Puerto Rico Se Transforma
Five months after Hurricane Maria, the rebuilding effort in Puerto Rico is powered by women.
Two weeks after Hurricane Maria made landfall, I made my first return trip to the island since Thanksgiving the year before. The descent into the San Juan international airport was marked by destruction: the lush, vibrant green blanket of my childhood was gone, replaced instead with a dull, devastating brown of naked trees (some standing, most toppled) and dishwater-gray piles of rubble where homes and businesses once stood. On my flight, the only half-full airplane traveling to the island I've ever been on, the passengers, a mix of aid workers and family members, crowded on either aisle and craned their necks to see it for themselves. I heard the gasps and saw the quiet sobbing of nearly everyone on board. I sobbed quietly, too.
I'd flown down to convince my 90-year-old grandmother, a Caguas native, to return back to the mainland U.S. to join the rest of our family until the electricity was restored and hospitals were up and running again; I was also there to distribute two suitcases' worth of C and D batteries, bottles of Ensure, battery-powered lanterns, and solar-powered USB chargers. As I drove to my abuela's house down a road I'd traveled probably hundreds of times in my life, I marveled at the ways that a landscape I had known my entire life had so instantly, irrevocably changed; through the bare, broken branches, I spotted a large lake just beyond that I had never known was there. At my grandmother's house in Caguas, about 20 minutes south of San Juan, extension cords ran across the street from the powerful backup generator at a printing plant, which ran a few hours a day for neighbors in need, which was all of the neighbors. The fast-food place on the corner had its own generator, and quickly became a local hub and meeting point where people would begin lining up at 5:00 a.m., a full hour before it opened, hoping to charge their cell phones. Families lingered for hours in the air-conditioned dining room every day; trading rumors, waiting for their turn to recharge, to find out what would happen next. Everywhere, time felt suspended.
Five months later, the women of Puerto Rico are moving fast. In the days and weeks and months after Maria, they've waded into flooded neighborhoods to extricate the abandoned, and put together soup kitchens to feed the hungry. They've canvassed their communities in order to diagnose the most critical needs—street by street, mountain by mountain, house by house, family by family—and have returned when they said they would with supplies and support. They've created free legal aid societies to help families navigate the confusing and ill-designed processes required to file FEMA claims, and connected Puerto Ricans with aid groups far more active and impactful. They've raised money and rebuilt roads and devised innovative mass communication methods in light of limited or no electricity or internet access. And they've ventured far from their own neighborhoods and towns on foot and in pickup trucks to distribute solar-powered lights, generators, gas, clothes, shoes, tampons, batteries, medication, mattresses, water—and often most importantly, information—to a still-overwhelming number of people in desperate need. They've laughed and cried, listened, and hugged the people in their communities: the old, the sick, the disabled, the lonely, the rich, the poor. Many of them are the poor. The women of Puerto Rico have spoken up about subpar leadership and have challenged the inequalities, the broken systems, and have even called out an ignorant, out-of-touch president live on television (as well as firing back at him on Twitter). By empowering themselves—and each other—the women of Puerto Rico have empowered the entire island. Photographer Richard Mosse and I returned with Vogue to capture some of their stories.
"I am the great-granddaughter of a sugarcane plantation worker. My grandmother crawled her way out of poverty," says Carmen Yulín Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, when we met in early March. We sat at a table not far from her current office, a small trailer on the grounds of the Parque Luis Muñoz Marín, a beautiful, sprawling park she worked hard to reopen two years ago. "It isn't my voice that's important. It's ensuring that my voice is the echo of a thousand voices. And that I use this platform to let the people lead the way." Cruz became something like the face of the Puerto Rican disaster relief crisis post-Maria, when she made televised appearances pleading for aid from the mainland U.S. (and President Donald Trump, whom she called "the miscommunicator in chief," among other terms) in T-shirts that read things like, "Nasty," and "Help Us We're Dying." Though Trump visited areas affected by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma after four days, it took almost two weeks before he visited Puerto Rico; it took the White House a similar amount of time to waive the shipping restrictions that limited the access of goods and donations to the island. "The U.S. has continuously claimed that Puerto Rico is not a colony," Cruz continues, "Well, the gig is up. That's why I got really pissed off when the president said that we 'wanted everything done for' us. That shows not only poor leadership, but ignorance. He doesn't know who we are."
