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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. The biggest story to me from the 2020 census numbers that came out this week was not that New York and California, and a few other states, each lost a seat in Congress, or that Florida gained one and Texas gained two and a few others gained one. Those things matter. They may actually matter to the control of Congress. It's really big in that respect but as a census matter, they are incremental and all those states grew in population.

The biggest story from the census to me was how many people left Puerto Rico. The population of Puerto Rico now is 400,000 people fewer than it was in 2010. The island lost a whopping 12% of its population. No place else comes close. Only two states lost population at all. West Virginia declined by 3%, Illinois by just one-tenth of 1%. Puerto Rico losing 12% of its population over the last decade is in a class by itself. What happened and what does this exodus mean that Puerto Rico needs? Puerto Rican listeners help us report this story. If you left the island since 2010, or if you know anyone who has tell us your story or tell us theirs 646-435-7280. Our phones are open for you, 646-435-7280.

When did you leave and why? If it's you, how much of it was a direct result of Hurricane Maria? How much was other factors? What's the effect of so many people leaving and what does the island need if we assume that so many people wanting to leave is not a good thing? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. Back with us now is Alana Casanova-Burgess, host of WNYC and Futuro Studio's La Brega and on the media producer. Hi, Alana. Welcome back to the show.

Alana Casanova-Burgess: Hi, Brian. Good morning.

Brian Lehrer: I should ask first. Do you have reason to believe that this census count is accurate?

Alana Casanova-Burgess: Oh, that's a good question. There was a problem with the process in Puerto Rico for a while, it seemed like only 30% of homes had responded. Also, it was a slightly different process on the island because usually the census verifies addresses first and then sends out the forms. In Puerto Rico, both of those processes were happening at the same time because post-Maria, post-Irma, there was just a lot of confusion about addresses and about what homes were still homes. That said, there was an expectation actually that the number of people who had left in the last 10 years would actually be higher. Demographers were expecting this number to be quite large. I'm not a demographer but if they were expecting an even larger number, I think we have to assume that this is accurate-ish.

Brian Lehrer: The main story of a lot of people leaving seems real to you as someone who covers Puerto Rico issues. Are there big tentpole reasons? Can you say it's really because of A, B and C and that explains the bulk of it?

Alana Casanova-Burgess: Well, everyone who knows and loves a Puerto Rican knows that it's really hard to live there right now. I think a lot of people are familiar with how difficult post-Maria recovery has been. There was an earthquake swarm, which was a massive story last year, which I don't know how many people really recognize but there were hundreds of earthquakes going on in the south of the island around Guanica and it destroyed public buildings, residences. This is just crisis after crisis.

There's also been a fiscal crisis, a recession over the last 15 years, which I like to refer to as an austerity crisis, because what that means is that public services have been cut back drastically. A couple of years ago, hundreds of public schools were closed and part of the reason for that, what the government said was that there just weren't enough students in the schools so that they had to close some and consolidate them in order to make the system make sense. You have this landscape that's so difficult to live in.

It's also very expensive to live in Puerto Rico. We can talk about why, but I've read estimates that the cost of living is something like 13% higher than it is in the States, and all of that compounds. Anecdotally I know a lot of people who came to the states in the last 10 years, and that might just be my age bracket but who came to the states in the last 10 years for college or for graduate school to take eadvantage of the schools and educational opportunities here in the states and that's partly because the University of Puerto Rico, which is a jewel of a system has been so decimated by cuts. It just doesn't seem like a viable system to be a part of if you're looking for higher education. A lot of people have moved to the States and once you do that, then you get a job here, then you don't go back. Those would be my one, two, three reasons.

Brian Lehrer: What could reverse those? Is there any consensus on what it would take because it sounds like a situation that is continuing to spiral downward in terms of quality of life?

Alana Casanova-Burgess: There are always calls to repeal the Jones act, which is this somewhat obscure law, which I think some people might have heard of after Maria, it's about shipping. It means that all the goods that are shipped from the United States to Puerto Rico have to be on US-owned ships, it makes shipping more expensive. It makes goods more expensive.

That's one thing that people talk about all the time. There have been in the last-- I think it was 2012. There was this package of laws referred to a Law 60. That would try to create these tax incentives to get US companies to move to the island to create jobs. That has been hugely controversial. We could talk about that a bit more. What it has done is basically that a lot of the discourse around what's happening in Puerto Rico now is that there's massive gentrification from people who don't want to pay federal income tax or companies who want to relocate, it's part of a government program to attract businesses.

