Will Puerto Rico's Youth Save the Island-Colony?

Opinion for The Latino Newsletter

SAN JUAN — A burgeoning Boricua youth movement is happening in Puerto Rico.

Where it will lead isn’t clear yet, but it’s gone viral and is countering the apathy among young voters. To minimize it would be unwise, no matter where you fall on the island’s political spectrum—statehood, commonwealth, or self-determination. The revolution might not be televised, but it is being triggered by TikTok and live-streamed on social media.   

It’s an interesting phenomenon. Like the United States' 1960s counterculture movement, it reflects a political and social climate defined in Puerto Rico by colonialism, corruption, and constant blackouts. It radicalized the archipelago’s youth, who seem to finally understand that voting can exact change.   

But getting young Puerto Ricans to vote will not be easy. Overall, voter apathy on the island is high. Between 2000 and 2012, voter participation peaked at 81%. Since then, it has plunged to 55.7% during the 2016 and 2020 elections.

The trend is especially worrisome among the young. This particular voting bloc has seen decreased engagement over the last two decades—falling by 40%. In 2000, 29% of young voters abstained from going to the polls. In the 2020 elections, 46% went to the polls, but 54%, or more than 300,000 young voters between 18 and 25, didn’t. 

Less than two months before the 2024 elections, out of the 150,000 young Boricuas reaching voting age, only 40,000, or 25%, had signed up, according to data from Puerto Rico citizens' nonprofit Somos Más. 

A Close Election

It’s important to remember that in 2020, incumbent pro-statehood Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP) governor Pedro Pierluisi won by the skin of his teeth— a mere 16,934 votes. So in these elections, the young can make a difference. 

The absence of young voters is partly, but only partially, explained by many leaving the island in search of work and better living conditions. Between 2010 and 2019, Puerto Rico’s population fell by 14%. Still, it’s not the total picture. 

Their “apathy” also stems from a profound distrust (and disgust) of the traditional two-party system: the PNP and the Partido Popular Democrático (PPD), which supports the current colonial status. Both have governed the island for over seven decades.

When you ask young people why they don’t vote, the typical answer is one a young waiter at a popular cafe in Old San Juan gave this writer: “I just don’t feel like it because it's just more of the same. It’s a circus, and nothing will change, so why vote?” 

And who can blame him?  

Puerto Rico has been a U.S. colony since the latter invaded in 1898. Young Boricuas grew up with the colonial detritus—a crippling $70 billion debt; an unelected fiscal control board; deep cuts to education and pensions; a collapsing health service; the seven-year-old ravages of Hurricane Maria; corrupt governments; a defunct electrical grid and displacement through Act 22 (now Act 60) benefiting outsiders while marginalizing Puerto Ricans.

A New Politics

This residue has redrawn island politics. The field now has two new opposition parties—the Alianza (made up of Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana and the Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño), which has an anti-colonial platform, and Proyecto Dignidad, a Christian-led party. 

Yet these upcoming elections will be a face-off between the PNP candidate, Resident Commissioner Jeniffer González, and Juan Dalmau, the Alianza candidate, who many assume is the natural choice of the younger voter. This would have been unheard of four years ago. That’s how much Puerto Rican politics have changed.     

Recently, several Puerto Rican artists and entertainers have come out to ensure that young voters are part of, if not the catalyst, for the future.  

“It’s very important to go out and vote this year,” singer and songwriter Kany Garcia said in a video posted on social media. “It’s very important because we are living in extremely complicated times. A time when the most basic things don’t exist; we don’t have them. This is not the country we deserve.”

“Let’s give change an opportunity. We are tired of the same thing. I am tired of the same thing,” she said. 

But it was rap superstar Bad Bunny, in a raw interview with Boricua YouTuber El Tony, who changed the game. He asked his generation of “Yo No Me Dejo,” which ousted then-PNP governor Ricky Rosselló in 2019, to go beyond calling “things out on social media” and take to the streets in protest. 

“I think that the biggest protest is to go on the 5th of November and vote against the people who have taken us to this chaos and mayhem,” he said. “Voting is very important, especially if you are young. Deciding the future of the place where we live, where we grew up, don’t let others decide it.” 

But Benito, his real name, reserved his best verbal come-to-Jesus for González, a staunch Donald Trump supporter, who is leading in the polls.   

“Jennifer mentirosa, no seas embustera... Muerte al PNP, a to’ los corruptos, a to’ los corruptos, Puerto Rico se merece algo mejor’...,” he rapped. (Jennifer, liar, don’t be such a fibber. Death to the PNP, to all the corrupt, to all the corrupt. Puerto Rico deserves something better.) 

The interview exploded on social media, flooding it with videos of students, influencers, and even politicians dancing to a catchy, jazzy tune mix.

@kaizen.2025

NO SEAS EMBUSTERA 🪪 #jennifermentirosa #kaizen2025 #IAS #seniors2025 #puertorico #luquillo #fyp

It also fueled the social media campaign Sácala, motivating young Puerto Rican voters to register, get the electoral card, and vote. Over the last few days, the push for new voter registrations has led to delays.

According to The Associated Press, “Hundreds of people have stood in daylong lines to register for the election in recent weeks as the U.S. Caribbean territory’s two main parties, which have long dominated the political scene, face stiff challenges from other parties.”

biancagraulau

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Something Better

Puerto Rico does deserve something better. That’s why this year’s election is crucial.

It’s not so much about the island’s political status, as elections have been for decades. It’s about bread-and-butter issues. People are fed up and just want a better quality of life, a government they can trust and the lights to go on when they get home. 

The constant and prolonged blackouts brought by Luma, the foreign private company managing the electrical grid, is by far the number one issue on voters' minds (young and old and in between). And it’s potentially González’s Waterloo: Will she or won’t she cancel the contract?

González has worked hard to distance herself from the PNP, Pierluisi, and the Luma disaster. She insists she represents a “generational change” and a return "to the party's roots.” It’s a bit rich, considering González has been part of the PNP’s government for over 30 years and has been fighting to turn the island into one colossal Opportunity Zone. 

“What is change if you have been in the government for over 20 years?” Bad Bunny said in the interview. “What is change if this government is your government? What new government? It’s just more of the same.”  

Bad Bunny and his remarks might not derail González’s campaign, but they won’t help it either. They highlight that insanity is doing the same thing again and again expecting a different outcome. 

As former president Barack Obama said recently, “The sequel is always worse.” 

About the Author

A former News Director for Univision Puerto Rico and conflict correspondent, Susanne Ramirez de Arellano is now a cultural critic and writer based in Old San Juan.

What We’re Reading

Rancho Libertarianism: A new Substack from Gustavo Arellano explains it like this: “Rancho libertarianism is a third way in Latino politics that both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris need to court if they want to win swing states in the American Southwest and even beyond —the swing voters of swing voters. The sentiment is most popular among a certain type of Mexican American voter— but that doesn’t mean these tendencies don’t exist among other Latinos as well. But since I know Mexican American rancho libertarians the best, I will define them through their prism.”

Read it here.

_{The Latino Newsletter welcomes opinion pieces in English and/or Spanish from community voices. You can email them to our publisher, Julio Ricardo Varela. The views expressed by outside opinion contributors do not necessarily reflect the editorial views of this outlet.}