The Plight of Puerto Rico: America’s Unsung Citizens are Starving

Oct 18

Story by Bella Wexler, Illustration by Mallika Sunder

This piece was researched and created via an internship with MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger

Like that of many territories under present US jurisdiction, the history of Puerto Rico is one riddled with empty promises of increased freedom and equal treatment. This began with the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1493 and the age of Spanish colonial rule. With this came severe, exploitative taxation and poverty to the archipelago’s native Taíno population. Although rebellions against the Spaniards were thwarted, they did result in an increase of autonomy on the island for a few decades… until the US stepped in.

To justify igniting the Spanish-American War, the US cited a desire to support small territories’ fight for sovereignty. They then proceeded to invade and occupy Puerto Rico during the war and accept Spain’s cession of the island as a new United States territory after the war was won. Rather than achieving sovereignty, Puerto Rico was passed on to a new country that would subject islanders to US laws, taxation, and military service drafts with no independence, nor representation in the government overseeing them. It wasn’t until 1917 that Puerto Ricans were given US citizenship and the right to establish a local government under federal guidance. It wasn’t until 1950 that they were granted commonwealth status and the right to draft a constitution.

To this day, Puerto Rico is not recognized as a US state, nor is it an independent country; rather, it has served as an exotic vacation spot for mainlanders, a land of tax-breaks and cheap labor for the American pharmaceutical industry, and a source of revenue for mainland ships. As the mainland profits from the wealth of resources, experiences, and knowledge of Puerto Rico, the island’s people struggle to reap the very limited benefits of American nutritional assistance programs.

Under the Reagan Administration in 1982, Puerto Rico was officially excluded from SNAP benefits that provide nutritional funding to families proportional to the need that exists. This was replaced with NAP, a block grant program that capped a fixed amount of funding at 25% less than was allocated under the Food Stamp Program. This policy was then frozen for four years.

One hundred thousand families who used to receive benefits under SNAP were cut out under NAP; and, those that still qualified for funding received only 60% of what STAMP qualifying families in all other US jurisdictions received. To salt the wound, food costs in Puerto Rico are higher than those in the mainland US overall. This comes in part as a result of the Jones Act which prohibits Puerto Rico from importing food from any ship that is not US built, owned, manned, and operated. The US has effectively monopolized Puerto Rico’s imports, exploiting their hunger with higher grocery prices and fewer options.

Moreover, Operation Bootstrap inhibited Puerto Rico’s reliance on local food production by shifting the commonwealth’s economy from an agricultural one to an industrial one. Tax exemptions incentivized mainland pharmaceutical manufacturers to build on the island, driving local workers from fields to factories. In 2006, Congress eliminated these tax breaks, causing these companies to return to the mainland.

Given that Puerto Rico is not a state, it is also not subject to the requirement for US states to create balanced budgets. During the years of economic prosperity resulting from mainland companies’ presence on the island, the Puerto Rican local government grossly mismanaged funds, overspending and under-taxing. So, when mainland companies closed their factories in Puerto Rico, they took all of the fragile economic success for which their Puerto Rican employees had worked with them. Puerto Rico was left with a debt-ridden economy, the highest unemployment rate in the US, and a 40% rate of food insecurity.

In response to Puerto Rico’s debt, Congress passed the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act which established a Federal Oversight and Management Board composed of seven presidential appointees, often not even from Puerto Rico. Historically, this board has imposed an austerity program that sacrificed significant portions of the public service, health care, pensions, and education budgets to pay off creditors.

Then came Hurricane Maria in 2017 that destroyed 80% of the island’s crops in a matter of HOURS. “I am begging, begging anyone who can hear us to save us from dying… you are killing us with the inefficiency,” pled Carmen Yulin Cruz, Mayor of San Juan in response to the Trump administration’s inaction to offset the hurricane fallout. Severely inflated food prices and desperation for disaster relief eventually led Washington to temporarily lift (then promptly reinstate) the Jones Act. A few years later in 2020, Puerto Rico was hit with a slew of earthquakes and the COVID-19 pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans moved to the mainland US in order to access jobs, healthcare, and food benefits. Of those who stayed behind, many still lack permanent housing. Minimum wage in Puerto Rico is at the minimum the US federal government allows, food prices are higher than those of the mainland, and lower monthly earnings are required to qualify for lesser nutritional benefits.

Presently, 58.4% of Puerto Rican children live below the poverty line. Meanwhile, despite having a tropical climate conductive of year-round produce growth, Puerto Rico still imports over 80% of its food.

The good news is, because Puerto Rico is not a recognized state, US Congress is authorized to alter laws affecting the Commonwealth at any time. Indeed, several bills have been proposed recently including the Equitable Nutrition Assistance for the Territories Act of 2019 (S.677) and the Closing the Meal Gap Act of 2020 (S. 3719) to address the severe food and nutritional insecurity Puerto Rico faces. However, both of these bills remain in the introduction phase.

Unwilling to wait, younger generations in Puerto Rico have turned to modern agroecological methods of reviving the local food industry. Additionally, minimum wage is set to raise from $7.25 to $8.50 in January. Yet these adjustments alone are not enough to alleviate food insecurity felt by 40% of the population. Puerto Ricans are American citizens and they are continuously denied assistance equal to that of their fellow Americans living in US states or even other territories. It is egregious that the urgent words spoken by Governor Rafael Hernandez Colon to the US House of Representatives in 1992 ring truer and more urgently today: “The time is overdue to put an end to this monumental inequity. It is time to restore Puerto Rico to full participation in the Food Stamp Program.”

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SOURCES

https://www.history.com/news/puerto-rico-statehood

https://welcome.topuertorico.org/history6.shtml

https://www.puertoricoreport.com/snap-nap-and-equality-for-puerto-rico/

https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/how-does-household-food-assistance-in-puerto-rico-compare-to-the-rest-of

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/12/puerto-rico-cost-of-living

https://www.puertoricoreport.com/snap-nap-and-equality-for-puerto-rico/#.YT9Rvi33bi0

https://www.benefits.gov/benefit/363

https://www.amequity.com/longshore-insider/article/the-jones-act-economic-friend-or-foe

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2017/09/28/department-homeland-security-acting-secretary-elaine-duke-approves-waiver-jones-act

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2017/10/25/what-everyone-got-wrong-about-the-jones-act-hurricane-relief-and-puerto-rico/