Puerto Rico: Scarred Land. Between man-made and natural disaster
I started photographing in Puerto Rico in 2004. In the aftermath of a series of demonstrations triggered by the accidental death of civilian David Sanes in 1999 by the US Navy in Vieques, a municipality island to the east of Puerto Rico. After a vibrant movement that saw a lot of support in the US itself, the US Navy abandoned 80% of the land seized from the population of Vieques. These lands were used as a training site for NATO armies as they tested munitions, up until 2003.
At first I started shooting in Vieques, the abandoned infrastructure that the US Navy left for nature to claim. The population of Vieques live in dire poverty, with higher than normal rates of cancer, due to the contamination that resulted from the exploding of depleted uranium shells, napalm, and a host of other toxic chemicals and heavy metals during the military exercises. Since the departure of the US Navy, the land has not been handed back to the people of Vieques. It now is overseen by the Fish And Wildlife Service, a US federal agency who supervised the cleaning up of the contaminated areas.
While traversing the Puerto Rican landscape, one is struck by the contrast between the natural beauty of the land and the imprint of the colonial history. Green fertile valleys, punctuated by relics of the long defunct sugar industry. Abandoned industry is a consistent theme in Puerto Rico.
The biggest impact of this can be seen in its demographic transformation as hundreds of thousands left the island in search of better opportunities and to escape the cascading consequences of the economic crisis. An ongoing exodus has been taking place in Puerto Rico since the very beginning of the 1990s and was amplified after the imposed debt restructuring and austerity policies that gutted social programs and sent the economy into a profound crisis.
In this project, we also see the deserted streets in Rio Piedras, where a once lively university town was reduced to a ghost-town after the 2008 crisis, with closed stores, cafes and banks. Paseo de Diego was once a vibrant main street, a center of economic activity. Today it is all but abandoned.
Neoliberal austerity imposed by the so-called Junta, an oversight board of seven experts appointed by the US Congress, has further amplified the cutting of social spending, leading to hundreds of schools being closed across Puerto Rico.
A recent gentrification wave is making things worse, further contributing to the displacement and impoverishment of the population, as foreign investors are given a no tax option to buy real estate and land.
In 2017, hurricane María hit the island destroying its electric infrastructure leaving hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans without access to basic services. The administration of Donald Trump did little to provide adequate help following hurricane María, leading to the deaths of at least 4,645. The vast majority of these deaths were the result of lack of response in the following weeks and months. The government's figure of casualties at the time was 64. The then governor Ricky Rosselló echoed the Trump administration, something that was soon to be his downfall.
Social struggle has always been part of the history of the Puerto Rican people. Starting with the anti-colonial movement in the 1930’s. In 1969 the Young Lords movement took to the streets of New York’s Spanish Harlem to protest against racism and colonialism. The movement that forced the US Navy to leave Vieques in the 1990’s. The strikes and protests following the economic crisis of 2008, and most recently the mass movement in 2019 that forced the resignation of the sexist and homophobic Governor Ricky Rosselló in the aftermath of María.
In this series of images, I hope to show the landscape of Puerto Rico, in its beauty but also the damage that it has suffered caused by this man made disaster.
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Puerto Rico: Scarred Land. Between man-made and natural disaster
I started photographing in Puerto Rico in 2004. In the aftermath of a series of demonstrations triggered by the accidental death of civilian David Sanes in 1999 by the US Navy in Vieques, a municipality island to the east of Puerto Rico. After a vibrant movement that saw a lot of support in the US itself, the US Navy abandoned 80% of the land seized from the population of Vieques. These lands were used as a training site for NATO armies as they tested munitions, up until 2003.
At first I started shooting in Vieques, the abandoned infrastructure that the US Navy left for nature to claim. The population of Vieques live in dire poverty, with higher than normal rates of cancer, due to the contamination that resulted from the exploding of depleted uranium shells, napalm, and a host of other toxic chemicals and heavy metals during the military exercises. Since the departure of the US Navy, the land has not been handed back to the people of Vieques. It now is overseen by the Fish And Wildlife Service, a US federal agency who supervised the cleaning up of the contaminated areas.
While traversing the Puerto Rican landscape, one is struck by the contrast between the natural beauty of the land and the imprint of the colonial history. Green fertile valleys, punctuated by relics of the long defunct sugar industry. Abandoned industry is a consistent theme in Puerto Rico.
The biggest impact of this can be seen in its demographic transformation as hundreds of thousands left the island in search of better opportunities and to escape the cascading consequences of the economic crisis. An ongoing exodus has been taking place in Puerto Rico since the very beginning of the 1990s and was amplified after the imposed debt restructuring and austerity policies that gutted social programs and sent the economy into a profound crisis.
In this project, we also see the deserted streets in Rio Piedras, where a once lively university town was reduced to a ghost-town after the 2008 crisis, with closed stores, cafes and banks. Paseo de Diego was once a vibrant main street, a center of economic activity. Today it is all but abandoned.
Neoliberal austerity imposed by the so-called Junta, an oversight board of seven experts appointed by the US Congress, has further amplified the cutting of social spending, leading to hundreds of schools being closed across Puerto Rico.
A recent gentrification wave is making things worse, further contributing to the displacement and impoverishment of the population, as foreign investors are given a no tax option to buy real estate and land.
In 2017, hurricane María hit the island destroying its electric infrastructure leaving hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans without access to basic services. The administration of Donald Trump did little to provide adequate help following hurricane María, leading to the deaths of at least 4,645. The vast majority of these deaths were the result of lack of response in the following weeks and months. The government's figure of casualties at the time was 64. The then governor Ricky Rosselló echoed the Trump administration, something that was soon to be his downfall.
Social struggle has always been part of the history of the Puerto Rican people. Starting with the anti-colonial movement in the 1930’s. In 1969 the Young Lords movement took to the streets of New York’s Spanish Harlem to protest against racism and colonialism. The movement that forced the US Navy to leave Vieques in the 1990’s. The strikes and protests following the economic crisis of 2008, and most recently the mass movement in 2019 that forced the resignation of the sexist and homophobic Governor Ricky Rosselló in the aftermath of María.
In this series of images, I hope to show the landscape of Puerto Rico, in its beauty but also the damage that it has suffered caused by this man made disaster.
Sections