A striking insight of a not well- known post war Puerto Rico. The suburb of Fanguito was located on the banks of El Ca. Here are some mangroves that their lands were invaded by the large number of immigrants who came from the mountains towards the Capital. If you were coming from north to south, you had to walk across the street Hoare to the mangroves and there was located the suburbs. These people walked over tables from one house to another, as the area was Babot and overcrowding was of great proportions and not to mention the diseases that they spread on the site. This neighborhood was burned almost entirely in the early decade of 1. Residential Luis Llorens Torres had recently opened in Street Loiza. Get to know the beauty and the beaststill imprisoned in the island. El Fanguito, a solid truth only to be found between the condemned revelations of an old- fashioned American communist, and the renewed targets of Wall Street. Foster, the author of the letter to President Truman about Puerto Rico. Foster visited Puerto Rico in March of 1. Shocked by the conditions he saw, Mr.
Foster wrote this open letter immediately upon his return to the United States. On March 1. 0, he addressed one of the largest meetings of Puerto Rican workers and progressives ever held on the Island. In a theater seating only 1,2. Mr. Foster is the author of many books and pamphlets among the latest of which are . President: El Fanguito, as you may know, is located in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is the worst of the several huge slums festering in the body of the Puerto Rican capital, and it is per. It is also, no less, the symbol of American colonial domination over Puerto Rico.– Harry S. Popular and scholarly assessments of his presidency were initially negative, assessment that followed him until his retirement. Mr. President, I am addressing this letter to you because, as President of the United States, you exercise an almost dictatorial control over Puerto Rico, which is a colony of the United States. You have the power to veto whatever legislation yon please of the Insular Legislature, even though it is passed by unanimous action. This is equal to about one- half of the total population of the capital city itself. What a startling failure. Tugwell, the US governor who conceptualized and transmitted to the “locals” for the first time the novel idea of a hybrid status called “ELA”, — the free, associated state of Puerto Rico” Many today believe the ELA was a Mu. President, that this horror slum, has not lessened any since Mr. Tugwell wrote the above words. It is now bigger and more deadly than ever. When you were in San Juan a few weeks back, Mr. Pagina 66, Noticias de Alcoy, noticias de El Comtat, informaci Entre en modo de diagnostico. President, the route to your comfortable. But you made no personal investigation of the frightful conditions preyailing there. No doubt your yes- men told you that conditions in El Fanguito had been much exaggerated by observers and that, anyway, everything possible was being done to remedy the situation. So you passed on, and in your public speech you cynically told the Puerto Rican people that. Small wonder, then, that your reception in San Juan was so frigid and that the people gave you such a cold shoulder. Franklin D. Roosevelt, warm- hearted and generous, would have turned into that vast slum city and listened sympathetically to the desperate stories of the unhappy people there, but Truman did not turn in, nor did he listen. Also, your unresponsiveness to the woes of the people is why the workers in the United States are not going to re- elect you to the Presidency next Fall. The big capitalist and militarist interests now dominating Puerto Rico doubtless felt that you acted very “sensibly” about the unpleasant matter of El Fanguito by ignoring it. For, indeed, you are a man who does not grow “sentimental” over the sufferings of poor people, either in Puerto Rico or in the United States. Rexford G. Tugwell (standing) the last US appointed governor, and Luis Mu. President, although you as the head of the great imperialist country which holds Puerto Rico as a colony, coldly ignored the grave slum problem of Puerto Rican people by callously riding past El Fanguito, I, as an American citizen conscious of our nation’s heavy responsibility to this oppressed people, did not ride past. I went into this most wretched of slums with its immense population and. And saw sights and heard stories of extreme poverty that will stay with me until my dying day. I burned with shame that such outrageous conditions exist on Puerto Rico and are caused by us. The overwhelming misery and squalor of the great slum city can be compared only to the frightful conditions in the slums of the Middle East and of India. A modern Dante, seeking to write a new Inferno, need go no further than El Fanguito. El Fanguito is sprawled out over mosquito- infested, marsh. The squatters’ houses are thrown together of any material that comes to hand, and the shacks are incredibly over- crowded. Most of the places are