July 17, 2018 – from Combined Reports – UConn Communications

About 13,000 residents of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands who arrived in Connecticut in the aftermath of the hurricanes Maria and Irma continue to struggle with obtaining basic needs including adequate housing, food, medical care, and jobs, according to a survey by UConn researchers for the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.

The vast majority of those who have come to Connecticut, over 70 percent, have extremely low incomes — under $30,000 — and their needs are adding a heavy responsibility on an already over-extended and resource-limited Puerto Rican community in Connecticut, given the extreme levels of need that are present in the community, even before the storms.

About 1,300 people participated in the survey, which utilized online and in-person questionnaires in English and Spanish and field research, and was led by the University of Connecticut’s El Instituto: Institute for Latina/o Caribbean and Latin American Studies and with the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College.

Researchers sought to understand the long-term impact of displacement on Puerto Rican households in the Greater Hartford region.

They found that while some households surveyed relied on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for funding for basic needs, the majority of those affected relied on the Greater Hartford’s nonprofit organizations, school districts, and family members for support.

In Connecticut, relief has also been provided through a $4.4 million education and housing assistance for displaced residents, which was approved by the state’s General Assembly during the 2018 Legislative Session.

“The Hartford region has one of the highest concentrations of people of Puerto Rican origin outside Puerto Rico and last year’s hurricanes brought thousands more to the region, many of whom will likely stay,” said Scott Gaul, the Hartford Foundation’s director of Research and Evaluation. “The hurricanes were an unprecedented event, but we can anticipate similar crises will happen again. The survey is one tool to help the Hartford region understand the needs of evacuees and the potential long-term impacts of displacement.”

Among this population:

• More than half of those surveyed (56%) mentioned that it was very likely (36%) or somewhat likely (22%) that kin would relocate from the Caribbean to Connecticut, with most of those relatives and friends staying with respondents.
• Respondents expected displaced kin to remain in Connecticut into the medium and long terms. Nearly a third of respondents (32%) reported that kin would stay in Connecticut for a few months, and a quarter (26%) would remain for a few years.
• The most pressing need for respondents hosting displaced Puerto Ricans is lodging, with fully one-third of them indicating that housing was one the biggest needs they face.
• Nearly three-fifths of respondents indicated housing was displaced person’s first order need, followed by 16 percent who mentioned it in second order.
• Food was a first order need for one-fifth of survey respondents’ displaced friends and relatives and second order need for 35 percent.
• Respondents expect nearly 1,500 additional people to arrive from Puerto Rico in the wake of the hurricane.
• Respondents living in Hartford’s outer ring suburbs were relatively less likely (72%) to have kin in the Caribbean than those living in Hartford or its immediate suburbs.

“Survey respondents identify housing issues and insufficient food as the most critical needs they are facing in Connecticut, along with healthcare, in the after aftermath of the crisis,” said Charles R. Venator-Santiago, associate professor of political science at UConn. “These are needs not only of those who are in the state already, but of those who are very likely to arrive in the short term.”

Results from the survey will help inform long-term planning and action by funders, nonprofits, municipalities and schools. The Foundation will work with community organizations and leaders in the region to disseminate and act on survey results.

The Hartford Foundation recently awarded $230,000 in grants from its Respond-Rebuild-Renew Fund to provide support services to residents impacted by relocation from the Caribbean and other disaster areas.

View the full report: PR_Survey_Booklet_print_Final

As leaders of centers, institutes, and programs at the University of Connecticut dedicated to advancing critical understanding of social justice and human rights, we are fully committed to the aim, outlined in the university’s mission, of helping students grow intellectually and become contributing members of society. We pursue this work with full consciousness that many of our programs were created in the wake of social justice movements that sought recognition not only of the rights of marginalized peoples, but also of the obligation on the part of higher education to embrace diversity, cultivate civic responsibility, and promote equity and justice. Our centers, institutes, and programs support research and teaching in fields of knowledge that would not exist but for hard won protections of First Amendment values and academic freedom, and we strive to create robust, rigorous, and responsible intellectual communities among faculty and students of different backgrounds, opinions, and orientations. Critical and productive scholarly inquiry requires environments that foster diverse viewpoints and free and responsible exchange, even – and especially – when those contributions challenge orthodox thinking, wherever on the political spectrum it may be situated.

