We know the territory

There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that you, as a journalist, are the best person to write about your own community.

Welcome back to Don’t Forget My Voice, a newsletter to help you navigate journalism’s chaotic and toxic maze. I’m Mc Nelly Torres, a longtime investigative journalist, editor, trainer and mentor.

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

One afternoon in 2018, my friend Pilar Marrero, who was then living in Los Angeles, sent me a request on Facebook messenger.

Pilar was helping an editor working for Feet in 2 Worlds, a nonprofit media outfit, to find a journalist based in Florida to cover a story about Puerto Rican voters, a growing community expected to impact the 2018 midterm elections in the state.

Marrero well understood that I don’t cover politics, but she was hoping that I could identify a Florida-based freelance journalist interested in this work. I sat on this request for a day thinking about whether I wanted to take this assignment myself.

I’d worked and lived in Florida for over a decade at that point and I’d grown tired of how the national media parachuted into Florida pretending to be experts on how Latinos vote during each election cycle without really knowing the local communities.

We are so much more diverse than the monolithic treatment we often receive would have you think.

Latin American countries share a common history of colonization, primarily by Spain and Portugal, the Spanish language, the dominance of the Catholic church and some cultural traditions from Indigenous and African heritage.

But the Spanish spoken in countries and regions is different as are the cultures and traditions. As a little girl growing up in Puerto Rico, I learned about the shared history in public school; this has always given me an advantage from Latinos born and raised in the mainland U.S.

It became clear to me that I needed to take on this assignment because I knew the local Puerto Rican community well, better than any interloper would.

After several groups of Hurricane Maria refugees came from Puerto Rico, I traveled to central Florida as a special correspondent for Bloomberg News to write about Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Roselló, who came to visit with refugees. Roselló had traveled to Florida and Texas to urge Puerto Ricans to turn their outrage and frustration into votes against politicians supporting policies that hurt the island.

I began to contact people north of me and revisited with folks I met during my travels and continue to grow a network. Puerto Ricans are always happy to talk to other folks from the island.

Soon, it became clear that the battle to get Puerto Ricans registered to vote was in full swing in Florida. Estimates showed that about 56,000 people had moved from Puerto Rico to Florida after Maria devastated the island Sept. 20, 2017.

But the Puerto Rican exodus to Florida far preceded the hurricane; it had started more than a decade earlier as economic hardships brought on by the Puerto Rican government-debt crisis began complicating Puerto Ricans’ lives.

Puerto Ricans became the fastest-growing demographic group in Florida then — 1 in 5 Latinos in the state was Puerto Rican — making it an important voting bloc for local, state and presidential elections.

Puerto Ricans can vote in U.S. presidential elections if they live in any of the 50 states but residents of Puerto Rico and other territories can’t vote. These disenfranchised voters have no representation in Congress, but do have a resident commissioner who doesn’t have a vote.

As I continued to gather more information, I learned about the Florida Puerto Rican Parade Inc., a nonprofit organization and the organizers of the Puerto Rican parade in Orlando.

I drove four hours from South Florida, where I live, to the Orlando area, and spent the weekend interviewing leaders from civic engagement organizations such as Mi Familia Vota, Hispanic Federation, the League of Women Voters of Florida, UnidosUS and Misión Boricua before attending the parade that Saturday, April 28, 2018.

That event allowed me to gather more voices for my story. I also witnessed then-Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, using the parade to campaign against incumbent U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson whose seat he wanted.

A nonprofit group had organized the parade and organizers told me they’d discouraged political candidates from using the event to campaign. Political signs were barred.

Scott, however, was undiscouraged; he marched in the parade behind signs promoting himself with a group of supporters.

Nelson, also known because he was an astronaut, followed the rules and walked next to community leaders, war veterans and other dignitaries; he had no campaign signs.

I stood on the sidewalk as the parade passed and took pictures of both candidates.

Scott had leveraged his governorship to court Puerto Ricans. He’d set up welcome centers at airports to help evacuees as they arrived. Nelson also tried to help the community as senator and pleaded numerous times to have the Trump administration send more aid to both new arrivals in Florida and people still on the island.

However, newcomers didn’t know a lot of local context.

After Scott became governor in 2011, Florida engaged in mass voter purges that disproportionately targeted communities of color and cut early voting, particularly Sunday voting, which is popular among Black communities, from 14 to eight days.

A report by the American Progress Action, an advocacy organization, ranked Scott among the nation’s top three voter suppressors, next to former Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, now the governor, and former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, both Republicans.

But that day, my writing was focused not on Scott’s eight-year track record of oppressing communities of color and poor people in Florida. I was there to write about the Puerto Rican community and the civic groups’ efforts to exercise their right to vote, one of the most important rights we possess as American citizens.

Growing influence

Puerto Rico’s influence in central Florida’s Osceola and Orange counties goes beyond the businesses and restaurants dotting the Interstate 4 corridor.

In 2016, the community’s voter turnout helped elect Rep. Darren Soto, D-Fla., Florida’s first member of Congress of Puerto Rican descent. Voters also elected Amy Mercado to the Florida House, her father, Víctor M. Torres Jr. to the Florida Senate, and Emily Bonilla to the Orange County Board of County Commissioners, where she became the first Puerto Rican Democrat to hold that office.

In 2018, Johanna López, a high school teacher in Orlando, became the first Latina elected to the Orange County School Board. She served four years on the board before moving on to win a seat on the Florida Legislature in 2022.

In Puerto Rico, Election Day is a holiday and turnout is high by U.S. standards.

High voter participation in Florida is a top goal for Misión Boricua, a nonpartisan organization. The group was created to ensure that people from the island territory make educated decisions and exercise their right to vote.

I met Misión Boricua President Adela López in an Orlando suburb where she lives with her extended family. All of them volunteer for Misión Boricua. I found López, who had a full-time job as a flight attendant, outside a huge yard where she and several relatives were putting the finishing touches on a parade float.

She told me Misión Boricua hosted events to engage newcomers civically as they struggled to adjust to a new life, find affordable housing and work and education for their children.

López said Puerto Ricans have a responsibility that many people from elsewhere don’t recognize or don’t acknowledge.

“That vote affects your local and state representatives, but you carry Puerto Rico on your shoulders when it comes to the federal,” she said, noting the elections for president, Congress and U.S. Senate in which residents in the island cannot vote.

Writing with integrity

In the past many editors have argued the need to be objective, or neutral, when they prevented journalists of color from writing about their own communities or silenced marginalized groups. Giving these voices any platform would be deemed bias, or favoritism, the argument went.

We as journalists have a responsibility to present news fairly, impartially and without bias; we do this by separating personal opinions and emotions from facts. I agree with this.

But I don’t agree with forcing a side, or sides, to strike a dishonest balance or distort narratives.

I felt comfortable with the piece I wrote. I was writing with confidence, integrity and knowledge about a topic I know well as a Puerto Rican and longtime Florida resident. But I also walked into this story understanding that there were questions I needed answered and lessons I needed to learn.

The story published June 5, 2018, on the Feet in 2 Worlds with the headline: The Battle for the Puerto Rican Vote - Could Hurricane Evacuees be the Deciding Factor in Florida’s Midterm Elections?

There are times when we, as storytellers, need to step up and acknowledge that we, too, have a responsibility to our own community.

Although it wasn’t an investigation, this story was my way to give back to my community by describing its hardships and history with care, respect and dignity.

I shared a perspective no parachute in-parachute out reporter could ever have.

Thanks for reading.

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