Students unite for Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria

Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on Sept. 20, leaving over three million people without power and destroying much of the island’s infrastructure, agriculture and environment.

Senior Pepe Muniz, a Puerto Rican native, felt powerless as he watched the devastating effects of Hurricane Maria from Baltimore. Though he has been able to contact his parents, Muniz said that power outages caused by the hurricane have left him unable to communicate with other members of his family.

“It’s been over a week, and I still can’t get in touch with my grandparents. The phone doesn’t even ring,” he said. “There’s just no signal. Everything was destroyed.”

In an update released on Oct. 2, the Federal Communications Commission stated that 87.9 percent of cell towers in Puerto Rico were out of service.

Freshman Veronica Montane, who was also born and raised in Puerto Rico, said that the limited phone service is just one of many problems plaguing the island.

“The supermarkets have no food and the gas lines are up to 12 hours or more,” she said. “Since my mom works at the airport, she’s gotten food, supplies and gasoline from them. But my grandpa and uncle, they moved temporarily to Miami to have running water and electricity.”

Montane said that watching the destruction of her home compelled her to take action. As a member of the track team, she enlisted the support of her teammates and contacted fellow Puerto Rican Laura Bou Delgado. Along with other Puerto Ricans at Hopkins, Delgado and Montane decided to host a bake sale on the Breezeway and donate the funds to relief efforts.

Delgado is the Hopkins contact for Students with Puerto Rico, an initiative started by students at the University of Pennsylvania for Hurricane Maria relief efforts.

Using a GoFundMe page, the initiative seeks to encourage Puerto Rican college students to raise money for Unidos por Puerto Rico, a hurricane relief fund set up by the First Lady of Puerto Rico. To date, Students with Puerto Rico has raised over $160,000.

The bake sale, which occurred last Friday, raised over $3000, exceeding the students’ initial goal of $1000. Delgado said that she was surprised by the overwhelming support from the Hopkins community.

“Random people who saw the event on Facebook messaged me and [asked] if they could help,” she said. “People were Venmo-ing, people were paying with cash, people were paying with J-Cash.”

According to a poll of 2,200 people by Morning Consult, a nonpartisan survey research company, only 54 percent of Americans know that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. The poll also showed that 80 percent of Americans who know Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens support U.S. aid for Puerto Rico. In contrast, only 44 percent of those who do not know Puerto Ricans are citizens support aid.

Junior Puerto Rican student Nikki Lopez Suarez said that she was not surprised that many are unaware of Puerto Ricans’ citizenship status.

“Even before Hurricane Maria, I’ve been asked countless times if I’m an international student,” she said. “Do I have citizenship? Do I have a green card?”

The lack of awareness, Muniz believes, has affected how the government and public have responded to Hurricane Maria.

“So many Americans don’t know that Puerto Ricans are American citizens and this is an American humanitarian crisis,” Muniz said. “If this was in Florida, if this was in Texas, if this was anywhere in one of the states, I think you’d see that the response would be drastically different.”

Since Puerto Rico is an unincorporated U.S. territory and not a state, Puerto Ricans are not allowed to vote in presidential elections and are only allowed to send one non-voting representative to Congress.

An additional complication is the Jones Act, formally known as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920. The Jones Act is a shipping law that requires goods shipped between U.S. ports to be carried by vessels that are built, owned and crewed by U.S. citizens or permanent residents. In effect, this Act restricts foreign ships from shipping aid to Puerto Rico.

U.S. President Donald Trump temporarily waived the Act on Sept. 28. According to The New York Times, several members of Congress requested the suspension in order to ease and expedite the flow of relief aid into Puerto Rico.

According to Muniz, the Jones Act has caused problems for Puerto Ricans, and he criticized Trump for waiting so long to waive it.

“A lot of the factors that make it harder for Puerto Rico are a result of the colonial status and antiquated policies... like the Jones Act for example,” he said. “It took them so long to waive the Jones Act, when that should have been the first thing they did.”

Montane was happy to see the Jones Act suspended, although the measure is only temporary. She also believes that Puerto Rico’s status as a territory makes it more difficult for citizens to make their voice heard.

“I literally teared up when they removed it,” she said. “I recognize how much a little thing like that could [make] change, and if we did have more representation, that could definitely make a difference.”

Although many have praised the suspension of the Jones Act, others have criticized Trump and his administration’s response to Hurricane Maria. In particular, critics have condemned the federal government for not adequately providing aid to the island. Delgado said that it is imperative for the government to respond quickly.

“It took the U.S. government a while to react to what was going on,” she said. “Puerto Rico is able to react and make moves, but we clearly do need help.”

For Lopez Suarez, the attention on Trump’s response to Hurricane Maria has been misplaced. She believes that the government should focus on helping Puerto Ricans recover.

“It’s been a very politicized disaster,” she said. “This isn’t about political parties. It’s literally a humanitarian crisis. People are taking their Clorox bottles to a stream to get water. That is completely insane.”

Though Lopez Suarez feels supported by the Hopkins community, she said it is still difficult to be away from Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

“You obviously can’t do much when you’re [in Puerto Rico] either, and my parents want me to be here at school,” she said. “But honestly, your mind and your heart are with your family, with the people you love and with your friends that are still on the island.”

Correction: In the print edition of this article Nikki Lopez Suarez's name was misspelled.