‘All Puerto Rican Voices Are Important’.
Breakfast: A bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich (“Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I always go all out for breakfast.”) Hometown: “I was raised in Cape Coral, Florida, but I consider my home really to be Puerto Rico, even though I didn’t grow up there and I wasn’t born there. I’m now in the process of moving to the island part-time to be closer to my family and friends, participating in the recovery of Puerto Rico on the ground.” Extracurriculars: Salsa dancing and yoga
Debora Perez (SPH’16) Alumna; Activist; Creator and Host of Borikén Podcast; Data Consulting Associate at athenahealth
Why did you launch Borikén Podcast?
After the hurricane hit in September of last year, I started looking for content. NPR was doing stories and posting it on their podcast. There were other people doing specials on Puerto Rico and trying to cover what was happening. But there seemed to be a piece missing, and that piece, to me, was talking about the issues from a public health perspective. I thought, I hope somebody thinks to do this, because I’d love to listen to something like that. I’d love to hear interviews with people in Puerto Rico around public health issues. Then I thought, Maybe this is what I should be doing. I was already doing all of this research on Puerto Rico trying to understand ways to help.
The other piece of it was wanting to use the podcast as a way to honor my stepfather, who passed away after the hurricane. The deaths and injustices in Puerto Rico made me realize that I couldn’t just stay silent. I needed to use my voice and I needed to use the skills that I learned in public health to be able to help others. I knew I couldn’t just move on from it.
This September, the president’s tweets that 3,000 of our family and friends had not died due to the hurricane hit me particularly hard. I wrote this letter in response, because, in sharing our personal stories, we take back the narrative from the current administration, who are actively trying to erase our pain. I truly believe now is the time to tell our story.
Why is it important for you to bring together these personal and public health perspectives on Puerto Rico?
I had to talk about my experiences, and I also wanted to talk about the macro determinants of health in Puerto Rico, to look at what has caused, we know now, 3,000 people to die as a result of Hurricane Maria. Puerto Rico has been a colony for 120 years, and a lot of people in Puerto Rico and in the diaspora are talking about the fact that its status as a colony is causing a lot of the socioeconomic issues on the island.
I want to credit a lot of the people at the School of Public Health, especially Dean Galea, who have made the conversation about not just bringing awareness to an issue but about what we can do to be public health activists, how we can get out there and not just talk about why something is important, but also promote and support these causes actively.
I’m using a lot of what I’ve learned from Yvette Cozier’s Social Epidemiology class, looking at the social/political/economic structures on the island as macro determinants of health. The people who are listening to the podcast aren’t getting a public health education, but they’re getting a glimpse into what public health means, and the fact that your environment really matters and that policies that have been implemented over decades can affect you as an individual.
My public health background really allowed me to understand the world in a very different way. When I took Social Epi, I started to understand my own experiences as someone who grew up in poverty. You start to realize that all of that shame that you felt as a kid because you didn’t wear the right clothes at school and you didn’t drive in a nice car, all of these things that you as a kid feel are your fault—and then you go to a school of public health and you realize that there’s a reason for poverty, there’s a reason for inequality, and you can do something about it.
That’s the positive message of public health that I want to also be able to communicate to others, especially others who have my background.
The podcast is built around interviews. Who do you interview?
I interview people who are Puerto Rican, whether or not they’re on the island, and get their perspective on the issues happening in Puerto Rico, and on their own recovery efforts.
I like to think of it as This Puerto Rican Life, like This American Life, looking at people from varied backgrounds, whether it’s art, whether it’s mental health, or a union organizer in Puerto Rico, or a social media person in New York City.
My first interview was with someone I had noticed early on after the hurricane. He was working on a study that hadn’t been published yet, but it was the basis of a New York Times article about how an estimated 1,400 people had died as a result of Hurricane Maria at that time.
I reached out to him telling him about my idea about the podcast, and he immediately said, “That’s wonderful. Let me know how I can help.” I said to him, “Well, could I interview you?” He said, “But I’m not that important. I’m just a demographer.” I said, “All Puerto Rican voices are important.”
That’s another theme of this podcast. It’s a way to make sure that Puerto Rican voices are heard, and for Puerto Ricans to realize that you may not be the governor of Puerto Rico but your voice is just as important. We need to hear from you. We need to hear your perspective, especially the voices of the people who are marginalized.
Every time I do an interview, just after I’ve finished and saved the recording, I get really overwhelmed by how wonderful it is to hear from all the people in Puerto Rico or from Puerto Rico who are doing things to help the island. I’m motivated by all the activism I see, the communities that are coming out and standing up and raising their voices and organizing. It overwhelms me with emotion because it shows me that people are not letting it go and moving on and saying, “Nothing can be done.” They’re feeling empowered to do something about these injustices.
What can someone reading this do to help?
I think a lot about how important it is for all of us to vote. It’s so important to also reach out to your representatives and say, “What are we doing about this situation?” Not to say, “Oh, that’s horrible, so I’ll donate $20.”
Puerto Ricans want an opportunity from the United States, from Congress, to be able to determine their own future, whether that means getting rid of policies that are discriminatory or colonial, or changing the status of Puerto Rico—whatever it means to decolonize Puerto Rico, I think that it’s really important for people to start asking Congress and their representatives that they address it.
Say, “I’ve been hearing about this. I know that Puerto Rico’s a territory. We should address it. We should be allowing Puerto Ricans to decide what they want to be.”
Listen to Borikén Podcast here.