unfit for hogs,much less for human beings. The houses have no toilet facilities and there is no garbage collection. The water supply is entirely inadequate, consisting only of occasional community faucets, contrived by . Whole areas are completely dark at night, having no street lights, and many of the people are too poor even to buy kerosene lamps or candles. Most of the inhabitants’ homes are also practically destitute of furniture. There are not even streets in the horrible slum, except where the people themselves have carted in soil and rubbish to build up roadways of a sort. The whole place is an indescribable litter of garbage, tin cans, and other refuse. From it there exudes an all- pervading, sickening stench. But worst of all is the periodic flooding of the place by the filth- laden tide. To escape this disgusting deluge most of the shacks have been set up a foot or two above the ground, but many not so raised are repeatedly flooded by the unspeakable mess. Crazy foot bridges lead from one hovel to another. Children, mostly naked, with no toys and with no place to play, wade about in the filthy water. At one place we visited, a big city sewer belched its foul contents into an open canal, whence the stinking flood was from time to time swept back into the squatters’ village by the rising tide. As we gazed upon this shocking sight two little naked girls about three years old, waded waist deep in the filthy water pouring from the sewer’s mouth. The unfortunate children are growing up mostly untaught and illiterate, along. Many Puerto Rican families without knowing how to read and write in Spanish and without speaking a word of English, moved to the US directly from the agricultural fields of Puerto Rico but first making a . However, for the majority of the families El Fanguito was a lifetime imprisonment with no way upwards the social scale. This was all too evident from the pinched faces of the adults and from the rickety condition of the children. And sickness, too, flourished - tuberculosis, hookworm, malaria, bilharzia, and many other diseases bred of poverty, filth, and undernourishment. Poorer- paid employed workers also live there. And all this suffering is because of ruthless American colonial exploitation. Recuerdos del Fanguitopor Jorge L. Ese puente que hoy disfrutamos y damos por descontado es donde comienza la carretera n. Tiene a su lado oriental el Parque Central de San Juan, justo donde hace algunas escasas d. Me parece recordar que el puente viejo era de solo un carril para cada direcci. Lo que si recuerdo claramente es que cuando ni. Recuerdo que aguantaba la respiraci. Rebusco mi memoria para una palabra que describa mejor lo que exist. A ver si la encuentro, pienso en pobreza, desesperanza, hambre, basura, ni. Me conformo pues, y pienso en un arrabal sobre el agua. Pero tampoco se le pod. Irregulares casuchas de madera, de ese extra. Con techos de planchas de zinc viejas, tambi. Pero en vez de tener una zapata, una base, de tierra, las casuchas estaban sostenidas por fr. Eso era lo que se llamaba . Porque esa parte que ahora es el Parque Central era un enorme pozomuro, o pozonegro, como lo llaman en otros pa. Recuerden, las aguas de el Fanguito eran aguas casi estancadas. Llenas de excremento, orines, animales muertos, desperdicios, s. Pues porque el Fanguito no ten. Toda la basura, todo lo que se ten. Y eso fue lo que se hizo, mudarlos poco a poco seg. El Presidente Truman y en Gobernador Pi. Leahy, el Secretario del Interior, Julius A. Sin embargo, el simple hecho de que la ruta llevara al Presidente Truman a ver El Fanguito con sus propios ojos nos da una idea de la enorme prioridad que ten. Claro, desde la perspectiva de un ni. Porque no era que algunas quedaran medio en el agua y medio en tierra. De 5 y 1. 0 en fondo, todas encima del agua. Que por estar en esa parte de lo que yo me imagino era justo donde se juntaban el actual Canal Puerto Nuevo, el final del Canal de Mart. Y eso era bastante malo de por s. Pero, me imagino, por lo que yo ve. Y no eran docenas, eran cientos y cientos de casitas, todas diferentes pero todas iguales en su miseria. Hechas de los materiales que otros afortunados hab. Tantas eran que yo recuerdo, que aunque trataba, no pod. Uso la palabra arrabal entre comillas porque no encuentro una palabra peor para lo que all. Pero el agravante era que en esos tiempos se quemaba la basura. La basura huele mal de por si, imag. Por lo general, el viento sopla de Santurce hacia Buchanan. Pero de cuando en cuando soplaba en sentido contrario. Era un humo color gris claro, y era tan espeso que parec. Yo no quiero ni pensarlo. Y eso era el cuadro t. Estamos hablando de la d. Hace escasamente cincuenta y pico de a. Que en la historia de un pueblo es nada. Y desde esa hondura de la miseria humana fue que se levant. Donde reina la esperanza y podemos mirar al futuro con posibilidades y alternativas buenas y dignas. Porque nadie, nadie, nadie, puede negar que como pueblo . El destino nos present. Hoy, cosechamos los frutos.
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