Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico
Then and Now

George Santayana warned us, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” His one-liner was from The Life of Reason, 1905. While that single sentence is correct, it assumes we know the past. Therein lies the fatal flaw. We need to understand the past if we don’t want to repeat it.

Case in point. People lived in Puerto Rico a millennium before the Spanish discovered the island. Puerto Rico is actually an archipelago with 143 tiny islands along with the main island of Puerto Rico.

Columbus arrived in Puerto Rico on his second expedition in November 1493. Like all other colonial powers in history, he claimed the island belonged, in this case, to the king and queen of Spain. The Spanish wanted the Indigenous people to kowtow to them because the Spanish viewed themselves as the islanders' protector. Essentially, the Spanish forced the locals to obey them, pay tribute to them, and convert to Christianity.

Beyond the laws of the Spanish protectors, the subjugated Indians also faced widespread deaths due to various diseases to which the locals were not immune. In the following decades, the indigenous people were devastated numerically by physical force accompanied by massive sicknesses. Due to the dwindling labor force, the Spanish needed to resupply their workforce in Puerto Rico. They enslaved other Indians from surrounding islands or from Africa. The Spanish used these workers to work in their gold mines.

Jumping to recent times, Trump refused to send disaster funding to Puerto Rico when Hurricane Maria ravaged the island in 2017, causing nearly 3,000 deaths as a result of the hurricane. When some limited amounts of money arrived, there were restrictions on allowing the Puerto Ricans to handle the funds. When Trump managed to get to Puerto Rica, he assisted the locals with things they needed. Trump followed the Spanish mindset as protector.

Miles Taylor was the former head of the Department of Homeland Security in the Trump administration. Taylor recounted a conversation with Trump. “The president talked before about wanting to purchase Greenland. But one time before we went down, he told us not only did he want to purchase Greenland, he actually said he wanted to see if we could sell Puerto Rico.” Then, Trump asked, “Could we swap Puerto Rico for Greenland?” Taylor said that Trump said, “Puerto Rico was dirty and the people were poor.”

Trump has some issues about race, sexuality, and ethnic backgrounds of Americans. Let me tell you about a Puerto Rican I have known for over a dozen years. Most of that time, he was my cardiologist. Dr. Hector Marchand, Sr. kept me alive for much of that time. When we first met, he asked me about exercising. Additionally, we spent as much time dealing with other issues about understanding life.

The other Puerto Rican I rely upon is Dr. Hector Marchand, Jr. He is my former cardiologist's son and my primary care physician.

Beyond my two Puerto Rican doctors, I have had two Chinese doctors. I have a female Korean doctor. Trump wouldn’t want Asian doctors. I also have a Muslim doctor from Lebanon. I doubt that Trump would go to a Muslim physician.

Also, the following are some recent photos of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico doesn’t look like a “floating island of garbage” to me.