What that means is that they don't have to pay as high taxes in Puerto Rico. There's a huge land grab. One of the biggest stories over the past few months has been that the government is selling off some public land for private development from companies from the United States. While it's extremely expensive to buy a home to live in Puerto Rico, it's this idea that the island is being sold off to external investors. You hear a lot of conversation about that.

Brian Lehrer: Cecilia in Ridgewood you're on WNYC with Alana Casanova-Burgess, producer and host of Studio's La Brega which is a podcast series about Puerto Rico. Hi Cecilia.

Cecilia: Hi Brian, long-time listener, first-time caller. Hi Alana.

Alana Casanova-Burgess: Holla.

Cecilia: I love the podcast. Holla.

[chuckles]

I grew up in San Juan in [unintelligible 00:08:16]. I'm [unintelligible 00:08:19] if you're from Puerto Rico you know what that is. Not really, but I just like wanted to mention that Puerto Rican's relationship with New York has been such a presence in the culture of Puerto Rico and New York, and this going between New York and Puerto Rico has existed for the most of the 20th century.

For example, my grandmother was Puerto Rican, but yet she grew up in Manhattan with her grandmother and her mother, graduated from Hunter College, and then went back to Puerto Rico, met my grandfather, raised her kids in Puerto Rico. My aunt moved to New York, lived the here until she passed away. My brother moved here. I now live here. There's this continuous relationship.

I think it's sad that like young people like me, I graduated from high school in 2013, college in 2017 that I feel the need to stay in New York because of better access to jobs in my field, in the arts but at the same time, it's something that has just existed for most of the 20th century and we get side effects from that. I don't know, it's an interesting phenomenon. I don't know if I really contributed anything, but-

Alana Casanova-Burgess: No, I'm glad you brought this up.

Brian Lehrer: You definitely contributed with what you've said so far. Cecilia, I wonder if in your family's experienced or broader community's experience. You think that there are good things and bad things for the quality of life on the island of that intense connection and so many people going back and forth between Puerto Rico and New York.

Cecilia: I think the quality of jobs is definitely one thing. My mom is a high school teacher and she talks about how, a lot of her coworkers who are teachers, it's just better for them to move to Orlando or move to Miami or someplace in the States because they get paid more or, quality of life is better to let. To live in Puerto Rico, yes, just like what you've been saying on this episode is that it's hard. As a young person, especially in the arts, like to get a job in New York is a lot easier than to get a good job in Puerto Rico. I think jobs have to do with it.

Brian Lehrer: Alana, you want to talk to Cecilia.

Alana Casanova-Burgess: I'm glad about what you said about el vaivén which is, a word that means, the coming and going because it is such a fluid process. It's such a fluid relationship and I read that this exodus in the last 10 years rivals or maybe even surpasses what happened in the '50s when so many of our family members came to New York, and it does it-- it is important to remember that people also move back sometimes.

Cecilia: My parents moved back.

Alana Casanova-Burgess: Say that again, sorry.

Cecilia: I'm so sorry to interrupt you, but my parents left Puerto Rico for 30 years. Went back. Sorry to interrupt.

Alana Casanova-Burgess: Yes. Not at all. That's exactly it. There's even now I've heard some friends talking about this idea of rematriation, it's like a feminist twist on repatriation but rematriation like moving back to the island. I was even in that bar in El Boricua that bar in Rio Piedras and I was listening to some live-

Cecilia: I love El Bori.

Alana Casanova-Burgess: El Bori, exactly. I was listening to some of [unintelligible 00:12:24] and they made an announcement saying like, "Hey everybody, like tell your relatives, tell your friends who have moved to come back and buy property because everyone else, all these--" They were saying basically all these getting gringos are coming and buying apartments and buying land and making it impossible for us to live here. We need to like stake our claim for our own people as well.

