From One Accidental Boricua to Another

I’d like to use today’s post to pay tribute to another “Accidental Boricua” – Christina Beckles, the fearless founder of The Sato Project. Today is the third anniversary of the Sato Project, an organization dedicated to saving the stray dogs or “satos” that are left to die at Playa Lucia, or Dead Dog Beach as it is more commonly and shamefully known.

Christina Beckles

Chrissy Beckles, a former Golden Gloves boxing champion and a native of Manchester, England discovered Dead Dog Beach in 2007 while visiting her husband, a professional stuntman, while he was filming on-location nearby. What she found was a beach littered with stray and abandoned dogs.

No dog walks to this beach. They are dumped there and left to die. Some have arrived in cardboard boxes – often a new mother with a litter of puppies. Some are just tossed out of moving cars. Many are injured or abused. Some have even arrived with gunshot wounds. When they are found, it often takes weeks or months for the volunteers to gain enough of their trust just to get close enough to rescue them.

Christina Beckles at Dead Dog Beach

Ms. Beckles preparing a freedom flight

Since discovering Dead Dog Beach, Ms. Beckles has been working with a group of local volunteers and a local veterinarian to rescue, rehabilitate, and then fly the dogs to their “forever homes” in the continental United States. To date, they have rescued more than 1,200 dogs. Why don’t they try to place these dogs locally? According to their website, “Currently the adoption rate in Puerto Rico is very low. ‘Satos’ are not revered on the island.”

This organization is working tirelessly to right a terrible and disgraceful wrong that has been perpetrated on this island for decades. I would also like to use this post as a way to implore Puerto Ricans to help this noble organization: please start by donating to this organization, which is working so hard to make Puerto Rico a better place. And if possible, it would be truly wonderful if we could start adopting and providing “forever homes” to these dogs right here in Puerto Rico.

Henry – 2011

I can personally speak to the rewards of rescuing a sato. Three years ago, my children found an abandoned dog in our backyard. He was covered with ticks and fleas, and extremely frightened. It was late at night, so I rushed him to an emergency vet clinic for care. The vet estimated him to be about 3 months old and felt that he had been out on his own for some time.

Henry – 2014

Today, that dog, Henry, is one of three dogs at our house. There have been all kinds of opinions about his breeding – part Lab, part Boxer, part Rhodesian Ridgeback, part Pit Bull. We don’t care. For us, he is 100% Puerto Rican Sato. We love Henry, and he loves us.

Ms. Beckles has noble goals not just for the satos she rescues, but also for Dead Dog Beach itself. “My goal is for it to be called by its real name, Playa Lucia, again someday,” she said. This should be the goal of every Puerto Rican, not just the one of a benevolent outsider who accidentally became a Boricua and makes a difference here every single day. Please help her. Donate.

Let’s Keep It Local People!!!

Christmas is officially on!

The Accidental Boricua

Nobody does Christmas quite like Puerto Rico. The celebrations start immediately after Thanksgiving, and go onto into mid-January. Forbes Magazine once named it one of the World’s Top Christmas Destinations. You’ve got your coquito, your pasteles, your léchon. Friends show up at your house at all hours of the night for a parranda, the Puerto Rican version of Christmas caroling, but noisier, with lots of food and adult beverages.

Then there are the presents. Puerto Ricans love to give, and the giving goes on for weeks. Not only are there presents on Christmas Day, but there are presents again on January 6th, the Epiphany. Better know as Three Kings Day, this the day when the children of Puerto Rico expect even more gifts from the original bearers of Christmas presents.

This year, the normally joyous season is juxtaposed against the dispiriting reality of our local…

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Let’s Keep It Local People!!!

This year, the normally joyous season is juxtaposed against the dispiriting reality of our local economy. You can’t go for more than 24 hours without hearing complaints about how horrible things are in Puerto Rico. Unemployment is at 14%, almost 2.5 times the U.S. rate of 5.8%. The local economy has shrunk by 19% since July of 2005 and the population has declined for 8 straight years, as the second largest Puerto Rican diaspora in history continues. The crisis casts a serious pall over what has traditionally been the best time of the year on the island.

So what’s a Boricua to do in the face of all this dour news? GO SHOPPING! You heard me. Because if the gift giving goes on for weeks, the shopping goes on for months. But here’s the caveat: SHOP LOCAL. Spend your money here – on the island. Resist the tempting option of on-line shopping this year. The single biggest driver of any country’s economic growth is its consumer spending.

In Puerto Rico, consumer spending accounts 60% of our economy; in the US, it is almost 70%. With less disposable income than ever, it is also more important than ever that that spending stays local. Ordering that video game your teenager wants from Amazon does nothing to help our local economy – going to get it at your neighborhood Best Buy or Costco does. The money you spend here gets reflected in the sales for that local store, which helps keep that local person employed, which keeps our economic cycle spinning here, locally – on our island.

I know, I know, I know – it is easier and maybe sometimes cheaper to order that video game on-line. You don’t have to fight the crowds of shoppers at Plaza las Americas or circle the parking lot 3 times to find a space. On-line shopping may save you a bit of money, some time, and keep you out of the tapón. But in the end, the time or money you saved using your powerful consumer spending off-island just keeps our local economy stuck in its downward spiral.

