Camille Rivera remembers that her grandmother died longing to return to her homeland, to her house and her land in Puerto Rico. Her family had decided to move her to New York after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s so that she could receive better treatment than she could get on the island, which is undergoing an intense health crisis. “Until she lay down and took her last breath, she always said, ‘I have land and I have a home, and I want to go back,’” Rivera says. Like her grandmother, many of the six million Puerto Ricans in the diaspora in the United States dream of returning to their country, but the reality on the island dissuades them: a broken electrical grid, closed schools, gentrified neighborhoods, poorly managed public funds…
That is why Rivera decided to found La Brega y Fuerza last June, an initiative that seeks to mobilize the Puerto Rican diaspora throughout the United States to exercise their right to vote in the presidential elections on November 5, a privilege that is denied to those who reside in the United States. In this way, the Puerto Rican electorate in states such as Florida, where 1.2 million Puerto Ricans reside, New York (with almost a million) or Pennsylvania (500,000), can serve as a spokesperson for their compatriots on the island and convey their concerns.
“We want to build a channel of power that connects the people of the island with the diaspora in a deeper way,” Rivera summarizes. This diaspora has been growing exponentially since 2017, the year that Hurricane Maria devastated the island and forced a mass exodus to the mainland United States. The arrival of thousands of Puerto Ricans since then to states such as Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and New York has given them significant political influence, especially within the coveted Latino vote, since, as U.S. citizens, they are eligible to vote as soon as they settle in the country, unlike other Latin American immigrants.
This reality has not escaped Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. Both candidates have recently redoubled their efforts to appeal to the Puerto Rican electorate, especially in the key state of Pennsylvania, where 80% of the Latino vote is Puerto Rican. Just a week apart, the Republican and Democratic campaigns held rallies in the state in which they explicitly tried to attract Puerto Rican voters.
In Trump’s case, the former president invited his rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on August 30, two unusual characters: Puerto Rican reggaeton singers Anuel AA and Justin Quiles. “Gentlemen, get up here quickly because I don’t know if these people know who the hell they are, but it’s good for the Puerto Rican vote. All Puerto Ricans are going to vote for Trump now,” said the Republican candidate when introducing the singers. Both wore caps with the Republican candidate’s signature phrase, Make America Great Againand they made it clear why they had attended that rally. “The world knows that the best president this country has ever seen is called Donald Trump,” said Anuel. “Many Latinos stand firm with Trump,” added Quiles. Since then, Nicky Jam, another Puerto Rican reggaeton singer, also showed his support for the Republican candidacy at a rally where Trump mistook him for a woman.
A week later, some 200 miles away, it was the Democrats’ turn. On September 7, in Allentown, one of the cities with the highest proportion of Latino voters in Pennsylvania, the “second gentleman” and husband of Kamala Harris, Douglas Emhoff, was welcomed at the first Democratic campaign rally dedicated to the Latino community with signs that read “Boricuas con Harris-Walz.” He was accompanied by Miguel Cardona, Secretary of Education and the only Puerto Rican in President Joe Biden’s cabinet. Cardona highlighted his Puerto Rican origin, identifying himself as a proud grandson of Puerto Rican farmers who, he said, told him that to have a good harvest, you have to know how to plant seeds. “Planting seeds for the future generation is what the Harris-Walz candidacy is all about,” he said.
For experts and community organizers, it was about time for both parties to recognize the importance of this electorate, especially in Pennsylvania, where there are 500,000 Latinos registered to vote and 400,000 of them are Puerto Rican. Nilda Ruiz, president of the National Puerto Rican Agenda and the Puerto Ricans on the Move Association, based in Philadelphia, explains that the key is in the numbers. “Considering those 400,000 voters and seeing the very small margin by which Biden won in 2020 (81,660 votes) and by which Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 (44,292), if we can activate the Puerto Rican vote, we can change the elections in favor of what we want,” she points out.
