AMY GOODMAN: That was San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz. I interviewed her last month in the San Juan’s Roberto Clemente Coliseum, where she and her entire mayoral staff were living, after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico. It landed, made landfall on September 20th. I began by asking the mayor how Hurricane Maria has changed Puerto Rico.
MAYOR CARMEN YULÍN CRUZ: I think September 20th changed the Puerto Rican reality forever. We live in a different San Juan and a different Puerto Rico, not because of what we’re lacking. The majority of the island is still without any power. Only about 40 to 60 percent of the population has water. That doesn’t mean that it’s good water. We still have to boil it or put chlorine in it to be able to drink it. Medical services are really, really bad because of the lack of electricity. The supplies in the supermarkets are not there yet, so people are having a lot of trouble getting the supplies that they need. But still, the fierce determination of people has not dwindled. And to me, that’s been a very — I would say, a big lesson to learn.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about this public power company, the largest in the United States? Do you think there’s an effort in this time, in the aftermath of the hurricane of — an effort to just privatize it?
MAYOR CARMEN YULÍN CRUZ: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: For it totally to fail?
MAYOR CARMEN YULÍN CRUZ: Yes, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: And what do you think has to be done about that?
MAYOR CARMEN YULÍN CRUZ: It cannot be privatized. I am — and a lot of people — totally against, because we are a hundred miles long by 35 miles wide. That’s a monopoly. It doesn’t matter how you want to disguise it. It’s a monopoly. And what we’re doing is we’re putting in private hands the decision as to where our economic development is spread, where the sense of equality or inequality will happen. So, power isn’t just about the power grid. It’s also about the ability that the Puerto Rican…