Borinquen MadePeriod
2000-2026
The entries in this magazine that fall in these years, in the order the events occurred. Freeze 2026-08-22. Not current events in these History essays; News is. Not original historical research.
A diaspora bigger than the island
More Puerto Ricans live in the fifty states today than on the island itself: a decades-long shift that accelerated sharply after María.
The Cordillera as a climate wall
Trade winds, a mountain spine, a wet north and east, a dry south. Not a drought-monitor map.
Martínez-Cruzado 2001, and its limits
Maternal mtDNA, not a census of identity.
The Navy leaves Vieques, May 1, 2003
Live-fire bombing ended. The land passed to Interior. Cleanup is a longer verb than departure.
The upset in Athens
Puerto Rico's national basketball team beat a U.S. roster full of NBA stars by 19 points at the 2004 Olympic Games.
Gasolina: reggaetón goes global
A 2004 Daddy Yankee single was the song that took reggaetón out of Puerto Rico's clubs and put it on the world's radio.
COFINA: borrowing against tomorrow's sales tax
A public corporation created in 2006 let Puerto Rico borrow billions against future sales-tax revenue: a tool that would later become central to the debt crisis.
Two weeks with the government shut down
In May 2006, Puerto Rico's central government ran out of cash and shut down for two weeks, closing schools and leaving public employees unpaid.
Section 936 and the 2006 sunset
A federal possessions tax credit, phased out from 1996, expired in 2006. A root of fiscal crisis, not a mood.
Act 7 and the 2009 layoffs
Governor Luis Fortuño answered a worsening budget with the largest public-sector layoff in Puerto Rico's history.
Sixty days of student strike
University of Puerto Rico students shut their largest campus for more than sixty days over budget and tuition cuts.
Orlando as the diaspora's capital
By 2010, a second capital of Puerto Rican life in Florida.
Act 20, Act 22, and the exemption that followed
A pair of 2012 laws offering some of the lowest rates under the U.S. flag became, within a decade, a flashpoint over gentrification.
A two-question ballot and a "trap"
Puerto Rico's fourth status referendum produced a confusing two-question format and results that were contested as soon as they were counted.
Two-question vote, November 6, 2012
Two questions; do not compress them into "statehood won."
Junk bond status
In 2014, America's three big rating agencies downgraded Puerto Rico's bonds to junk in the same year.
"The debt is not payable"
In 2015, Puerto Rico's governor said aloud what many feared: the island could not pay everything it owed.
South coast drought
A dry agricultural belt in the rain shadow, canals and all. Climate and crops, not a US Drought Monitor board.
PROMESA and the rise of "La Junta"
Congress's 2016 answer to the debt crisis took budget power away from Puerto Rico's elected government and handed it to an unelected federal board.
Puerto Rico's first Olympic gold
A 22-year-old unseeded tennis player named Mónica Puig gave Puerto Rico its first Olympic gold medal in Rio.