Puerto Rico Experiences Worst Power Outages, Seven Months After Hurricane

By Julian Hayda
In this Sept. 26, 2017 photo, neighbors sit on a couch outside their destroyed homes as sun sets in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico.
In this Sept. 26, 2017 photo, neighbors sit on a couch outside their destroyed homes as sun sets in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico. Gerald Herbert / AP Photo
In this Sept. 26, 2017 photo, neighbors sit on a couch outside their destroyed homes as sun sets in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico.
In this Sept. 26, 2017 photo, neighbors sit on a couch outside their destroyed homes as sun sets in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico. Gerald Herbert / AP Photo

Puerto Rico Experiences Worst Power Outages, Seven Months After Hurricane

By Julian Hayda
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The entire Island of Puerto Rico lost power on Wednesday. Much of the island was already powerless since Hurricane Maria hit seven months ago. The day after the outage, the control board responsible for repaying Puerto Rico’s privately-held debts to American creditors met in San Juan. They proposed lowering Puerto Rico’s minimum wage, closing prisons by flying inmates to the mainland, and engaging in massive privatization.

The fate of Puerto Rico is being discussed Friday at the “Puerto Rico, Hurricane Maria, and the Crisis of Colonialism” conference, held at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC). Yarimar Bonilla, associate professor of anthropology and Caribbean studies at Rutgers University, is in Chicago to speak at the conference. She joined Worldview to discuss the latest.