There's also a conversation about whether that would also continue to drive up prices and be its own different kind of gentrification, who are we really looking to afford to live in Puerto Rico? That's very much like part of the public discourse now is who is Puerto Rico for? There's that refrain Puerto Rico para Los Puertorriqueños, Puerto Rico for Puerto Ricans which also to me sounds a little dangerous because there are Dominican immigrants, there are other immigrants who are there. I think that in some ways, can we make space for more people while also maintaining affordability and a certain quality of life? Anyway, it's just something that's in the air all the time.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, we're talking about the biggest move of any US state or territory in the new 2020 census numbers that just came out, the biggest population move. It was a decline of 12% of the population of Puerto Rico, 400,000 people since the year 2010. We're talking about it with our own Alana Casanova-Burgess, host of the amazing WNYC and Futuro Studio's La Brega, Stories of the Puerto Rican experience. When we continue in a second Alana and callers, I'm going to want to relate this to the debate that seems to be rising in Congress about Puerto Rican statehood. Stay with us. Brian Lehrer on WNYC

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As we talk about the remarkable and distressing census numbers that came out this week pertaining to Puerto Rico, 12% decline in the population, the biggest of any US state or territory in the 2020 census as compared to 2010. As I said at the beginning of the segment, really in a class by its own because almost no states lost population. Mostly the census is an exercise in counting how fast different states grew. West Virginia lost 3% of its population. That was the biggest state loss, Illinois lost a tiny fraction of 1% of its population. Other than that, every other state gained. Puerto Rico lost 400,000 people since 2010, that's 12% of its population. My guest is Alana Casanova-Burgess, host and producer of La Brega, Stories of the Puerto Rican experience, the podcast. Do you want to talk about it at all, Alana in terms of the title of the podcast? Some people listening now may have heard but a lot would not have heard the podcast itself or the segment when you were on talking about the title La Brega and what it actually means, this sort of muddling through when things are complicated or define it, how you want. Does it relate to that because leaving is not muddling through?

Alana Casanova-Burgess: What an interesting question. I do like muddling through it. I'll have to add that to my list of Brega definitions. Being in La Brega is being in the struggle, being in the hustle. It means you're negotiating a solution to a problem that you can't really resolve. Actually, we've been hearing from a lot of listeners from different parts of the world, from Israel, from India, from Kenya, that there are other words in other languages that basically mean this when you scotch-tape together a solution, or as you're saying, you're not doing well, you're not doing poorly, but you're just holding it together, like struggling, muddling through grappling with a problem. In terms of what we are trying to do with the podcast and the exploration of these different Bregas, one thing that-- there's an important Puerto Rican scholar at Arcadio Diaz Quiñonez, who talks about how La Brega as a word also is a word that belongs to the diaspora who came to the United States, came to New York and Chicago and elsewhere in the '50s and '60s in such huge numbers. That they also faced this peculiar situation of being immigrants, but also citizens at the same time. The immigrant experience, even though Puerto Ricans are citizens is very familiar, not speaking the language, trying to navigate in a new environment.

They were also Bregando. They were in La Brega. It's a very popular word in the diaspora as well. I'm thinking about that a bit. Also, we do in the second episode talk about how that huge wave of migration was not an accident. It was something that was very much engineered by Puerto Rican officials because they felt like there were too many people in Puerto Rico. Some of our listeners might have heard about different ways.

There was something called La Operación which is how many Puerto Rican women were actually sterilized in order to lower the population. Another way that they were trying to lower the number of Puerto Ricans was literally encouraging people to leave because they felt like there are just too many people. It's interesting. Our last caller talked about the el vaivén talked about the coming and going all the time. We do have that history.

Brian Lehrer: Edgardo in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Edgardo.

Edgardo: Hi, Brian. Hi, Alana. How are you?

Alana Casanova-Burgess: Hi.

Edgardo: I guess I just wanted to continue to add to the conversation because what Alana is touching on literally right now, it's very accurate because what we looked at in the 1950s, through the '60s was Operation Bootstrap or Manos a la Obra which is when my family came to the United States from Santurce, Puerto Rico and what you saw in that period was about the same amount of Puertorriqueños that have left Puerto Rico now [unintelligible 00:19:18]. We're looking at just under 500,000. Just under a half-million and that had a significant demographic change and cultural change on the landscape throughout the United States. You just said Bregando is such an important part of the diaspora's vernacular.

Salsa was created, poetry, departments of studies were created across the United States because of this massive move of Puertorriqueños. I think what we're about to see is a cultural shift with this new generation of Puertorriqueños that are finding home here. I'm a diaspora Rican. I'm a product of that generation that migrated here in the '50s. With my time and work, and I've created my own philanthropic project with my graphic novel series, La Borinqueña because one of the most challenging things I had after Hurricane Maria was losing my family, compounded with the tax codes repeal, Tax Code 936, which was repealed in 1996 but over the 10 year fades out. By 2006 Puertorriqueños have started leaving the island in droves white-collared, for the first time, because the pharmaceutical industries completely collapsed. You can drive through [unintelligible 00:06:05] and it's like a ghost town now of so many of these once-thriving factories are now just-

Brian Lehrer: There was a certain tax advantage that was taken away, right?

