Puerto Rico, An Island United

I'm writing this blog while being on the island during the biggest political demonstration in Puerto Rican history. For those of you who don't already know, I am Puerto Rican. 100% on both sides of my family. I still have lots of family residing on the island. Right now hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rican protestors are calling for the resignation of Gov. Ricardo Rosselló. They have shut down a major highway in San Juan, the islands capital, and most businesses have also shut down. The protests have been going on for a week now, after 900 pages of messages from the governor and his inner circle leaked. These messages were monstrous and offensive to about every kind of group of people imaginable. He talked about beating up Melissa Mark-Viverito, the Puerto Rico-born former speaker of the New York City Council, and he called her a "whore." He talked about ordering a hit on Mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz. He even made a joke about the dead bodies from hurricane Maria.

These messages leaked just days after two government officials were arrested for corruption over their handling of $15.5 million in contracts. The officials, former Education Secretary Julia Keleher and Ángela Ávila-Marrero (former chief of Puerto Rico’s Health Insurance Administration), are accused of funneling the contracts to businesses they had personal ties to, regardless of those companies’ relevant experience or ability. After these arrests, the public began calling for the governors resignation, and after the leak of messages Puerto Ricans decided that enough is enough, and together as a country they will not give up until Rosselló is out of office.

Yesterday, Sunday July 21st, the governor addressed the people of Puerto Rico stating that he will not be resigning, but he wont be running for reelection next year. He also stated that he will step down from his presidency of the New Progressive Party, but that response was not good enough for us. Protesters gave an ultimatum to the Governor after his address: “You have until 11:59pm to leave. If you refuse, we will make this country unmanageable.” So, as promised, Puerto Ricans are organizing and marching on the highway today in San Juan. Right now there are an estimated 500,000 protestors on Puerto Rico's Highway 18.

This act of unity makes me so proud to be a Puerto Rican. Mostly all of the protests going on have been peaceful and very creative. We're protesting on the land, the ocean, and in the air. We're not taking no for an answer, we're passionate and tired of the corruption in our government. I'm happy that we're all on the same page about what we want out of this situation and we're not going to stop until we get what we've been asking for. If only the United Stated could be this united about how we feel about corrupt government officials and misogynistic, anti-LGBTQ policies, but thats a story for another time. I hope Gov. Rosselló chooses to resign and justice is served to the people of Puerto Rico who have been through so much in the past couple of years.