South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Activists include Mar-A-Lago in Maria-related plans
Leaders of the Central Florida Puerto Rican community laid out plans Wednesday to converge on President Trump’s Mar-ALago in Palm Beach on Sept. 22 “to mourn the victims of Hurricane Maria and demand justice for Puerto Rico.”
Marcos Vilar, president of the Orlando-based Alianza for Progress, said his organization and the group Power 4 Puerto Rico expect between 1,500 to 2,500 people among the three events that Saturday.
“It’s been a year since one of the greatest tragedies in the history of Puerto Rico, and we here in the United States want to fight so that the world never forgets,” said Jimmy Torres Velez, founder of Boricua Vota.
First, a morning caravan of more than 20 buses will coordinate with local police to travel from Broward County to Mar-A-Lago, where it will try to circle Trump’s Winter White House.
A second event will be “a gathering of cultures, presentations and statements” from the Puerto Rican community at the Meyer Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach from 3 to 7 p.m. to honor the almost 3,000 lives the Puerto Rican government now says were lost because of the September 2017 hurricane.
The final event will be an interfaith vigil, Vilar said.
Vilar, who blamed “the very slow and perhaps negligent response from President Trump and his administration” for much of the death toll, also criticized Trump’s comments Tuesday calling the hurricane response “incredibly successful” and “an incredible unsung success.”
“It is interesting the president chose 9/ 11 to pat himself on the back,” Vilar said. “It’s sort of a contrast of how he views citizenship and how citizenship really works. A democratic government has a pact with citizens. A citizen has a responsibility to participate and be active in civic life … and the government, in turn, has a responsibility to protect citizens and help citizens. We feel this administration has broken that pact.”
Torres Vilar said Trump “is personally responsible for the failed response to Puerto Rico [and] should respond to our claims. … If you compare the response of the federal government to those affected by Harvey, it’s a ridiculous thing. Other American citizens of Texas and Alabama were given up to 17 months of assistance.”
Maria “changed everything,” said the Rev. Jose Rodriguez, who was working on a campaign to increase Spanish in schools with the Vamos4PR organization when hurricane-displaced Puerto Ricans began to arrive.
“Our mission changed to something bigger to help Maria’s survivors,” Rodriguez said. “That took us to the airport [to help in setting up tables for arrivals] and then to see people sleeping in cars and in hotels. We began to advocate for the rights of the people who were in the hotels. We enter that world of the survivors, protecting their dignity.”
Demonstration spokeswoman Zoe Colon called for Puerto Ricans, “other Hispanics and allies to stand with us in solidarity to honor the memory of people lost and impacted by Hurricane Maria. … We need to send a clear message that Puerto Rico has not been treated fairly and that we will remember this in November for the election.”
“It’s been a year since one of the greatest tragedies in the history of Puerto Rico, and we here in the United States want to fight so that the world never forgets.” Jimmy Torres Velez, Founder of Boricua Vota