This piece is a continuation of reflections that sparked from listening to Bad Bunny’s new album, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, that I started earlier this month. If you haven’t read it, you can find it here.
“I saw the future…there are no Puerto Ricans.”
On July 13, 2019, the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo released a 889 page Telegram chat, leaking the full conversations of (now ex) Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rosselló and his closest advisors. The chat archive was dated from late 2018 to early 2019, detailing everything from sexual and misogynistic jokes, mocking journalists, and even poking fun at the victims of Hurricane Maria. The messages not only showed the true colors of the corrupt officials, but ignited archipelago-wide protests, calling on the immediate resignation of Rosselló. Dubbed #RickyRenuncia, people all across Puerto Rico took to the streets with banners, signs, flags, marching through the streets of Old San Juan to the governor’s mansion.
...Rosselló calls one New York female politician of Puerto Rican background a “whore,” describes another as a “daughter of a bitch” and makes fun of an obese man he posed with in a photo. The chat also contains vulgar references to Puerto Rican star Ricky Martin’s homosexuality and a series of emojis of a raised middle finger directed at a federal control board overseeing the island’s finances. (Source: PBS)
Benito immediately halted his tour and flew back to PR to join the protest, leading a caravan and waving a Puerto Rican flag, as well as releasing a song with Puerto Rican artists iLe and Residente (both from the trio, Calle 13), Afilando los Cuchillos, that was quickly adopted by protesters as their anthem. Benito urged people to get out on the streets, and not to lose faith. He said, "The system for years, decades, has taught us to keep quiet. It has manipulated our opinions, the press, and it has made us believe anyone who protests is crazy or a criminal…I would love to see those who have never joined a protest to come out, without fear.”
The erasure of Puerto Ricans and our culture still, unfortunately, persists. There are those who come to PR, under the guise of tax breaks, like the infamous Youtuber brothers, Jake and Logan Paul. Moving to Puerto Rico via Act 60 (alternatively referred to as Act 22), they are exempt from federal income tax and on “certain capital gains.” While it might appear as if they are giving back to the community by doing things like renovating gyms and starting a non-profit, Act 60 actually requires its participants to donate at least $10,000 a year to a Puerto Rico-based non-profit. In 2024, Puerto Rican Activist Berta Joubert-Ceci launched an educational tour across the United States, working to “promote the decolonization of Puerto Rico” and spoke about other wealthy people who had been taking advantage of the archipelago's tax breaks, all while never actually contributing anything to the community:
One of the most well-known cases presented by Joubert-Ceci was that of crypto entrepreneur and former Mighty Ducks actor Brock Pierce, who moved to Puerto Rico in 2017, and, as a beneficiary of Act 60, purchased a 127-year-old historic building in Old San Juan. According to Bloomberg, Pierce has built a real estate portfolio on the Commonwealth that is worth about $35 million. Another similar case discussed by Joubert-Ceci is that of billionaire John Paulson, who, according to Bloomberg, has a real estate portfolio in Puerto Rico that could be worth as much as $1 billion.
"The sense of desperation and urgency is because we are losing Puerto Rico," said Joubert-Ceci, who said she wonders if those investors will become "the new Puerto Ricans," implying that the same benefits don’t exist for Puerto Ricans born and raised on the island.
Jake and Logan Paul do not represent Puerto Rico. Nor does Brock Pierce, or any other “philanthropist” that decides to call Puerto Rico their home. But people like them are always encouraged to visit, stay awhile, and make it their home. It’s a paradise! It’s perfect. Que linda, un Puerto Rico sin Puertorriqueños…
On January 20, 2025, Thomas Rivera Schatz, the President of the Senate of Puerto Rico filed Senate Bill 273, which would work to eliminate the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña. The mission of ICP is simple—they are devoted to preserving, investigating and promoting Puerto Rican culture. With both physical and virtual archives, the removal of ICP would be painfully detrimental to Puerto Rico, yet another instance of both our history and culture trying to be erased. In a written statement, Carlos Ruiz, the executive director of ICP said the following:
This would directly affect the entire Puerto Rican population, which benefits directly or indirectly from our services and specialized programs in plastic arts, popular arts, archaeology, historical built heritage, music and dance, theater, publications and recordings, museums and parks, among others, as well as those offered by the National Library and the General Archive of Puerto Rico. To disappear the law that created the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture is to dismantle our culture, it is to go backwards and leave it orphaned.
Ruiz’s concerns are valid, and ones that constantly pass through the minds of Puerto Ricans all throughout the diaspora. From natural disasters like Hurricane Maria that took the lives of many and wrecked the already suffering infrastructure, to the frequent migration of Boricuas, moving to and from the archipelago looking for better job opportunities, health care, etc.– this narrative is ongoing. Our physical archives, like our family photographs, are some of the last links we have left to our ancestors. In DtMF, Benito touches on this point exactly: I should have taken more photos. Realizing that our own existence and resilience is just as much a part of the archive as our families’ is a profound thought. Here, he speaks candidly about the album’s title:
Las fotos son momentos vividos, recuerdos de cosas que pasaron. Yo no era de estar tirando fotos por ahí ni estar subiendo stories ni nada de eso. Yo decía que era mejor vivir el momento. Pero cuando llegas a esta edad, recordar no es tan fácil. Debí tirar más fotos, haber vivido más, haber amado más cuando pude. Mientras uno está vivo, uno debe amar lo más que pueda.
The photos are moments lived, memories of things that happened. I wasn't into taking pictures out there, or uploading [Instagram] stories - none of that. I said it was better to live the moment. But when you get to this age, remembering isn't that easy. I should have taken more pictures, lived longer, loved more when I could. While one is alive, one must love as much as possible.
Writing about Puerto Rico is never easy. I always feel like I have the weight of my people on me and the responsibility to tell their story. And there’s so much more I could talk about: more political corruption, the failing health care system, an unstable power grid, disaster capitalism, tourism industrial complex (not even sure if this phrase has been claimed, but it should be) meaning the way the U.S. turns their colony into a playground for tourists, filled with Airbnbs that price out locals, slowly gentrifying towns that my grandparents and great-grandparents once lived in…the destruction of the ecology to make way for gaudy hotels and resorts—all for the benefit of others, never for the people living there. Un Puerto Rico sin Puertorriqueños… acho, es la verdad. (Man, it’s the truth.)
So, when I tell you that DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS was meant for me, I mean it. It was meant for us. Any person that has lived under colonial rule, or whose family was displaced. The people that sit and think what their life would be like had their family never immigrated, the ones watching their acquaintances on Instagram, riding around on jet skis, polluting the water, seeing their old family home turn into restaurant after restaurant, looking on Google Maps to see if it’s been demolished. How much would it cost to buy? It doesn’t matter anyway. The developers there come with cash offers, ready to turn the only piece of land your family had left into a weekend getaway for someone that thought they needed a passport to get into PR. Make no mistake - I’m both heated and sad, grieving rather, and I always will be, for what my ancestors were forced to go through. But DtMF reminded me of something that was, and will always be in me: yo soy de p fuckin’ r.
No one'll kick me out of here, I'm not going anywhereTell them this is my home where my grandfather was bornI'm from P fuckin’ R
De aquí nadie me saca, de aquí yo no me muevoDile que esta es mi casa donde nació mi abueloYo soy de P fuckin' R
(the final verse of La Mudanza by Bad Bunny)
Thanks for reading Lucid Dreaming! This post is public so feel free to share it.