In the second of a two-part series produced in collaboration with WNYC, Latino USA looks at how the proposed budget cuts are already changing the lives of Puerto Ricans. We follow Gabriel Negrón, an 18-year-old economics student at the University of Puerto Rico while he fights back against the austerity measures, some of which could determine whether…
Puerto Rico’s Financial Storm, Part One
Puerto Ricans are still rebuilding after Hurricane María devastated the island and its infrastructure last September. Since then, most of the focus has been on the effects of the Hurricane. Nonetheless, in some ways, the bigger story when it comes to Puerto Rico’s future is the island’s economic crisis.
When it comes to success, why effort and hard work are not enough
How do you grow up in a survivalist family, surrounded by extreme poverty, with no formal schooling until you are 17 years old, physically and emotionally abused by an older brother, and a decade later graduate with a doctorate in intellectual history from Cambridge? This is the story at the heart of Tara Westover’s memoir,…
How do you replace an icon on the Supreme Court? (and why that is the wrong question)
The news that progressives dreaded for years came to pass last night: Justice Ginsburg died. An icon of the liberal wing of the Court, her passing hands President Trump another seat on the Supreme Court. To progressives, this signals the end of the Court as a bastion of justice and defender of minority rights for…
Arguing about the Past: Why all the fuzz about the 1619 Project?
The 1619 Project is all the rage in conservative circles. And for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. I still remember when the piece came out a year ago. I shared the essay from Nikole Hannah-Jones far and wide. The idea, the concept, spoke to me. Here is how the project opens:…
Do we really have to ask, What is Puerto Rico?
Does it really take 61 pages to answer such a simple question? The legal question in the recent Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico v. Aurelius Investment, LLC was not explicitly over the constitutional status of Puerto Rico, of course. The question was over the constitutionality of the PROMESA Board, a body established…
Taking the Streets
Protests rage across the United States. Fires. Shootings. The President turned off the lights and hid in a bunker. And as this tragic moment unfolds, for reasons I will explain shortly, the conservative figure of Justice Frankfurter looms large in my mind. The link between these protests and words Frankfurter wrote generations ago is clear,…
The High Density Debate Comes to Indiana’s “Progressive” Oasis, and the outcome is not close
A few months ago, while listening to a Freakanomics Radio episode about why rent control does not work, I heard things that made me think long and hard about our conversation in Bloomington, Indiana about affordable housing. Full disclosure: I don’t know anything about any of this. I am not an economist, nor am I…
What do North Carolina Judges Know that Supreme Court Justices Do Not?
Last week, a three-judge court in North Carolina did the unthinkable: it struck down a state redistricting plan on partisan gerrymandering grounds. This plucky little court held, in light of the overwhelming factual record chock-full of crass and extreme examples of partisan behavior, that the plan violated the law. Doing the heavy lifting was a…
“School Begins” in Puerto Rico. A Hundred years later, nothing changes
As mass protests swirled in Puerto Rico over vulgar tweets and governmental corruption, I could not stop thinking about a famous cartoon published over a century ago in Puck Magazine. The cartoon, entitled “School Begins,” depicts an angry- looking Uncle Sam as schoolmarm, admonishing students sitting in the front row as others go about their…