We are Puerto Rican women living in the U.S. South—and no, not in Florida. We live in South Carolina and Texas, states rarely associated with Puerto Ricans. In our regions of the South, we are often not seen or understood by our neighbors as Latinas who are Caribbean, who are Puerto Rican, and who come from the experience of U.S. colonialism. This happens despite how our identities and histories connect us to centuries of resistance to oppression across the U.S., Caribbean, and Latin America.
The Puerto Rican diaspora in the U.S. has fought for language rights and against discrimination—including the same type of literacy tests imposed under Jim Crow. Many people are unaware that the legendary Puerto Rican leader Gilberto Gerena Valentin delivered a speech in Spanish at the March on Washington in 1963 and mobilized Puerto Ricans to participate. On our island, our indigenous and African ancestors were enslaved and brutalized by European colonizers. Like most African-descended people, we understand the trauma of slavery and colonialism and the lasting marks these systems have on our collective mental health and relationships as we also navigate systemic racial, social, and class disparities.
Here in the U.S., civil rights history is clear—including its roots in the resistance to enslavement and Jim Crow apartheid and the massive civil disobedience movement to undo the legal underpinnings of institutional racism. But most people here do not know that after U.S. military campaigns slaughtered Native peoples and stole their land, the U.S. then looked beyond its shores for even more territory. In 1898, the U.S. invaded Puerto Rico, scuttling decades of work by Puerto Ricans to chart their autonomous path away from Spain’s rule as other countries had done.
Similarly to how other Caribbean people were forced to migrate to the U.K., where wealth was extracted through slavery and then worker exploitation, Puerto Ricans were “recruited” as sugar cane cutters to the U.S.-overthrown Kingdom of Hawai‘i and were stocked in labor camps in states like New Jersey and Connecticut. In the years that followed, U.S. corporations cashed in on Puerto Rico. The “better” opportunities that lure migrants and immigrants often come by economically destabilizing their homelands.
Both of us moved from Puerto Rico to the States decades ago, but we remain deeply connected to our island like so many in the Puerto Rican diaspora. The deterioration of the quality of life and the natural and human-made destruction of our energy infrastructure and other essential services pains us. We are concerned about corruption in the local government and the absence of an executive and legislative branch that truly fights for the interests of our people.
The economic uncertainty on the island is a huge problem, especially after the U.S. Congress enacted the Fiscal Control Board to control the island’s finances. It has driven drastic cuts to public services like schools and hospitals and pushed for the privatization of utilities with little regard for its impact on our people.
On top of this, a local tax break known as Act 22 is ushering in a wave of mega-rich Americans who are establishing residency in Puerto Rico, avoiding federal and capital gains taxes, and triggering skyrocketing housing prices in the island.
With outsiders targeting our homeland as a financial opportunity after the devastation of Hurricane Maria, gentrification and displacement are rampant. This history is cyclical. The same thing happened in Louisiana; Hurricane Katrina provided an “opportunity” to gentrify New Orleans and displace Black people.
Where do Black and brown folks go when they are constantly being pushed out of the islands and cities they call home? This question and struggle unite us. It’s also energizing us to work in allyship with other communities because we recognize the importance of a united front in the fight against displacement. We also see the critical importance of building leadership in states where demographics are shifting to include more people like us in places that don’t have a robust, progressive organizing structure.
The lack of protection of South Carolina’s Gullah Geechee community is a prime example of the familiar injustice that makes Puerto Ricans vulnerable to gentrification. The Gullah Geechee community’s loss of property to predatory buyers resonates with us because we see the same thing in Puerto Rico: families who have land passed down through generations but lack documentation to prove ownership or who could not keep up with mortgages after the devastation of Hurricane Maria.
In South Carolina, rent increases are among some of the highest in the nation. According to recent reports, rent in Bluffton, which is situated in the Gullah Geechee heritage corridor, is 9.8% higher than the national average. South Carolina doesn’t have a statewide rent control law, which allows landlords to increase rents as they wish. Texas is no different. A recent study from Harvard University found that more than 22 million renters are “cost burdened,” meaning they are struggling to pay rents they can’t afford. And we know that rent pressures disproportionately affect Black and Latino renters because many of us are low-income earners.
These worsening conditions are why we are learning to organize ourselves and the communities around us—and we hope our efforts become part of a larger movement.
We met during a training series for Puerto Ricans last fall called Boricuas Holding it Down, a program by Power 4 Puerto Rico Education and Liberation in a Generation to equip us with the fundamentals of community organizing. Puerto Ricans are the second-largest Latino group in the nation; almost 6 million of us live in the U.S. Our demographics are also increasing in states like Texas and South Carolina. Between 2010 and 2019, the Puerto Rican population in Texas increased by 73% to almost 240,000. In South Carolina, we are the second-largest Latino group.
From our corners of the U.S. South, we educate our local representatives about the harm of laws like Act 22. We are also working on efforts locally to combat gentrification where we live.
While new to organizing, we are hopeful of what we can achieve. In Houston, we are working to establish a nonprofit to serve as an official place to organize Puerto Ricans in the region so that we can better advocate for our communities. In South Carolina, we are mainly starting from scratch and hoping to build the infrastructure needed to organize Puerto Rican communities. Our commitment and passion for organizing the Puerto Ricans in South Carolina and Texas comes with a larger vision for supporting strong, powerful voices for changes in inclusion, equitable resources, and dignified treatment for all Puerto Ricans.
Puerto Rican cultural centers in the U.S. South will one day continue the legacy that began decades ago in the barrios of New York City and Chicago, efforts that transformed civic engagement and human rights movements in our communities. We envision a new generation of grassroots leaders grounded in the power of our identity and culture, and with each day that passes, this work only becomes more urgent.
