Puerto Rican civil society demands electricity as a fundamental right The experts agreed on the need of a modern, public entity that can effectively rebuild and administer a clean, reliable, accessible and resilient electric grid.  Revisiting the event hosted by BUDPR on September 19th at  The George Washington University Law School in Washington, DC Ramón Cruz, President of Sierra Club, gives the welcome remarks at the start of the discussion panel in The George Washington University Law School, in Washington, DC. On September 19, 2022, BUDPR hosted a conversation with the goal of remembering the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Maria’s landfall in the Puerto Rican archipelago. We originally planned to discuss both what had been done so far, as well as opportunities for further enhancing Puerto Rico’s resilience to climate hazards. However, the destruction caused by Hurricane Fiona, one day shy of the fifth anniversary of Maria, demonstrated once again how far the island is still from being resilient to climate change.  More misery, more near-total power and potable water outages, more flooding across  Puerto Rico have made us rethink the goal of the conference into opening a space for debate on what needs to be done to ensure a just, sustainable, renewable, and fair transition towards a resilient and improved island.  Continue reading

Remarks from BUDPR Collaborator Ms. Christina Mojica to the United Nations’ Special Committee on Decolonization   Continue reading

Read on how most of the US Supreme Court ruled once again that Congress has great flexibility to do whatever it wants with Puerto Rico. Continue reading

 The Congressional hearings held on April 14th on the dueling bills to resolve Puerto Rico’s political status, chaired by Rep. Raúl Grijalva, clearly showed one thing: the question of Puerto Rico's future deserves a more serious deliberative process than it will get in the rancorously partisan U.S. Congress.   Continue reading

Los estadounidenses tienen la esperanza de un futuro más prometedor por delante tras las victorias de los Demócratas en las elecciones presidenciales y congresionales, incluyendo los dos escaños al Senado en Georgia. Pero el futuro no es tan alentador para los puertorriqueños, pues la relación política del archipiélago con Estados Unidos sigue siendo una relación colonial muy poco favorable para su recuperación económica, para un desarrollo económico y político autónomo, y para su identidad cultural y nacional. Continue reading

The people of the United States face a hopefully brighter future with the Democratic victories in the presidential and congressional elections, including the senatorial wins in Georgia. The future is not so bright, however, for the people of Puerto Rico because the archipelago’s political status with the U.S. remains colonial and overwhelmingly unfavorable for its economic recovery, its autonomous economic and political development, and for its national cultural identity. Continue reading

On March 3, two members of Congress introduced the 2021 Puerto Rico Statehood Admission Act. It’s the fourth piece of legislation in the last decade aimed at making Puerto Rico the 51st state, and this most recent effort likely has as little chance of passing as the previous attempts. But one thing’s different this time around: Puerto Rican statehood has become a bit of a cause célèbre among some American liberals—some out of a well-intentioned desire to heed “the will of the Puerto Rican people”; too many hoping that a pair of Puerto Rican Senators would give Democrats a political advantage. Continue reading

A glance at past plebiscite election results in Puerto Rico usually portrays a pretty evenly divided electorate between those that favor statehood and those that would prefer the current “status” or a “more sovereign” political arrangement, along with some single digit votes favoring independence. Continue reading

Days ago, members of the Puerto Rico National Guard arrived in Washington, DC, to protect the presidential swearing in of Joe Biden. Yesterday David Begnaud made viral a Tweet with his pictures saying that it is surreal that Puerto Rican soldiers be activated to guarantee a democratic process from which they are excluded and that as American citizens Puerto Ricans have served in American wars even though they cannot elect the President.     Continue reading

With the upcoming “Statehood: Yes/No” status plebiscite in Puerto Rico, pro-sovereignty advocates within the Puerto Rican diaspora have risen to support the massive and coordinated “NO to Statehood” campaign in Puerto Rico and in the United States. This major uptick in diaspora activism in support of defeating the YES option has led to some calls by other Puerto Ricans, namely statehooders, that such diaspora Puerto Rican activists have no place in opposing statehood for Puerto Rico.     Continue reading