This spring break, I remembered why I love going to the field.
I am currently taking Latino Global Cities, a Spanish class about how Puerto Ricans — both on the island and in diaspora communities — form and maintain identity in an increasingly globalized world. Over Spring Break we travelled to Puerto Rico to begin to understand the Caribbean island beyond the palm trees and hotels. We visited communities and attended discussions about the lived complexities of an American colony in a “post-colonial” age. These issues can only be fully understood with first-hand experience that can both complicate and concretize concepts that seem so distant in books.
Practicing what my professor calls “anti-tourism” — a more critical kind of travel — we visited Fanguito, a conglomerate of eight poor urban communities in San Turce, outside of San Juan. There, Melba, a local activist, guided us around the community with her 6-week old baby in tow, who represents the 5th generation in her family to live in the community.
Melba told us about her community’s most severe problem: water. Located on the Caño Martín Peña, far from the island’s tourist-filled beaches, Fanguito sits on one of Puerto Rico’s most important, and most polluted, waterways. Melba took us to the river to see the bags and water bottles strewn everywhere. It reeked of sewage, and she explained how toilets and sinks run directly into the water. This is a health hazard for everyone — plants, animals, and humans. Furthermore, the pollution has caused parts of the river to dry up, so that it is no longer navigable by boat.
Continue reading Dredging the River: Why We Enter the Field