The invitation to author and media personality Ben Shapiro has provided us an opportunity to reflect on these histories and current objectives of our centers, institutes, and programs, and to reaffirm our essential roles in promoting the university’s core mission of enhancing the social, economic, and cultural well-being of our students and the wider community. We reject the claims of Mr. Shapiro, and those of like-minded individuals and organizations, that our programs are illegitimate or unnecessary university endeavors, and that challenging systemic oppression and seeking more just societies constitutes “brainwashing.” Freedom of expression and academic freedom are essential to promoting diversity of thought and opinion of all members of the community and enable us to engage productively in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. Broad participation in these pursuits, however, requires not only speaking but also listening – not only “free speech” but also responsible efforts to understand the speech of others. We urge all members of the community to demonstrate our commitment to these values both in this week and beyond.

The following links showcase our centers, institutes, and programs, and indicate some of the ways in which we are working to promote – through efforts such as the Initiative on Campus Dialogues (https://humilityandconviction.uconn.edu/initiative-on-campus-dialogues/) and the metanoia Together: Confronting Racism (https://together.uconn.edu/) – open and mutually respectful exchange on the burning issues of today. Only through such sustained, painstaking, at times uncomfortable work can we hope to advance our collective understanding of ourselves, each other, and the world around us.

Africana Studies Institute
https://africana.uconn.edu/
American Studies Program
https://americanstudies.uconn.edu/about/
Asian and Asian American Studies Institute
https://asianamerican.uconn.edu/profile/mission_statement/
Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life
https://judaicstudies.uconn.edu/about/
El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies
https://elin.uconn.edu/
Humanities Institute
https://humanities.uconn.edu/
Human Rights Institute
https://humanrights.uconn.edu/about/about/
Thomas J. Dodd Research Center
https://thedoddcenter.uconn.edu/about/history/
Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program
https://wgss.uconn.edu/our-mission/

Sebastian Wogenstein, Interim Director, Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life
Samuel Martinez, Interim Director, El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean and Latin American Studies
Glenn Mitoma, Director, Thomas J. Dodd Research Center
Melina Pappademos, Interim Director, Africana Studies Institute
Michael P. Lynch, Director, Humanities Institute
Alexis L. Boylan, Associate Director, Humanities Institute
Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Director, Asian and Asian American Studies Institute
Kathryn Libal, Director, Human Rights Institute
Molly Land, Associate Director, Human Rights Institute
Micki McElya, Director, Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program
Christopher R. Vials, Director, American Studies Program

We, members of the core faculty and affiliate advisory board members of UConn’s El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, & Latin American Studies, write to express our commitment to advocating for the rights and freedoms of our students and co-workers at the university and fostering a welcoming intellectual community of critically engaged scholars. President Trump’s administration has exacerbated a wide range of discriminatory, nativist, racist, misogynist, and heterosexist actions and targeted Latinx populations and undocumented immigrants in particular. Our research and teaching emerges from and is sustained by a long history of struggles for social justice in Latinx, Caribbean & Latin American communities. As such, we reaffirm our commitment to fight discrimination and division and to support diversity, equity, social justice and human rights. We stand in solidarity with all our UConn colleagues and students who are feeling vulnerable at this time and pledge to actively work to protect their rights and freedoms.

Puerto Rico and the origins of the U.S. Global Empire: The Disembodied Shadow

Drawing on a postcolonial legal history of the United States’ territorial expansionism, this book provides an analysis of the foundations of its global empire. Charles R. Venator-Santiago argues that the United States has developed three traditions of territorial expansionism with corresponding constitutional interpretations, namely colonialist, imperialist, and global expansionist. This book offers an alternative interpretation of the origins of US global expansion, suggesting it began with the tradition of territorial expansionism following the 1898 Spanish–American War to legitimate the annexation of Puerto Rico and other non-contiguous territories. The relating constitutional interpretation grew out of the 1901 Insular Cases in which the Supreme Court coined the notion of an unincorporated territory to describe the 1900 Foraker Act’s normalization of the prevailing military territorial policies. Since then the United States has invoked the ensuing precedents to legitimate a wide array of global policies, including the ‘war on terror’.

Puerto Rico and the Origins of US Global Empire: The Disembodied Shade combines a unique study of Puerto Rican legal history with a new interpretation of contemporary US policy. As such, it provides a valuable resource for students and scholars of the legal and historical disciplines, especially those with a specific interest in American and postcolonial studies.

Mark Overmyer-Velazquez

Providing a comprehensive and up-to-date historical overview of Mexican migration to the U.S., Beyond la Frontera: The History of Mexico-U.S. Migrationexamines the transnational and historical impact of migratory trends as they developed in Mexico and the U.S. from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. Featuring essays by leading authors in the field, the book utilizes both a chronological and thematic structure, referencing mutually influential periods in Mexican and Mexican-American history. Taking into consideration the bi-national historical factors and narrative constructions of Mexican migration, Beyond la Frontera also describes how we may better understand the persistent legislative debates surrounding migrant rights and national sovereignty.