In July 2019, Puerto Rico was in turmoil. An organic movement asking for the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló emerged throughout this US colonial territory. After 12 days of mass protests, the governor resigned on 24 July. The international media portrayed his resignation as a successful and peaceful outcome. This is the first time that protests and the will of Puerto Ricans removed an elected governor from office. Yet, his resignation may only be the beginning of an uphill battle against those who benefit from corruption and austerity.

Following Puerto Rico’s social and mainstream media, the public consensus is now—some six weeks after Rosselló’s resignation—that a drastic change has occurred in society. Similar to movements of the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street in the United States, or the Indignados in Spain, a new common sense on how to engage policies of austerity might be emerging (Crehan 2016). After years of persecution against protests, part of this transformation is a self-awareness of Puerto Ricans that they have the power to change the course of their history through protests. Even with the governor gone, only the coming will show to which degree this self-awareness can be translated into a sustainable opposition to bipartisan control, colonialism, and neoliberalism.

Protesters on 25 July 2019 celebrate in Puerto Rico following the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló, marching from Milla de Oro in Hato Rey to the Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan (© Daryana Rivera, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0).

An analysis of Puerto Rico’s historical context in the past three decades is necessary for explaining how the process of political transformation occurred. Although for some contemporary writers these problems originate in the colonial subordination to the United States, the roots of Puerto Rico’s current economic crisis began in the mid-1990s when US Congress decided to eliminate section 936, “Possessions Corporation,” from the Federal Tax Code. Section 936 provided tax exemptions to US corporations giving Puerto Rico the highest concentration of manufacturing corporations in all the US territories (Rivera 2007). Its elimination was a blow to the manufacturing sector that accounted by 1995 42 percent of Puerto Rico’s GDP, more than 30 percent of deposits in the local banking system, and 17 percent of total direct employees (Caraballo and Lara 2018). To alleviate the impact of section 936’s cancellation, the Puerto Rican government implemented policies that accelerated borrowing for public works and for the creation of a universal health care system. However, this post-1995 policy of government-driven employment generation would not last. Between 2009 and 2012, a new government eliminated more than 15,000 public employees’ posts. Consequently, this created an unsustainable economy, as it exacerbated social inequalities, increased the average price of goods, and triggered an economic recession and staggering debt (around $74 billion national debt and $50 billion by unfunded pensions) (García Colón and Franqui-Rivera 2015).

In 2015, Governor Alejandro Garcia-Padilla called for bankruptcy (Davis et al. 2015). As a result, US Congress passed the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act in 2016, which imposed a Financial Oversight and Fiscal Management Board (FOFMB) over the government of Puerto Rico. The austerity measures imposed by the FOFMB now dominated every aspect of the life on the territory. To exacerbate the situation, in 2017, two consecutive hurricanes devastated the electrical infrastructure and the food supply chain, creating famine and death as the health care system collapsed (Holpuch 2017). Currently, 23 months after Hurricane Maria, thousands have left the territory, the unemployment rate is over 8 percent, and hundreds of rural people are still in need of proper housing and income. Migration of more than half a million people since 2000 further accelerated, with estimates ranging from 67,000 to 230,000 migrants after the hurricanes (Hinojosa 2018). Amid this crisis, the Puerto Rican government is marred by corruption and inefficiency in a scenario worse off than any US state or territory.

This context of economic crisis, migration, and policies of austerity and disaster capitalism led to the mass uprising against corruption within the pro-statehood New Progressive Party (Partido Nuevo Progresista) government. For 15 days, Puerto Ricans protested the government, motivated not only by the FBI arrests of two of the governor’s former cabinet members and three contractors on corruption charges but also by the “Telegram-Gate” (Perez-Lizasuain 2019). That Telegram-Gate resulted from the leaks of unexpected, reproachable, and inflammatory comments by the governor and members of his inner circle, who had engaged in an “exclusive encrypted chat” where they exchanged messages that showed lack of decorum, sensibility, and respect for his constituents.

Given the many years of hardship and suffering for Puerto Ricans since 2009, a plethora of issues related to the territory’s economy and Rosselló’s administration could have sparked mass demonstrations. However, the two aforementioned episodes were the drops that spilled the cup. Hours after the release of the Telegram-Gate scandal, Puerto Ricans filled the streets. People from different political parties and philosophical views were summoned through social media.

Among Puerto Rican society, the power of social media has developed and transformed the national interaction and discourse (Bonilla 2019). Initially, empowered by popular young artists, many born after 1990, activists developed interactive campaigns mostly through Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. At the same time, Rossello’s damage control strategies focused mainly on asking for forgiveness. He fired the “Telegram-Gate co-participants” and went on a press tour that used traditional media and long-standing political scripts against protestors (Franqui-Rivera 2019).

This did not stop several days of protests, when hundreds of thousands took control of the streets in San Juan, with people literally inventing “calls to action” from hundreds of cyclists, thousands of motor bikers, horse riders, and a kayak ambush of the sea area of “La Fortaleza.” Finally, on 24 July, Rosselló announced his resignation effective on 2 August so that he would have the chance to designate a successor.

However, his chosen successor was denied legitimacy by the Supreme Court. Instead, Rosselló’s legal successor, the controversial Attorney General Wanda Vazquez, assumed the position. At the same time, protesters are moving to organize people’s assemblies at public squares around the country and in the diaspora in order to discuss alternatives to austerity, rebuilding efforts, and further actions against government corruption (Villarubias Mendoza and Vélez Vélez 2019). The coming months will prove if people’s common sense about political engagement really changed in the world’s oldest colony.

William Suárez-Gómez is Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Community Health Unit and Food Studies Program at Hostos College, CUNY. He is a former researcher at the Bradford Centre for International Development. His research interests are focused on small economies’ development, agri-food systems competitiveness, and food policy.

Ismael García-Colón is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the College of Staten Island and CUNY Graduate Center. His areas of interest are historical and political anthropology, oral history, political economy, and Caribbean, Latin American, and Latina/o studies.