Israel Rivera Valentín is not too different than hundreds of thousands of young men his age. He's most likely a product of the Puerto Rico public school system, and while you couldn't call him stupid, he never really was interested in his studies enough to care. So his grades were good enough to graduate, but not good enough to get in a university, but even if they were, he didn't feel like going to school anymore.
Upon graduation he smoothly fell into working at whatever he could find and suddenly had enough money to start partying with all of his friends. And like many of his peers he unfortunately impregnated one of his girlfriends and was quickly a young father. With the die cast, he now had to work to support his new family instead of for the pleasure of having a few bills in his pocket. A second child came even quicker and now the need to produce a respectable income for his growing family was clear.
Since high school Israel had been surrounded with a culture of excess (instant gratification); reggaeton stars with glamorous jewelry, cars, and women was all he really cared about. And while he didn't really live the life described by the songs he constantly blared from his Ford Taurus, he felt that they spoke to him. Immersed within a "just getting by" environment, he and many of his peers lived life freely, not really caring too much for anything.
Earlier this year, while driving on carretaera #165 to take his kids over to his parents house, Israel became impatient and pulled up onto the median to pass a slower car. He suddenly lost control of his car, ran over a road sign, and crashed into a Chrysler PT Cruiser.
Weeks went by after the accident and while joking about the accident with his buddies, the incident didn't seem to bother him. Why should it? The obligatory car insurance would pay for any damages caused and no one was hurt. It was more like a scene from the violent action movies he enjoyed or one of his favorite video games.
Two weeks later, Israel once again had to drop off his kids at his parents house. So he once again found himself driving down carretera #165. It wasn't like he was worried about being late, but Israel couldn't stand being behind other cars. So he started to accelerate past the speed limit to more easily pass the slower traffic. He saw a light changing from green to yellow in front of him, so he accelerated more to try and beat the light.
Sitting at a light for intersection carretera #865, waiting for the light to change, were two sisters and their 6 children. They were packed into the Chevy Cavalier that one of the sisters owned, but they were family. The kids were all together all the time, and being crammed into the midsize car was normal, maybe even fun. After all, they were all cousins. As the light changed to green, the Cavalier eased out into the intersection.
As Israel was accelerating to beat the light, he rapidly approached the intersection. As he got close, the light changed from yellow to red. He was already flying and in a split second, he decided, probably more unconsciously than then anything to continue accelerating. He was going to beat this light! Why not? He had run many red lights before and nothing bad had every happened.
As he entered the intersection, the Cavalier had already started to pick up a little speed and then before Israel knew it, the Cavalier was right in front of him. There was no where to go and no way to stop. He rammed into the passenger side of the Cavalier. The collision was so hard that immediately two of the children riding in the Cavalier were thrown from the car and died instantly. One of them bouncing off another car. It all happened so quickly, as it always does. Unconscious decisions, made maybe hundreds of times (probably even habit now), lead to a fatal accident.
As the authorities arrived at the scene of the accident, they had to extract the remaining passengers from the Cavalier. The ambulances were dispatched, as quickly as possible, with the injured children and adults form the Cavalier. As the ambulances sped toward the nearest hospital one of the injured children was fighting for life. And while the emergency medical technicians worked frantically on the child, they lost their fight and so did the child. That made three children dead from the accident.
Epilogue
I really don't know what happened that fateful day, August 9th when three children, ages five, four, and two lost their lives in a senseless automobile accident. I don't know Israel. I made up all of the stuff about him and the passengers of the Cavalier. Except for the accident and the three dead children, none of this story is probably true. There could be a million explanations why Israel was speeding through that red light.
But I ask you? How many times have you tried to beat a red light? How many times have you sped up when you see a light change from green to yellow? How many red lights have you actually run? How many ride lights have you seen run? Did you run it because you didn't see it? Or did you try to beat the light, like Israel, and end up running a red light? Have you even done it in front of a police patrol car and then wait anxiously for the inevitable sound of sirens and flashing lights behind you, only for it to never come? How many tickets have you gotten for running a red light?
Do me a favor, next time you're sitting a light waiting for it to turn green, hesitate a few second before you pull into the intersection. Don't mind the assholes if they start honking at you. This is YOUR life, these are YOUR children. Look both ways to see if someone is approaching the intersection too quickly. If you don't like what you see, stop and wait a few seconds more. Is everyone stopped? Be present in that moment and proceed when you're sure no one is coming.
Almost everyone runs red lights in Puerto Rico, almost everyone, that is until you drive onto Fort Buchanon. On Fort Buchanon, ALL of the driving laws are obeyed. What's the difference? One word: enforcement. The only way to control human beings is to punish them, if they break the rules. You can reward them, you can reason with them, and you can compliment them, but for most people these tactics do not work.
