In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, thousands of Puerto Ricans have sought refuge in Chicago
Here’s what one woman had to navigate to get her family settled.
Article/Op-Ed in Belt Magazine
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Dec. 26, 2017
Martha Bayne wrote for Belt Magazine about the struggle of many Puerto Ricans who fled to continental U.S. cities after Hurricane Maria. This story is part of the RiseLocal project of the National Network.
In the three months since Hurricane Maria, nearly a quarter million Puerto Ricans have left the island for the mainland — a radical escalation of the decade-long exodus spurred by recession and austerity policies imposed in response to the territory’s debt crisis. An October report by the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College estimated that as many as half a million could leave by the end of 2019, a number equal to the population lost from the island over the previous decade. More than 200,000 have already landed in Florida — a number itself already double the projections of the Hunter College report. Tens of thousands more have decamped to New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and, like Hernández and her family, Chicago, home to the third largest metropolitan population of Puerto Ricans on the mainland at 103,000.