So take the pledge to SHOP LOCAL. Unless you absolutely can’t get the gift you are looking for here on the island, avoid on-line shopping. Use the SHOP LOCAL pledge as a way of rediscovering the good in Puerto Rico: spend an afternoon shopping with friends in Old San Juan and enjoy the festive street decorations; buy presents at Plaza las Americas and catch dinner and a movie afterward; or try shopping at one of the many artisanal fairs in the island towns.

SHOP LOCAL and use your personal consumer power to help improve the Puerto Rican economy. Because the well being of this island is too important for us not to each take responsibility for it.

It’s a honor just to be nominated!

Thank you La Salita Cafe for nominating me for the Liebster award. Please check out their blog. This is an award passed around the blogging community to those who have fewer than 200 followers. Kind of a “hey we noticed you … stick with it” encouragement. Nice.

HERE ARE THE OFFICIAL RULES:

1. You must have been nominated in order to nominate other bloggers.

2. Thank the person who nominated you and link their blog to your post.

3. Follow the blog of the person who nominated you.

4. Answer the 11 questions they’ve asked you.

5. Nominate 5 – 11 bloggers who have 200 followers or fewer for the award.

6. Create a new list of 11 questions to the nominees OR ask them to provide 11 random facts about themselves.

7. Inform the nominees that you nominated them once you’ve posted about your Liebster Award.

So here are the 11 questions I was asked by La Salita Cafe:

1. When did you decide to become a Blogger and Why?

September 2014. It was actually an assignment for a class I’m taking on Social Media marketing. But now, I might just keep with it.

2. What do you do on days when you just can’t write?

I don’t write. Staring at a blank page and stressing about it just slows down the process.

3. What’s the most egregious writing cliché you’re guilty of committing?

Ha! Too many to name here.

4. What is the meaning of success to you?

Not sure I have one. It’s an overrated concept.

5. Have you ever dropped your phone in the toilet? Elaborate!

Yes! It was in the back pocket of my jeans. I visited the rest room during an activity at my children’s school. I think you can do the math.

6. What event in nature takes your breath away?

Watching the leatherback turtles nest on the beaches of Puerto Rico.

7. What is your favorite book of all time?

To Kill a Mockingbird

8. What is your hidden talent?

If you need someone to build a mean Excel spreadsheet, I’m your man.

9. Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give your 16-year-old self?

Slow down!

10. What is the nicest thing that somebody has ever done for/to you?

Wow, so many to pick from. But if I had to name just one, I’d say it was when my kids found random objects while we were in a hotel room in Spain and made letters to spell out “I Love You” across the wood floor. I have a picture of it.

11. If you had the opportunity to have ANY one person as your mentor, whom would it be and why?

Meryl Streep. Where does all that creativity come from? Plus, she’s one classy human being.

My Fellow Nominees: You must answer the same 11 questions above!

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Happy Blogging!

Can a Country Create a “Customer Experience”?

In 2012, Puerto Rico enacted law 22, or the Individual Investors Tax Act, in an effort to bring high net worth individuals to the island. The goal is to have them invest in the local economy and help pull it out of it’s 8-year and counting recession. The law creates a tax haven for investors and traders, once they become bona fide residents, by allowing them a 100% tax exemption on all dividends, interest and short-term and long-term capital gains on income earned in Puerto Rico.

To date, about 300 individuals have taken advantage of the law and have moved lock, stock and barrel to Puerto Rico. The average net worth of these individuals is roughly $7 million, although there are one or two billionaires in there. So if you invite a whole bunch of wealthy people to upend their comfortable lives and help you re-start your economy, what can a country do to ensure a positive customer experience? Because that is what these migrants essentially are: customers.

This type of customer is every entity’s dream. And their nightmare. Yes, this customer has more money than they know what to do with. But because of precisely that, they may be the hardest customer to keep happy.

All kinds of companies have stepped up to the plate to assure the newly minted Puerto Ricans that they can replicate their lives here. Sotheby’s opened a real estate office here. Government officials set up a conference to educate them about private schools, recreational activities, the arts and philanthropic opportunities. Beachside towns, such as Dorado, have pulled out all the stops to lure the island’s latest immigrants to their communities. The settler’s themselves have set up their own non-profit organization, The 20/22 Act Society, to foster a sense of community amongst other individuals and entities coming to PR for the tax incentives.

Will the government’s experiment to bring in a few hundred millionaires have a significant impact on the Puerto Rican economy? Will they be able to provide their new found citizens with the kind of “customer experience” that will help them adapt and flourish? They may have come here for the tax breaks, but how much of their lifestyle are they willing to give up in return? Only time will tell.

A significant part of the equation will depend on how happy they are living their lives here. The government can try very hard to entice them to remain in Puerto Rico by cutting their tax burden. Still, there’s that old “money can’t buy happiness thing”. And in the end, if they aren’t happy, they might just start remembering the words of Benjamin Franklin, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

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