Now, like the rest of the women working to rebuild the island, she's focused squarely on the future. Her goal is to find permanent solutions to recurring problems. After all, she reminds me, hurricane season is less than three months away. When presented with the tech industry's sudden interest in Puerto Rico (and the so-called "Bitcoin bros" suddenly chomping at the bit to develop a presence on the island), Cruz says, "One of them was very snappy with me on Twitter yesterday, saying, 'I'll be buying areas in San Juan. Let's not look for excuses, let's make sure that we fix the problems.' I answered, 'Rest assured, we're going to make sure you respect San Juan.' "
Hours after our interview, just before midnight, a text popped up from the mayor. "One last thing," it ended. "I believe this series of interviews is called Women of America. Very respectfully, I want to make sure it is understood that I am first and foremost A PROUD PUERTO RICAN."
Jacqueline Vazquez-Suarez, of Barrio Aguirre, Salinas; Carmen Rosado Canboh, of Barrio Las Vegas, Cayey; and Zenaida Navarro, of Barrio Playa Guayanes, Yabucoa. Photographed in Salinas, Puerto Rico.
Standing water and the island’s tropical heat have multiplied the mosquito population in hard-to-reach areas of Puerto Rico. In such conditions, Zika and dengue can spread quickly, bites become infected when not treated properly (especially without access to hospitals), and immune systems can be compromised due to lack of sleep. Las Tres Mosquiteras is a collective of women who took matters into their own hands—literally. After devising a way to make mosquito nets that didn’t require sewing machines—and with support from the Institute of Science Conservation, led by Fernando Silva, as well as other aid groups—each woman canvassed her own neighborhood, measuring beds and returning days later with handmade nets to cover as many of them as possible. Perhaps even more importantly, they taught women in other communities to do the same, weaving together a network that now boasts over 25 sister groups of Mosquiteras, each with around 10 members or more, across the entire island, and Vieques.
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Karina Zúñiga, Photographed at El Yunque National Forest.
“This is our sacred forest. It has so much of our vegetation, so many woods that you cannot find anywhere else—not in Puerto Rico, not in the world,” says Karina Zúñiga, one of the leaders of Siempre Verde PR, an environmental nonprofit organization contracted by the United States Forest Service to help restore the rainforest’s roads and trails. “So this is a very, very special place to visit. For me, it feels very fulfilling. And I feel very grateful to be working here. I give thanks to the forest every time that I’m here working for it.”
Julie Saunders, photographed in Rincón. In Rincón, the largest community of expats from the mainland U.S. in Puerto Rico, Julie Saunders owns a horseback riding business called Pintos “R” Us. She was a regular visitor from North Carolina for years, and relocated to the island permanently in 2006. The Rincón community is a tight-knit one: Saunders met her mentor, a legendary Puerto Rican cowboy named Felipe Cruz, on one of her earliest trips, and it’s Cruz who taught her what’s served as the most important lessons of all. “He said, ‘Learn the language. And be humble. Don’t go in thinking you know everything. If you do that, then [the local riders] won’t teach you anything.” After the hurricane destroyed her horse farm, Saunders cleaned up what she could and then began venturing out to help other people in the area. Packing her pickup truck with supplies, Saunders drove as far up into the hills of Utuado and Jayuya as she could, connecting with and delivering aid to several isolated mountain communities.
Taty and Domingo Villafañe LaFontaine. Photographed in Utuado.
In the hours before the hurricane hit, Taty and Domingo Villafañe LaFontaine, a sister and brother living together in the barrio Paso Palmas, up in the hills of Utuado, fled their home. “We went to a house down by the river that was empty to wait out the storm—the wind wasn’t as bad there,” said Taty. “In the morning, we climbed back up.” Next to her house is a deep ravine bisected by a huge fallen tree. A Direct TV satellite is visible underneath it, along with other bits and pieces of life before Maria: cabinet doors, an infant’s high chair, chunks of the former roof. A blue tarp is bundled up with rope in a corner. “This was the tarp that FEMA brought, but it’s too flimsy. Look at this,” she says, grabbing a corner of it. “You see? It got a little bit of wind under it one day when it was raining and the whole thing blew away. Julie [Saunders] brought some guys with her one day after that and they built this roof. It’s pretty good.”