Laws are not really laws, if they are not enforced. And there is no denying the only way to get people to respect the law, is if they know that they run a high probability of being punished if they break the rules. It is the only way to make people RESPECT the law. I would suggest this goes for society as a whole. I believe that this goes for the morals, values, and rules (even if they are not legally enforceable) that make up a society. In conclusion, now that I've set the stage, I can now explain why I believe that leather is part of the technology that I believe will most impact Puerto Rico.
Photo courtesy of El Nuevo Dia: Ángel M. Rivera
Hey boys and girls, wanna play a game? Allrighty then, step right up and put on your thinking caps because this is going to be real tricky. Now that school is nearly back in full, I thought it would be fun to give you a homework assignment. Yeah, I know! I suck!
Anyway, on Monday I'll be posting a long awaited, by some, article on the one technology that could have the biggest impact on Puerto Rico. So your assignment, if you choose to accept it is, identify the common theme in these pictures and if you're right, you'll know which technology I think is the most important for the future of Puerto Rico.
Flickr Creative Commons Contributors: chemistikaibara87, Poppy Wright, honeyjew, shoexs, katiew, USRodeoSupply, foxypar4
For those of you not stuck in a matrix of denial, comfort, excess, bribery, hypocrisy, or oblivion, I present to you a list of the top ten ways Puerto Ricans are negatively impacting the country with their complicity:
- Our favorite places to shop (Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Sam's Club, Costco, etc.) are exactly the businesses bankrupting the local Puerto Rican merchant.
- We reward politicians who flaunt their privilege in our faces by repeatedly voting them into office.
- We wail and gnash our teeth at our weak economy, but our zero sum mentality places against each other instead of us all working together to compete in a global market.
- We decry the corruption within all corridors of power within our government, and then commit (or permit) embezzlement in our local community "juntas", yet see these as different. There are different in magnitude only.
- We return to a restaurant or service center because it is the only option, or because it is the most convenient, or it is the one all of your friends use, but the establishment consistently treats you like crap or forces you to wait too long.
- We allow our friends to pressure us into buying a Beemer or Mercedes, the latest Gucci handbags, or gadget and then rail against how material our children are and how they do nothing but plead for us to buy them more crap they don't need.
- We ignore our children most of the time, we give them nearly free reign to disrupt, destroy, or inconvenience, yet wonder why they have disciplinary problems in schools or poor grades.
- We bash the Americanos, the Gringos, the Federalistas and then worship the movies they make, the clothes they sell, the sports teams they televise, the websites they make, the culture they create, the brands they promote, the celebrities they export. and we send our children to study at their universities.
- We attend a movie which is consistently disrupted by people talking or answering their cellulars, go away dis-satisfied, disgruntled, and complaining, then explain it away as well that's just "the way we are" (asi como somos).
- We accuse our spouses or novios of infidelity, we cry over the devastation within families suffering through divorces caused by infidelity, we decry the AIDS infection rate, yet promote, support with our dollars, and look the other way to an industry whose sole purpose is to permit secret sex (motels).
Flickr Creative Commons Contributor: Jean-François Chénier
During any given time period, the moods of a nation, their curiosities, and their needs vary. In ancient times, you know like before Google, now to be referred to as B.G, the cultural temperature of a nation was discovered by asking people questions.
Since the arrival of the Internet and our savior Google, now to be referred to as A.G. we do the asking and Google just runs some database reports and ba-da-boom ba-da-bing, we quickly have a good idea what's on our minds. Over at Google, they refer to this feature as Google Zeitgeist. Note: zeitgeist means "the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era."
Puerto Rico - Top Gaining Google Queries: June 2008*
- snake
- celula (cell)
- hemafrodita
- Mapa de Puerto Rico
- caravelas
- marisa miller (model)
- lajas
- fallen angel
- fruity loops
- Zooey Deschanel
- volcom
- ocean blue
- Indiana Jones
- naruto wallpaper
- letras chinas (Chinese characters)
Not to be outdone, Yahoo, in association with Telemundo has started producing their own zeitgeist, called "10 Principales Búsquedas." While these search terms are not strictly from searches in Puerto Rico, they do give us the best view into what people are searching for in Yahoo.
Top 10 Yahoo/Telemundo Queries: July 2008*
- Sin Senos no hay Paraíso
- Miss Universo del 2008
- Animales
- Monica Bellucci
- Amor y sexo
- Aracely Arámbula
- Galilea Montijo
- Riesgos de la marihuana
- Ingrid Betancourt
- Alimentos orgánicos
Conclusion
What's this all mean? What jumps out at me is the complete absence of any terms relating to the economy, energy, gasoline, credit cards, or what we can call matters of finance or running a home. I think, like television, most people are using the Internet to entertain themselves and/or distance themselves from the day to day worries of life.
