Building a Puerto Rico 'Better than the One We Lost
Hurricane San Felipe II and the Puerto Rican New Deal
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12304444 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alex Standen (0000-0001-9830-5037, Environmental Studies Program University of Colorado, Boulder Boulder, Colorado 80303-0397, USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 377-398 |
| Publication date | 2021-08-09 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environment and History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0967-3407 • E-ISSN: 1752-7023 |
| Publisher | Liverpool University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3197/096734021x16245313029967 |
| OpenAlex | W3189308137 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 2 |
This essay examines the connection between Hurricane San Felipe II (1928) and the Puerto Rican New Deal, an agrarian reconstruction plan initiated in 1933 to redistribute land, diversify agricultural production and create a more self-sufficient economy. I argue that San Felipe II played a critical role in intensifying and exposing the environmental conditions that gave rise to the Puerto Rican New Deal. In response, Puerto Rican workers, farmers and reformers used the hurricane to call attention to their plight, put pressure on colonial officials and initiate a series of reforms that laid the foundation for the more comprehensive measures of the New Deal era. I show how, in the aftermath of the storm, Puerto Ricans leveraged the specific impacts of the storm, what I call 'disaster populism', to defend their interests and demand agrarian reconstruction
Agrarian society · Agriculture · Archaeology · Colonialism · Development economics · Economics · Economy · Ethnology · Geography · Hurricane katrina · Meteorology · Natural disaster · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Populism · Puerto rican · Sociology · Storm · Asian American and Pacific Histories · History · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
| Highly cited | No |
|---|