Río Caonillas, Utuado.
Left: Ariadna Godreau-Aubert, photographed in San Juan. Right: Modesta Irizarry, photographed in Loíza Aldea.
Ariadna Godreau-Aubert is a human rights lawyer and a founder of Ayuda Legal Huracán María, the first free disaster legal aid initiative in Puerto Rico. The group conducts regular seminars in municipalities across the island, provides legal counseling, trains lawyers and law students to help assist communities, and works closely with community leaders like Modesta Irizarry. “Right now we’re moving from FEMA appeals to the issue of evictions and other issues tied to evictions, like the removal of minors by the Department of Social Services because the mother has no roof. Well, the mother has no roof because FEMA has not responded to the claim! That’s one of the biggest concerns that we have at this moment, that this is going to be used against mothers in the custody hearings.”
Irizarry is a community leader in the town of Loíza Aldea, and has spent more than a decade working to create a dialogue between local drug dealers, gang members, the police, and the community. A single mother of three teenagers, she refers to herself as a leona—a lioness. “People might make assumptions about me because I’m a single mom and I live in el barrio. But I am not a housewife. I am happy, however. Because I know it’s possible to transform lives. I believe in touch. I believe in the embrace. I may not have a million dollars to rebuild the houses of the elderly people here who have lost everything,” she says. “I wish I did. I wish I could give them everything they’re lacking. But I believe that a hug can have the power to affect someone, to restore their hope. We have to learn to value human beings. To say to them, ‘I love you. You are important. I’m so glad you’re here.’ ” She continues, “The work that I do doesn’t have a financial component, but fills me with satisfaction because I’ve seen the changes. I truly believe my calling is to serve.”
“Many hands make light work,” the saying goes, and in Puerto Rico, laughter has always been its own source of energy. In addition to making nets, Vazquez-Suarez, Navarro, Rosado Cabo, and the other women of Las Mosquiteras have distributed donations of school supplies to local children, housing materials to the countless families that lost their roofs and suffered structural damage to their homes, and other goods to help make small but significant improvements to as many people as they can reach. Many of the Mosquiteras have also established free soup kitchens in their communities; these afternoons, as a new normal continues to emerge in Puerto Rico, you can find Vazquez-Suarez—who also serves as president of the city council of Salinas—selling lunches out of a truck. Each $4 plate also buys a meal for someone in the community who’d otherwise go hungry.
Carmen Rosado Cabo. Photographed in Salinas, Puerto Rico.
Carmen and her husband Guillermo, an agronomist, have three daughters: Ámbar, age 1, Jade, age 4 (pictured here), and Sofía, age 11. Like so many others in Cayey and its neighboring region, Carmen and Guillermo’s roof was blown away by the ferocious, ruthless winds of the storm; they hope to have it replaced in the coming weeks. Until then—and after—they rely on the work of Las Mosquiteras.
Ginna Malley Campos and Linda Núñez Montañez, photographed in El Yunque National Forest.
Ginna Malley Campos and Linda Núñez Montañez work together for Siempre Verde PR. Núñez Montañez holds a masters degree in recreation and works with children with special needs; Malley Campos holds a masters degree in environmental science. Both women had worked with Siempre Verde previously on other environmental projects, but working in El Yunque, where they do things like repurpose the wood from a fallen ausubo tree (pictured at left) for a new bridge, has reenergized them. “Most if not everyone was unemployed and really struggling really badly with different situations after the hurricane,” says Malley Campos. “So on the one hand, when this job came up, it was like a gift from the sky. It’s just an amazing opportunity to work in the rainforest. We’re working for the ‘incident’”—how the Forest Service refers to Hurricane Maria—“and the Forest Service, but in the end we’re working for the rainforest. And that is a privilege.”