Edgardo: Yes, most certainly. What we've seen is, you've seen the tax code repeal. Then you saw Hurricane Maria, recently, just four years ago and then you've just seen the recent earthquakes. There has been a consistent migration between Puerto Rico and the United States. Obviously, we're a colony of the United States with US citizenship. Puerto Rican is moving from the island to the US. It's like someone moving from Connecticut to New Jersey. All we have to do is go to the post office and estimate a change of address form. The only thing is, when we come to the United States, instantly, we can vote for the commander-in-chief, even though we can serve in the military, now we can actually vote.

It's just something that's been part of the culture. I think that it's an important side effect, and this just came to me as I was waiting to jump into the conversation, is what the culture is going to change. What really is going to change? Right now, Puerto Rico is exporting incredible amounts of culture. One of the biggest pop stars on the planet right now is Bad Bunny, who doesn't even bother to translate his lyrics into English. [chuckles]

When you look at this population boom of close to half a million Puertorriqueños who came here in the '50s and '60s, because of Operation Bootstraps, Salsa was created in the '70s. What's the next boom of culture that's going to happen here in the United States? We're watching studios that are grappling with the fact that they're witnessing that they have not been creating content that is reflective of the Latinx experience. Well, what's going to happen when there's a boom of Puertorriqueños into this country, more so than ever before? How is that going to shift culture? I guess that's a question I'd like to ask Alana, have you even thought about that of how this may even have a significant cultural shift in US culture?

Brian Lehrer: What a great question. Alana, you'll appreciate I have to do my radio thing here and give the legal ID in the window that the FCC permits.

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Alana, what do you say about that cultural shift?

Alana Casanova-Burgess: Oh, goodness. I wish I were qualified to answer the question because it's such a good one. I think one of the first things that I thought of, as you were talking to Edgardo is we had original music from Puerto Rican artists to score La Brega. Just last night, we had a little live event with this band called Balún, which is led by the brilliant composer Angélica Negrón. They are here in Brooklyn now. They're Puerto Rican. [chuckles] I was going to say, they're extremely Puerto Rican, but they are.

The band's members are now all over the place but they were started in Puerto Rico some 20 years ago and at a certain point, everybody in the band then lived in Brooklyn. They were talking last night about how that move influenced their music and their sound and thinking about, a bit about the nostalgia that a lot of people feel for the island once they move and why everybody visits so often or tries to when it's not a pandemic.

First of all, I would encourage everybody to go seek out Balún, it's a wonderful band, beautiful music, doing really exciting things. I think about what Angélica was discussing last night about that cultural flow about how her music and her thinking changed being here and the homage to the homeland. It's a great question. You're right, salsa was born here and, also the Puerto Rican flag was born in New York. A lot of people don't know that but it was designed in New York so hah. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: Hah. Edgardo, thanks for an amazing call. I got to go because we're running out of time in the segment. Alana, last question, the idea of statehood is often brought up as a solution to many of the island's problems, that's a rising conversation in Congress right now as well, but I know different people on the Island have different opinions, always about statehood, independence, whatever status. Does that conversation belong in this conversation?

Alana Casanova-Burgess: Oh, just a simple last question to close out the segment.

[laughter]

Brian Lehrer: That's right. In 20 seconds.

Alana Casanova-Burgess: One thing that I talked about with [Spanish name], the last time I was on the show with her is we were talking about what it would mean now that the diaspora is so huge. I think it's something like 9 million people who consider themselves Puerto Rican in the United States and it's like three million and change on the Island. How does the diaspora contribute to that conversation about status? I'm avoiding your question here about whether statehood would necessarily fix the problem or not because that's so complicated but I think the next level question for me is what do we do? How do we contribute to that political conversation in a productive way? Should we have a say and in what way should we have a say? What are the questions we should be asking about this process and about status?

Brian Lehrer: That's an example of the struggle you're muddling through if nothing else, right?

Alana Casanova-Burgess: Yes, [Spanish language].

Brian Lehrer: Alana Casanova-Burgess, host of the amazing podcast series, which you should all listen to if you haven't already. From WNYC and for Futuro Studios in both English and Spanish, La Brega, Stories of the Puerto Rican experience. Alana, thanks for coming back on the show.

Alana Casanova-Burgess: Thank you, Boriqua Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WYNC, I take that as a compliment and it is time now for the latest news.

 

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