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Code Switch

A Code Switch Thanksgiving Feast

Code Switch

NPR

Society & Culture

4.614.5K Ratings

🗓️ 22 November 2017

⏱️ 21 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It's a Thanksgiving mashup episode! We speak to Lin-Manuel Miranda about Puerto Rico, a parenting expert about tense family gatherings, and a Native professor about the truth behind the holiday. And for desert, the debate of our time: pumpkin or sweet potato pie?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Five, four, space.

0:02.6

It used to be the playground of governments, but now rockets and satellites are becoming so small, so cheap that even a podcast can do it.

0:10.0

We have ignition.

0:10.8

I'm Robert Smith, and starting November 29th, the Planet Money Team launches their very own satellite into the cosmos.

0:18.0

Listen on NPR-1 or that app you're using right now.

0:21.6

Copy that, I'll be fine.

0:23.8

On this day before Thanksgiving, I imagine the families here on the U.S. mainland who have reunited with their relatives from Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands.

0:33.8

I imagine they'll be breaking bread tomorrow and giving thanks to their loved ones or with them, that they survived Hurricane Maria's devastation, giving thanks that they're here and they're alive.

0:44.8

But 73% of the U.S. Virgin Islands where 100,000 U.S. citizens reside are still without power, even two months after Hurricane Maria.

0:54.8

Half of Puerto Rico, home to about 3 million U.S. citizens before the storm hit, is still without power, too.

1:01.8

On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, hundreds of Puerto Ricans marched on Washington, so the plight of those living in Puerto Rico without basic amenities remain top of mind for lawmakers.

1:22.8

Pedro Fieriroa came all the way from New Jersey.

1:26.8

I do feel Puerto Rico has been treated differently. If you look at say for instance Florida and Texas when they had their hurricanes, there was no issue sending supplies and stuff over there.

1:35.8

Right now, Congress is considering a $44bidily in-dollar Hurricane relief package.

1:40.8

It was requested by the White House with funds specifically set aside for Texas and Florida.

1:45.8

And Puerto Rico is not even a part of that ask. Broadway star and unofficial Puerto Rican ambassador, Lleen Manuel Miranda worries they'll be forgotten.

1:53.8

I think people were pretty surprised that my Twitter feed, which is usually puppies and rainbows and literally showtoms, has become this all Puerto Rico all the time station, but that's just where we are.

2:04.8

I caught up with Lleen Manuel for a few minutes before he joined that March here in DC. He told me he wants three simple things from legislators in Washington.

2:12.8

One reminder that we are U.S. citizens and that the aid that goes to Puerto Rico should be at least equal with that which went to Texas and went to Florida in their natural disasters.

2:22.8

Two suspension of the Jones Act, which is an over 70 year old law, which at this point is an impediment to aid reaching the island.

2:29.8

We had a 10 day waving of it, but that's not enough.

2:32.8

And three, the forgiveness of the debt that Puerto Rico finds itself in. It was in a terrible debt crisis before all this happened.

...

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