Puerto Rico Reflection

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When news of Hurricane Maria appeared on television and repeated to me by family I did not expect it to devastate Puerto Rico but simple knock down some palm trees and take out power like previous storms. A majority of my family still live on the island along with my father, who decided to retire and move there for some vacation time. Being that the hurricane came during the school year I was more vigilant with my grades and classes and did not follow the storms severity as it approached the island. Then the Facebook videos started to flood my screen of graphic images of my island stripped of the beautiful green pastures, tall palm trees gone, without power, and people practically swimming in their front yards. My mother called me and asked …show more content…

While reading the article I came across one piece of information that made me question the governments intentions with the island. Millions of people were without power and due to outstanding bills, the power companies are not repairing the power grid. I found this to be absurd because this island is in a state of crisis therefore I believed that any bills would be funded by the government until the island could repay it. In addition, Trump made the storm seem like a category one by comparing it to Hurricane Katrina and therefore made the decision that the government could not keep FEMA on the island. One important question asked by Milligan was why Puerto Rico is being treated differently than other locations in the U.S that received help from the government. One main factor was that due to the territory status with the U.S Puerto Ricans are not seen as Americans. According to a survey only of Americans surveyed knew that Puerto Ricans were U.S citizens from

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