“With 400,000 voters and the margin by which Biden won in 2020 (81,660 votes) and Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 (44,292), if we can activate the Puerto Rican vote, we can change the election”
Nilda Ruiz
“Many say that Puerto Ricans do not vote in large numbers, but that is because there have been no incentives,” adds Ruiz, referring to previous elections in which Puerto Rican participation has been low, according to various studies and exit polls. “If we can educate people about the policies that affect Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico and here, they will be more motivated to vote,” he says.
Jimmy Torres Vélez, vice president of the National Puerto Rican Agenda, agrees. “If we go out and vote, we have the ability to turn the balance,” says the leader of the Boricua Call, a new initiative aimed at educating and encouraging Puerto Ricans in Florida to vote. “Of the nearly 1.2 million Puerto Ricans in Florida, there must be 900,000 who are of voting age and who meet all the requirements,” says Torres Vélez. In 2020, Trump won this state by 371,686 votes and in 2016 by only 112,911. Therefore, despite the fact that many take for granted the fact that Florida has become Republican territory, the union leader highlights that the Puerto Rican vote continues to be key and deserves more attention.
On this last point, Torres Vélez is emphatic. While both campaigns are fighting over Pennsylvania, community organizers in Florida feel that the Democratic Party has forgotten about them. While it is true that this state, historically considered a territory of enormous importance for any aspirant to the White House, has been leaning more to the right in recent years, Torres Vélez insists that the Democrats cannot simply “throw their hands in the air.”
Although Puerto Ricans tend to vote blue, in states like Florida they are increasingly voting red. “Many Puerto Ricans I know are Republicans because when they moved to Florida there was nothing else,” says Torres Vélez. For him, the problem is that Democrats do not want to invest in the state because they do not see it as feasible to win there. “It is a mentality of: ‘I invest if I win, but since I don’t win, I don’t invest,’” he explains. “But you can’t leave Florida even if you don’t want to. you take a peel“We have to break this vicious circle,” he stressed.
“Democrats are naturally more like us because their policies are more directed at helping our people. The other side, with their actions, is ridiculing us and constantly disrespecting us. They look for a ragpicker, bring him out on a platform and say ‘I don’t know who this is, but he’s going to give us the Puerto Rican vote.’ That’s not the conversation we want to have or need,” says the leader of the Boricua Call.
Ant work in Puerto Rican communities
Just as important, if not more so, than getting both parties to pay attention to the Puerto Rican electorate is educating voters about the U.S. electoral system and registering them to participate. “The most important thing is knowing how to approach voters,” says Natascha Otero-Santiago, founder of the Boricuas con Kamala campaign and who has been organizing the Puerto Rican vote in favor of the Democrats since Barack Obama’s candidacy.
Otero-Santiago explains that “there are different Puerto Rican diasporas” that are characterized by “the amount of time they have spent in the United States.” For example, most Puerto Ricans in Florida arrived in the state in the last five to 10 years, while Puerto Ricans have been arriving in New York since the second half of the last century. Therefore, these new voters in Florida know less about how elections work in the country, since the procedures on the island are different, and they need more education on the subject. “It is important to pay attention to those nuances,” explains Otero-Santiago.
Organizations like La Brega and Fuerza have launched this task in communities in New York, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. “We have created several programs in areas where there is a high density or a large population of Puerto Rican voters to help them register and persuade them to make their voices heard,” says Rivera. In addition, the group is preparing a series of resources to distribute in which they will explain the policies of each candidate on issues that affect the Puerto Rican community on and off the island.
Another entity working to mobilize these communities is Boricua Vota, led by Torres Vélez from Florida. The activist, who has been advocating for Puerto Rico and its diasporas for 40 years, explains that the goal is to elevate it to the national conversation: “What is good for us as a nation is what is important to us.” Puerto Ricans “And we as Puerto Ricans, because there is a difference. When we live here, we have some important personal interests—access to education, affordable housing, among others—but we also have a commitment because we sleep here but we dream of Puerto Rico,” he says. “Our heart is in Puerto Rico, so we have to make sure that the federal government’s policies are beneficial to the island.”
