Puerto Rico had a number of problems before Maria even hit.
Abby Huntsman
My mother was born in Sinaloa, and she moved to Los Angeles when she was three years old. My father was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and moved here when he was 19. They met at the Palladium in Hollywood, and they've been together from that moment on.
Alanna Ubach
In Puerto Rico, we continue to see the perpetuation of second-class citizenship in the United States.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
I wasn't born to a wealthy or powerful family - mother from Puerto Rico, dad from the South Bronx.
When I left Chicago, people said, 'Careful with that Texas heat'. I'm like, 'I'm from Puerto Rico. I know heat.'
Amaury Nolasco
The most important thing is to find the balance between city and nature. I have that 'hippie quality' - my husband is a super-hippie Los Angeles boy - so we'll have to make time to go to Puerto Rico, and upstate New York, and be sure we get to do outdoorsy stuff like that.
Ana Ortiz
When I was 11, I went to Puerto Rico for a month to stay with my grandmother. To see the way people lived there and experience my own culture was wonderful.
Andrea Navedo
We must all work together to bring the best to Puerto Rico.
Anibal Acevedo Vila
Puerto Ricans, it doesn't matter where they live, it doesn't matter how long it's been since they visited the island, their hearts are there. If you keep them informed, and if you say to them, 'This is important for Puerto Rico, go and call your congressman,' they do it. They do it.
Even when we were under the Spanish flag, we had a movement that just wanted assimilation into Spain, a movement of autonomy - which has been the majority always - and a movement for separation. In that sense, Puerto Rico's political reality is very different from any place I know in the whole world.
The majority of the people of Puerto Rico support commonwealth.
Commonwealth is the only alternative for Puerto Rico. It is the only alternative that harmonizes the aspirations and goals of the modern world by protecting Puerto Rico's identity and simultaneously guaranteeing its relationship with the United States, complete with a common market, common citizenship, common defense, and common currency.
The common goals of Puerto Rico and the United States have always been for the benefit of both.
Grant us more powers, not less; grant us more democracy, not less; grant us the tools to move forward because, I can assure you, Puerto Rico will move forward. We did it in the past; we will do it again.
Nobody can doubt Puerto Rico, sociologically, linguistically, culturally, and historically, is a nation. We have our own rich culture, thousand years of history, unique territory, and almost everyone's first language is Spanish, not English.
Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, but by their own choice, Puerto Rico is not a state. The relationship has worked well for Puerto Rico - which has strengthened its culture, language and economy - and for the United States, which has helped create in Puerto Rico a showcase of democracy and prosperity for all of Latin America.
Since its inception, the American nation has had on its official seal the following motto: 'e pluribus unum,' which in Latin means, 'from the many, one.' That would change dramatically if Puerto Rico were to become a state.
I'm not going to impose my vision on the people of Puerto Rico.
Even though Puerto Rico will always be my hometown, I feel Miami is my second home.
Anuel AA
I've been dealing with racism since I was a little kid! My dad's super black, from Puerto Rico. Then my mom's super white - she's Puerto Rican too, but she grew up in Milwaukee. As a Latino in the U.S. I've seen how we are treated differently based on the color of our skin.
I've never had a stylist. My style is very distinctive from where I am from in Puerto Rico: a housing project in Carolina.
I represent the streets of Puerto Rico around the world.
My grandfather came over from Puerto Rico and raised his kids speaking English so that it would be easier for them to assimilate.
I'll live in Puerto Rico until the day I die.
I tried to give the world a bit of creativity, lyrics. And for me, I will always represent music from Puerto Rico, reggaeton, Latin music.
In Puerto Rico we dance to everything.
I live in Puerto Rico, my family lives in Puerto Rico, my friends. What happens in Puerto Rico matters to me.
Puerto Rico's relationship with music is everything. It's an island full of talent and if you grow up there, you grow up living and breathing music.
Elijah Cummings and his colleagues in the House are hung up on giving more money to Puerto Rico when we have our own farmers who are fixing to lose their farm.
Islands are going to suffer from climate change in very, very difficult ways. And it's not just Pacific islands. It's not just Puerto Rico.
The only way to fix Puerto Rico is with brain game, to bring the intellectual and human capital there - in a way that it's done with the right intention.
Puerto Ricans are so well educated, they're so capable, they're so competent, but due to a lack of opportunity, when you graduate from college, you leave. Puerto Rico's number one export is human beings; Puerto Ricans!
The real problem with Puerto Rico is that it keeps losing its best and brightest. It keeps losing its leaders and its future leaders due to a lack of opportunity.
We're going to rebuild Puerto Rico with money that we saved from the IRS in a Robin Hood fashion.
We're here to take our skills - our superpowers - and figure out how to help Puerto Rico, the Earth and the people.
Puerto Rico is one of those places you can be as quiet or as crazy as you want, because there's so much nightlife. I have to take the craziness carefully.
When I married Wilnelia, one of the first things I wanted to know about Puerto Rico was the quality of the golf courses.
I often say to my friends that I felt too Puerto Rican to live in the States; then I felt too American to live in Puerto Rico. So when I settled back in Puerto Rico in 1992, I had to come to terms with all of that.
While the American people have had a big heart, President Trump has had a big mouth, and he has used it to insult the people of Puerto Rico.
I haven't traveled in Africa nearly as much as I'd like to. I've been there a few times, and I'd like to learn more about the various cultures in Africa. But that's the basis point of where all of the music that I love is based upon, from Africa to Cuba to Puerto Rico to South America.
We're going to Puerto Rico, where we're gonna close. And we're so excited, we can't see straight.
For far too long, Washington has denied the American citizens of Puerto Rico vital human services and adequate health care funding.
I know Spanish pretty well. I'm half-Puerto Rican - my mom is from Puerto Rico - so I have a lot of family there, and my mom's first language is Spanish. But growing up in the States, and with my dad being from the States, I'm kind of just like this white kid.
I did not feel 'evil' when I wrote advertisements for Puerto Rico. They helped attract industry and tourists to a country which had been living on the edge of starvation for 400 years.
You're not from Puerto Rico, so you should say Puerto Rico like all the other people from the place that you come from.
Internal self-government under a local constitution was authorized by Congress and approved by the residents in 1952, but federal law is supreme in Puerto Rico and residents do not have voting representation in the Congress.
If Congress does its job in this regard, the residents of Puerto Rico will be empowered to act in their own self-interest and express their future political status aspirations accordingly.
Yet, individuals and corporations in Puerto Rico pay no federal income tax.
In historical and constitutional terms, the recent political status vote in Puerto Rico was a necessary but obviously not decisive step on the road of self-determination leading to full self-government.
If U.S. national sovereignty continues, it is only as a state that Puerto Rico will have permanent 10th Amendment powers over its non-federal affairs, as well as voting power in Congress.
