Puerto Rico, My Heart's Devotion

Code Switch

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2017

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The haphazard response to Hurricane Maria has underscored the tricky, in-between space that Puerto Ricans occupy. They're U.S. citizens — although nearly half of the country doesn't know that. But those who live in Puerto Rico don't enjoy many of the same privileges as citizens on the mainland. In this week's episode, Shereen travels to one of the most Puerto Rican enclaves in the country to explore the fraught relationship Puerto Ricans have with their American-ness.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Linda Holms.
0:02.0	And I'm Steven Thompson.
0:03.5	There's more stuff to watch and read these days than any one person can get to.
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0:14.2	on what's worth your precious time and what's not.
0:16.9	Find Pop Culture Happy Hour on the NPR-1 app or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:21.5	I want to make a clear point over here.
0:26.7	Puerto Rican is our proud U.S. citizens.
0:29.3	Puerto Rico's governor Ricardo Rossego pleading with the U.S. government to help its fellow Americans
0:35.1	after Hurricane Maria tore through and tore up Puerto Rico.
0:39.7	And the wild thing to me is that a poll just came out last week.
0:42.2	It was in the New York Times that said that nearly half of all Americans don't know that
0:47.0	Puerto Ricans are also U.S. citizens.
0:49.8	For some reason that actually doesn't surprise me, I don't feel like I learned that in school.
0:53.6	I mean, I feel like I knew that because I was Puerto Rican.
0:56.4	But I don't think that I was ever taught that.
0:58.1	So for other people who were not taught that, were you taught that?
1:01.8	We were, but it was sort of confusing, right?
1:03.8	It's like Puerto Rico was in a state.
1:05.6	It's a territory and these people are citizens, but that doesn't clear anything up really.
1:09.6	Well, here's a little bit of American history that I don't remember getting and I don't
	...

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