santos, HASER/La Colmena Cimarrona. Vieques, PR.

People are surprised when I tell them there’s no hospital in Vieques. A couple were even skeptical. They rushed to pull their phones out and google if what I said was actually true. Can one argue that Viequenses are being displaced not only because of natural disasters (that destroyed a weakened infrastructure due to colonial exploitation) and climate change but also because of Human Rights violations? Some of the more pressing Human Rights issues are regarding the access to proper public transportation (affecting the mobility of a community that must get to the Big Island to visit doctors and even to buy food. Also concerning is the absence of medical care (read more about Jaideliz Moreno Ventura’s case here) or the attack on their education system. Many public schools are closed every year. In contrast, charter ones seem to be in vogue (read more here ). The lack of services in Vieques is certainly a Human Rights violation. And it is intentional. They are pushing Viequenses out of their land. They don’t want them there.

But who are they?

New outside investors are buying more and more land on the island, attracted by paradisaic beaches and generous tax breaks. They come to Vieques paying exorbitant prices and paying in cash. Viequenses, and Puerto Ricans in general, soon run out of housing options (rent or buying), as they can’t keep up with such high prices. These new settlers are driving entire communities out (read more about gentrification in Puerto Rico here).

With all these traumatic situations unfolding every day, I keep thinking about how Human Rights (discourses and organizations focused on them) allow communities to try to influence and take control over the issues that directly affect them. In many cases, communities can only access resources or interact with the State through NGOs. But let’s remember, Human Rights are obligations for governments. It is the government’s responsibility to promote and protect them. In the case of Puerto Rico local officials must act to address Human Rights issues, but especially the United States must assume its responsibility. Not only because of its colonial power status and its effects on the archipelago, but also because of the implementation of measures like PROMESA and La Junta. There’s literature on how austerity plans, like those implemented in Puerto Rico by La Junta, threaten Human Rights and can result in their violation (read more about austerity plans and Human Rights in Greece, office of the High Commissioner on austerity measures).

Despite such harsh conditions, Viequenses are finding ways to organize themselves and fight for their rights. La Colmena Cimarrona is an example of that. They know the fight will be long and hard, but they’re ready. Ready to feed Vieques and build a better country. The country they want.

 

“Warm waters trigger my PTSD. The water is warmer before a big storm.”

Ian – while swimming in La Esperanza

Karen Santos,

HASER-La Colmena Cimarrona, Vieques, PR

In the last few weeks I’ve been coming back to Yarimar Bonilla’s “Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico before and after the storm.” The multiple readings in this book helped me learn and critically think about disaster capitalism, shock, and trauma doctrine. In the introductory interview, it was especially interesting to read how another author, Juan Rosario, once mentioned that colonialism is a war over imagination. But is colonialism and the trauma it causes just a battle over someone’s imagination? How does trauma operate? Does it desensitize people, making them more individualistic? Or maybe it causes the opposite effect? A combination of both perhaps? Is trauma an imagined phenomenon? Bonilla further expands on how access to resources plays an essential role in how communities respond to trauma, and emphasizes that even when there are no resources (electricity, water, food, hospital), people still get together and share all they have, regardless of how little. The same keeps happening over and over again after any hurricane and earthquake hit the islands; or when Viequenses kicked out La Marina (US Navy).

Another critical claim in the book, I think, is that for Puerto Rico, border sovereignty is not enough. Sovereignty and power over all their resources and industries are needed to achieve actual freedom. To properly build an educational, energetic, or health system that works for all Puerto Ricans and is under Puerto Rican control. Hurricane Maria made the effects of colonialism and historical trauma more visible – the devastation and trauma were there even before any catastrophic event happened. 

Topics that will accompany me in the following weeks will focus on forced displacement and new forms of settler colonialism in Vieques.

Karen Santos

HASER / La Colmena Cimarrona

Vieques, Puerto Rico

I arrived in Vieques, Puerto Rico, one week ago. I soon found out that two worlds exist within Puerto Rico: one is “la isla grande” (the big island, San Juan), and another one is Vieques – only 40 minutes ferry ride from each other).
Vieques has two supermarkets and a handful of colmados (similar to New York “bodegas”). Here, the prices are about 30% higher than in San Juan – according to several people I’ve met in the last few days. The median household income in 2020 was $14,040 (US Census). 52.6% of Viequenses live in poverty. Two families I have talked to these days told me they go to San Juan once or twice monthly to buy all they need in Costco or Walmart. Everything is urgent in Isla Nena (after Luis Llorens Torres’s poem): transportation, health, housing, to mention just a few.
Working the land is hard, but having land to work on is even more challenging in Vieques. Conversations about food sovereignty are impossible without talking about the right to land. The space La Colmena has, for example, is rented, a challenge they deal with every day. The work they do is beyond anything I anticipated. This first week has been busy for me. I help by doing some farm work in the mornings, and I focus on administrative tasks in the afternoon. There are several projects that I will be assisting with. First, I’m digitizing all the registrations and forms La Colmena uses. The plan is to transition all the existing materials to electronic form. They will be user-friendly and promote the use of new technologies. This will help improve specific processes and also address health concerns in a COVID era – soon each attendee  can use their own devices to fill out registration forms. This step would particularly enhance the organization’s administrative responsibilities. I will also create inventories to register tools, equipment, seeds, and educational materials’ catalogs so they can be shared among the community.

 

Karen Santos

HASER

Vieques, Puerto Rico

 

Food insecurity has reached dire levels in Puerto Rico, particularly in the last few years, as a consequence primarily of the imperial predation and neglect first of Spain and then by the United States towards the archipelago in the Caribbean. According to a study conducted by George Washington University, forty percent of Puerto Ricans experienced food insecurity in 2020, compared to the ten percent in the United States ¹ . Inadequate political and socio-economic policies throughout the decades, destroyed the agricultural industry and assembled an unsustainable capitalist system that looked at reformation as the answer to the situation on the island. In the last few years, a movement focused on food sovereignty have started in Puerto Rico. In part as a way of taking back rights and land and food that rightfully belong to Puerto Ricans, but also as a form of contestation to imperial powers and a way of reimagining and reclaiming self-determination.

This summer I will be collaborating with HASER (in English, Making Socio-Ecological Actions Resilient), a non-profit organization that promotes food sovereignty and inclusion in Vieques. I will be focusing in one of their projects, La Colmena Cimarrona, a project that promotes social well-being on the island through community-based actions, emphasizing food sovereignty. Working towards food sovereignty is not only a way of combating colonization, poverty, exclusion, inequality and discrimination, but is also an activity that can promote equity and improve the collaboration, respect, inclusion and quality of life of the members of the community, especially women, while also contributing to larger nation-building endeavors and the right to self-determination.

The project I will be working on aimes to provide and share services, knowledge, and concrete actions there where the federal and local governments have failed, specifically in Vieques. By working towards food sovereignty from a collaborative approach – where all the community comes together – La Colmena promotes inclusive economic justice and strengthen the solidarity networks between poor and landless Viequenses. During my fellowship, I will focus on community-organizing initiatives, such as designing courses that promote food independence, justice, collaboration, health and inclusion, and by creating educational and cultural projects that bring the community together. I will also participate by working on the farm and helping organize a farmers’ market.

 

¹ “Food Justice in Puerto Rico.” Puerto Rico Report, 5 Jan. 2021, https://www.puertoricoreport.com/.