I think the Yahoo list makes more sense. There are many search terms related to the events of June, which you would expect them to rank high in the total number of searches. However, while an interesting perspective, the Google list is like WTF, hermaphrodites? You have to wonder what kind of thought process, or links one has to go through to end up with the idea "Hey, let's look up hermaphrodite on the Internet!"
Another difference I would wager is that the Google list represents a younger demographic. The list has many terms that I'd associate with searches made from users between the ages of 16 and 24.
On the other hand the Yahoo list represents, current events, and lacks anything of specific interest to a younger generation. Then there's "Riesgos de la marihuana." Seriously, how many kids are going to search for that? The search term they are more likely to use would be more like "How to roll a blunt" or whatever that is in Spanish.
I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about snakes. If you get bold, go ahead and share them in a comment.
Flickr Creative Commons Contributor: Gerald Yuvallos
In another interesting post from the Puerto Rico Sun, Clarisel brings this resource to the attention of her readers. I've heard that most of the movers in Puerto Rico have been working non-stop for some time now. As was seen in previous economic down turns in Puerto Rico, many families are leaving PR in search of better job opportunities in the main land U.S. So this observation by the National Institute for Latino Policy doesn't surprise me.
In my opinion, this is a trend that will continue until the Puerto Rico economy reaches some type of equilibrium between the number of jobs available and the number of people willing to work. If you ask me, this is one of the fundamental problems with the PR economy, not enough jobs to sustain the population. There just aren't enough companies and no amount of economic development is going to change that.
On Latino Policy (from prsun.blogspot.com)
The National Institute for Latino Policy recently provided some interesting information on Puerto Ricans stateside and how the stateside population continues to outnumber those living on the island.
Here's an excerpt of an entry from the Institute July 14 bi-monthly newsletter, edited by Angelo Falcon:
Puerto Rican Population StatesideInteresting question. What do PRSUN readers think?
Continues to Exceed that of Puerto Rico
In 2004, the Atlas of Stateside Puerto Ricans documented for the first time the stateside Puerto Rican population exceeded that of Puerto Rico in 2003 by 163,246. The latest statistics from the Census Bureau, from the 2006 American Community Survey (ACS), estimates that this gap has grown: in 2006 there were 3,987,947 Puerto Ricans living stateside compared to 3,745,007 in Puerto Rico, meaning that there are 242,940 more Puerto Ricans stateside than in Puerto Rico. Does this development have implications for the politics and policy issues of the Puerto Rican community as a whole?
Anyway, if you are interested in Puerto Rican and Latino policy issues, the Institute's bi-monthly e-newsletter is a wonderful resource. It regularly features items related to Puerto Ricans.
Go to www.latinopolicy.org to subscribe.
By the way, the National Institute for Latino Policy was formerly known as the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy. It changed its name as a way of better representing policy issues impacting Latinos.
The National Institute for Latino Policy is a independent nonprofit and nonpartisan policy center established in 1982 to address Latino issues.
Flickr Creative Commons Contributor: lunchtimemama
When we found the Puerto Rico Sun blog, it was like we had discovered our long lost sister. As we learned more about our newly found sister, we discovered that the she was doing nearly the same thing we were doing with Dondequiera, only based out of and focused mostly on the Puerto Rican community residing in New York. After a quick meeting of the minds, we decided that it would be really cool to share some select articles from each others blog.
I think what excited Clarisel Gonzalez, the editor of the Puerto Rico Sun, and I was the opportunity to keep our readers in touch with a piece of their community that they normally might not be exposed. Since both of our audiences have such a strong cultural and familial link to the other, we became thrilled with the chance to strengthen those links. I hope that this new content gives Dondequiera a little bit of that New York flavor that everyone seems to love so much.
The first article I'm going to share is about the Puerto Rican Music Roots & Beyond Project. I totally support anything that preserves the Puerto Rican cultural heritage, in this case its strong musical history. Enjoy!
 From left, Leticia Rodriguez, executive director of La Casa de la Herencia Cultural Puertorriqueña, Inc., and class participant Hector Ortega at a July 6 event in NYC's El Barrio that focused on Puerto Rican roots music. | La Casa as well as El Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños at Hunter College is working with William Cepeda, a renowned composer, trombonist, educator, producer and artist, on a project titled “Puerto Rican Music Roots and Beyond.” The New York State Music fund and the National Endowment for the Arts is helping to fund the project. The goal is to promote Puerto Rico’s musical heritage to a wide audience throughout New York State, Puerto Rico, and elsewhere. The project will document four genres (Bomba, Plena, Danza, and Musica Jibara) by recording the concerts and other project activities to be used in the creation of DVDs and CDs for educational and commercial release. La Casa is located at 1230 Fifth Avenue, Suite 458. It is a nonprofit, cultural and educational institution. For more information, , visit http://www.lacasapr.org/-- Ismael Nuñez (photo by Ismael Nuñez) Courtesy of the Puerto Rico Sun |