Las Réplicas del Desastre: Puerto Rico antes y después del huracán María

by Yarimar Bonilla (Editor), Marisol LeBrón (Editor)

En el contexto de los terremotos, "una réplica" describe las sacudidas que se sienten después del sismo inicial. Ningún desastre es un acontecimiento singular. Las réplicas del desastre examina los efectos duraderos del huracán María, no sólo del viento o la lluvia, sino de lo que siguió: el fracaso del Estado, el abandono social, la capitalización de la miseria humana y el trauma colectivo producto de una respuesta incompetente y fracasada.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, History, Social Justice, Essays, Poetry, Latinx

384 pages, Paperback

First published September 3, 2019

About the author

Both an accomplished scholar and a prominent public intellectual, Yarimar Bonilla is a leading voice on questions of Caribbean and Latinx politics. She has held faculty positions at various top ranked public universities and has recieved numerous grants, awards, and prestigious fellowships.

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I definitely learned a lot while reading this book. The authors highlight the various aspects of colonialism & exploitation that led to the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Mariá. I learned a lot about how Puerto Rico’s debt came to be. I also greatly appreciated the more artistic pieces (poetry, plays, photojournalism) that highlighted the immense trauma the entire island faced. I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in disaster capitalism and/or how colonialism works today. I don’t recommend reading this book in one sitting though, the chapters can easily blend together and if read through without breaks can end up seeming repetitive. If I were to read it again, I’d read like a chapter a week instead of a chapter a day or so. For this reason, I’m giving the book 4 stars instead of 5.

[Alba · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just superb. A MUST READ for a profound understanding of the catastrophic nature of Puerto Rico's reality. To that end, it combines journalism, poetry, drama, photography, and philosophy from many different contributors. Motivates me to seek out more, especially as to "decoloniality". Pa'lante, mi gente.

[Victoria Jacobo · Rating 4 out of 5]

very informative post PR trip
honestly their government sucks

[Marc Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly impressive collection of poems, a play, stories, and essays about life in Puerto Rico before, during, and after Hurricane Maria. I have been reading a lot about Puerto Rico recently, and I felt in many ways I was beginning to over intellectualize the real lives of people, and this book was incredibly grounding to help suppress that. Written by people who lived through the hurricane and came together for their community in a myriad of ways (photojournalists, radio hosts, community kitchens, clean energy advocates, etc), it is just such an impressive body of decolonial work and envisioning a truly free Puerto Rico. I am very grateful this exists and I will be recommending to folks.

[Jamie Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many in-depth readings here that really expose the continued atrocities committed by the US as a colonizer state, including predatory lending and the continued negligence of giving PR full sociopolitical/governmental/economic autonomy. Highly recommend (although there is a lot of overlap and repetition between a fair amount of the articles)

[Maria Longley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe these resulted as proceedings from a conference that was held a year after the hurricane hit Puerto Rico. There re multiple voices from people doing all manner of different things in the wake of the disaster, but also clearly laying out how this was more than just an isolated incident effecting the island. The disaster prepardness was severely compromised by years of being a colony of the USA. It was quite weird to read this as Trump has taken presidency again and of course this happened during his first term. It is infuriating to see yet again how capitalism has structured the world in ways that harm so many and "benefit" so few. The debt-finance system is so broken!! It is odious indeed. I appreciated hearing multiple voices in this collection, even if that did lead to a fair amount of repetition. How refreshing to be at a conference where you get a play though.

[Taylor Ramage · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an insightful collection, dense at times due to the complexity of some of the subjects discussed, but helpful for me as a diaspora Puerto Rican to better understand the economic/social/political context of Puerto Rico before and after Hurricane Maria.

[Jessenia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The essays were a bit repetitive at times, and they didn’t seem like they were written in concert with one another, but this collection was stacked with important thoughts and conversations concerning Puerto Rico’s present and future post Maria

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought the idea of resilience as a negative impact after trauma or crisis very interesting (p. 32)...

[Sølvi Goard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I struggled with the section on art. But the assemblage of articles style works really well for a catastrophe. Together it's a thrust, from vicious colonialism to active mutualism. It's good.

[Karla · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...how resilience can serve as a pressure valve for the state."

Such an excellent analysis of both macroscopic & microscopic effects of Maria

[Siani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Required reading for everyone to under the scope of Puerto Rico’s oppression under U.S. colonialism, especially after disaster

[Rachel]

This was so informative but so so sad. Changes need to be made, this shit can't be allowed to continue.

[Katie McCandless · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some good essays in here, but I think overall the book would have been better served if the editors were a little heavier handed. Lots of redundancies and an odd structure made the book feel rushed and sloppy and made the cover-to-cover reading experience a little tedious. That said, at a high level I was grateful for the education about the recent history of Puerto Rico, and the essays' overlapping content allows for a lot of nuance.

[Mallory Franco · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thorough and thought-provoking exploration of the current socio-economic and political climate in PR, highlighting the devastation of Hurricane Maria's unveiling of Puerto Rican corruption and poverty in modern times due to it's historic, and arguably current, status as a US colony.

This important work covers a broad array of topics including the disastrous response from FEMA & the US government in the aftermath of the storm; the need for an audit of the predatory $73B in debt the US is forcing PR to repay at the expense of drastic cuts to public services (including 1/3 budget cut to the island's largest public higher education system - UPR); an abysmal energy infrastructure; and complete lack of autonomy while being subjected to racist diatribes from US politicians claiming PRs are lazy and unworthy of aid even though the US has clearly made it a goal to force displacement by historically disallowing independence and systematically pushing disaster capitalist agendas and wealthy tax cuts for non-PRs to make room for wealthy Americans to move in.

The most impactful line I read: "many people are immersed in an extreme economic and social situation, and this makes it very hard for them to advocate for their rights. In some instances, ADVOCATING FOR HUMAN RIGHTS BECOMES A PRIVILEGE AND THAT IS TRAGIC."

[Marianna Defendini Torres · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a perfect compilation of the distress caused in the island of Puerto Rico due to the economical and environmental crisis led by the suffering of Hurricane Maria and the long lasting political crisis. They are stories, essays and chronicles told by community leaders, academics and among others. It not only is told by the eyes of science, but also of art with essays and chronicles of academics like Beatriz Llenín Figueroa, Eduardo Lalo and many others. It concludes with solutions and aspirations for the future of the island. An excellent read.