How do you make sense of a disaster? What should we be looking for? Where can I get good mofongo in Atlanta? I found the answers to these questions by going to Buen Provecho restaurant and talking with Jacob Remes, a disaster historian. Buen Provecho, a Puerto Rican restaurant in the Atlanta suburbs, is one of two sites for donation drop off for the island. The owner Elmer Pasapera put out a call on social media and has been flooded with responses. I spent some time at the restaurant to get an idea of what people were doing and thinking. I then interview Dr. Jacob Remes, author of Disaster Citizenship: Survivors, Solidarity, and Power in the Progressive Era, to put this hurricane into historical context. I find out that disasters are socially constructed. This is hopeful news because it means people can organize to change relationships of power. It also turns out that the Taino people, the indigenous culture of Puerto Rico, knew this for thousands of years and created a myth about it.

Hurricane Maria Community Relief Fund

Buen Provecho Restaurant

Disaster Citizenship: Survivors, Solidarity, and Power in the Progressive Era by Jacob Remes