W*****B
发帖数: 4796 | 1 风灾之后，波多黎各生存条件急剧恶化。几十万波多黎各人移居弗罗里达。佛州是著名
摇摆州。又是美国第四大州。得佛州者得天下。波多黎各人是民主党铁杆票仓。这回共
和党要彻底完蛋了！ | W*****B
发帖数: 4796 | 2 Non-stop business knowledge
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Puerto Rico’s Mass Migration Is Reshaping Florida
After Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, Luis Cruz got a generator
connection from the bakery next door to run lights and fans in his Humacao
martial-arts studio. But last month, only about a third of his students were
still practicing karate kicks and punches. Many had left for the U.S.
mainland.
“Thank God I didn’t lose my gym or my home in the storm, but I depend on
clients who did,” said Cruz, a 38-year-old father of three with a rosary
dangling from his neck.
Now he may follow, relocating his business to Florida, where he made a fact-
finding trip to Orlando last month. Since early October, some 231,000 Puerto
Ricans have traveled to the Orlando, Tampa and Miami airports, a number
that surpasses the population of Rochester, New York.
The new residents are likely to be both burden and boon. The immigrants, who
are all citizens, are arriving as national unemployment has fallen to 4.1
percent and Florida’s is 3.6 percent, down from a recessionary peak of 11.2
percent. They will feed the hungry labor market, but strain social services
as they embark on new lives.
Puerto Rico was in bad shape even before the hurricane. The island declared
a record $74 billion municipal bankruptcy in May, owing in part to the fact
that its population had been shrinking for more than a decade as people left
for better opportunities. Then on Sept. 20 the storm came, devastating
infrastructure and killing hundreds. Recovery has crawled; by Tuesday, the
island was still generating only about 64 percent of the power it needs.
Warm Welcome
The weight of the resulting exodus is falling on Florida. Politicians in the
perennial swing state have competed to greet the storm-tossed citizens, who
could be a crucial voting bloc in the 2020 presidential election.
“Any families displaced by Hurricane Maria that come to Florida are
welcomed and offered every available resource,” Republican Governor Rick
Scott’s office said in a statement.
Orlando, a metropolitan area of about 2.4 million, is especially attractive
to the new Floridians, with the prospect of jobs in the Disney World-fueled
hospitality industry, free couches from friends and relatives, and
necessities like passable roads and functioning schools. But the mass
migration has the city bursting at the seams.
“I tell them, ‘Please make sure you have a place to stay,’" said Ana
Cruz, coordinator for Orlando’s Hispanic Office for Local Assistance. “Be
with a friend, be with a family member. Because housing is the No. 1 issue
that we have.’"
New arrivals are frequently eligible for a stay in a hotel approved by the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, but some have found themselves living
out of cars.
Tight Quarters
One family was living at a children’s hospital where their daughter was
being treated.
“We’re trying to find an apartment to try to establish ourselves in
Florida, but the inexpensive ones are all full," said father Jorge
Hernandez, 26, who helped on movie sets in Puerto Rico. He and his family,
including his 10-month-old with spinal muscular atrophy, were brought over
on a charity’s air ambulance.
On a recent Friday, Osceola County’s Hurricane Maria Reception Center,
installed in an out-of-use government building, was bustling with job
seekers, crying babies and the elderly. The center is a repository for
everything from employment notices (housekeepers, cooks, mechanics) to FEMA-
approved hotel listings (Quality Inn, Super 8, Travelodge.)
“Most of the people who have come so far are staying with family and
friends, and it’s going to take a while for them to be absorbed,” said
David Barnett, human services manager for the county south of Orlando. He
said most are planning to remain.
School districts statewide have enrolled more than 8,500 students from
Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, according to Scott’s office. But the
state is already critically short of teachers in science, math, English and
English as a second language.
Lesson Plans
In Orlando’s Orange County, home to the nation’s ninth-biggest school
district, Superintendent Barbara Jenkins said more than 2,500 Puerto Rican
students have arrived since the storm, and many more are expected. The
district planned by plotting out the areas of greatest Puerto Rican
concentration, knowing that students would stay with relatives.
The newcomers, many at home in mainland culture and with family support
structures, may be easier to absorb than the people who came in the so-
called Mariel boatlift of 1980, which brought about 125,000 Cubans in about
six months. Many had scant English and some were just freed from prisons.
And in a benefit to the local economy, the newcomers often bring businesses.
Cruz was among several dozen Puerto Ricans who on Nov. 30 attended a free
Spanish-language seminar on establishing businesses. There was strategy and
legal advice, sessions on construction and restaurants, and attendees were
showered with pamphlets and pens from Wells Fargo and Regions Bank.
Revving Up
“They need access to capital,” said Katia Medina, a business-development
coordinator with Prospera, a government-backed nonprofit that helped put on
the business seminar. “At the beginning, they’re just creating work for
themselves, but eventually they’re going to be creating jobs.”
Prospera, which helps Spanish-speaking business people, has seen twice as
many would-be entrepreneurs at its Orlando office since the storm.
Cruz likes the idea of building something from the ground up.
“A lot of people are just taking the leap of faith, without any type of
plan,” he said. “Not me. I want to have a strategy.”
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：风灾之后，波多黎各生存条件急剧恶化。几十万波多黎各人移居弗罗里达。佛州是著
名摇摆州。又是美国第四大州。得佛州者得天下。波多黎各人是民主党铁杆票仓。这回
共和党要彻底完蛋了！
【在 W*****B 的大作中提到】
: 风灾之后，波多黎各生存条件急剧恶化。几十万波多黎各人移居弗罗里达。佛州是著名
: 摇摆州。又是美国第四大州。得佛州者得天下。波多黎各人是民主党铁杆票仓。这回共
: 和党要彻底完蛋了！
| m**********j
发帖数: 8645 | 3 其实，波多黎各也和华人一样，已经拿到美国护照的都不希望自己不认识的同胞也拿到
美国去抢自己的福利
【在 W*****B 的大作中提到】
: 风灾之后，波多黎各生存条件急剧恶化。几十万波多黎各人移居弗罗里达。佛州是著名
: 摇摆州。又是美国第四大州。得佛州者得天下。波多黎各人是民主党铁杆票仓。这回共
: 和党要彻底完蛋了！
| m**********j
发帖数: 8645 | |
|