Ginna Malley Campos and Linda Núñez Montañez work together for Siempre Verde PR. Núñez Montañez holds a masters degree in recreation and works with children with special needs; Malley Campos holds a masters degree in environmental science. Both women had worked with Siempre Verde previously on other environmental projects, but working in El Yunque, where they do things like repurpose the wood from a fallen ausubo tree (pictured at left) for a new bridge, has reenergized them. “Most if not everyone was unemployed and really struggling really badly with different situations after the hurricane,” says Malley Campos. “So on the one hand, when this job came up, it was like a gift from the sky. It’s just an amazing opportunity to work in the rainforest. We’re working for the ‘incident’”—how the Forest Service refers to Hurricane Maria—“and the Forest Service, but in the end we’re working for the rainforest. And that is a privilege.”
Members of Siempre Verde PR and the Velez Multiservice Contracting Company. Photographed at El Yunque National Forest.
“Our community of friends was going all around the island, doing work wherever it was needed,” says Malley Campos. “But when this opportunity came up, we were ready. We just jumped in.”
“Our community of friends was going all around the island, doing work wherever it was needed,” says Malley Campos. “But when this opportunity came up, we were ready. We just jumped in.”
Carmen Yulín Cruz is the Carmen Yulín Cruz is the mayor of San Juan of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Photographed at Parque Luis Muñoz Marín in San Juan.
“I’m like a RoboCop on permanent watch,” says Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, the Harley-Davidson-riding Mayor of San Juan, only the third woman in the island’s history to serve in the position. “I have this curse where I can spot everything that’s wrong right away.” In the hours and days after Hurricane Maria, few called out the problems and inequalities on the island as loudly as Mayor Cruz, who famously went toe-to-toe with President Trump after he accused Puerto Ricans of being “ingrates” who “wanted everything to be done for them” just days after the storm. “You cannot expect dignity if you don’t demand it,” she says. “And the only way to demand dignity is by standing up. You cannot demand it sitting down. You can’t say, ‘Here are my shackles, can you make them a little less uncomfortable?’ I don’t want the people of Puerto Rico to feel good about surviving. I want us to thrive.”
Inside the Villafañe LaFontaines’ home. Photographed in Utuado
Carmen Cintrón, founder of the Canitas Dog Sanctuary. Photographed in Guayama, Puerto Rico. Carmen Cintrón, a retired Army captain, started the Canitas Dog Sanctuary in 1997. It sits on 33 and a half acres near the south coast, in Guayama; currently there are nearly 800 dogs on the property. “I grew up on 82nd Street in New York. My family has always been in New York. I didn't have any family here—only one brother,” Cintrón says. “My husband and I retired 20 years ago, and I thought I was going to live the life of a tourist! In the ’90s we came to visit his family, and when I saw all of the stray and abandoned dogs on the island, well, my plans changed. I have never run away from anything, and I wasn’t about to run away from this. I’m here—and I’m staying.”
Left: A palm tree in Rincón. Right: Lisa Masters and Wanda Acosta, photographed at Tres Sirenas Beach Inn, Rincón.
Wanda Acosta and Lisa Masters, with some of Masters's paintings. Photographed at Tres Sirenas Beach Inn, Rincón.
A painter and Jivamukti yoga teacher, Lisa Masters opened the Tres Sirenas Beach Inn in Rincón 16 years ago. “This is my livelihood, and my daughters’,” she says. She runs the inn with her partner Wanda Acosta, who relocated to the island from New York. Like many New Yorkers, Acosta had been traveling to Puerto Rico her entire life to visit family. After Hurricane Maria, Masters found solace in preparing meals for the residents of the local nursing home. “The only way to survive at first was cooking for other people,” she says. As soon as they could, the couple also opened their doors to the local community: staff moved in, friends who lost homes moved in, and, when the water was finally restored, the Tres Sirenas laundry room became the most popular attraction of the now-battered inn. “When you’re here in a small town like Rincón, you can’t help but feel responsible,” says Acosta. “We all work together, we all care for one another.”
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