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Speaker 1: Dear listener, it's been a really busy season at Futuro Media.

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Speaker 1: We've brought you some incredible podcasts like Anything for Selena

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Speaker 1: and Suave and today we're super excited to introduce you

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Speaker 1: to La Brega. It's a special seven part mini series

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Speaker 1: presented by Latino USA and WNYC Studios, and it's an

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Speaker 1: anthology of stories that take a deep look at Puerto

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Speaker 1: Rico's history, present, and future. Over the next month, we'll

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Speaker 1: be bringing you episodes of La Brega, and if you'd

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Speaker 1: like to hear any of the episodes in Espanol, visit

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Speaker 1: the Labrega feed wherever you listen to your podcasts. And well,

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Speaker 1: you're probably wondering exactly what is Labrega. Well you're about

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Speaker 1: to find out now. I'm handing it off to WNYC's

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Speaker 1: Alana Casanova Burges.

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Speaker 2: A few months back, a friend sent me a photo

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Speaker 2: of a water truck in a pothole in Gaguas, Puerto Rico.

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Speaker 2: At first I thought it was photoshopped. The front half

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Speaker 2: of the truck was up in the air, wedged in

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Speaker 2: an enormous crater in the middle of the road. It

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Speaker 2: looked as if the asphalt had opened a gaping mouth

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Speaker 2: and was trying to swallow the truck. And then there

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Speaker 2: were the words on the back aguatable potable water, the

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Speaker 2: a of Agua obscured by the pothole. The whole thing

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Speaker 2: seemed like a metaphor for the state of things in

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Speaker 2: Puerto Rico. It was a bit on the nose. And

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Speaker 2: then I saw the video. These are the things that happen.

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Speaker 2: Whoever was filming said at the back of the truck,

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Speaker 2: the water was pouring out of the hose into the

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Speaker 2: depths of the hole. It turns out that it was

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Speaker 2: on its way to a neighborhood that had been without

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Speaker 2: water for two weeks, and a broken water pipe was

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Speaker 2: responsible for the sinkhole. There's a lot happening here. A

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Speaker 2: truck filled with water tried to reach a community that

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Speaker 2: had been without it. Then that truck gets swallowed by

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Speaker 2: a hole in the road that was caused by a

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Speaker 2: broken water pipe. And lastly, as if adding insult to injury,

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Speaker 2: the water in the truck was lost to the pothole. Sang,

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Speaker 2: these are the things that happen.

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Speaker 3: You have to deal with that. You have to avoid

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Speaker 3: a pod hoole. Any day when you go.

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Speaker 4: To work, when you go to the supermarket.

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Speaker 2: Jose Angel Santiago Rios, better known as Ceo Santiago, runs

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Speaker 2: the social media accounts adopta on Oyo adopt a Pothole.

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Speaker 2: He reposted the truck video on Instagram and we spoke

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Speaker 2: over Zoom recently.

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Speaker 4: You go anywhere, you're going to find a pothole.

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Speaker 5: Trust me, trust me, trust me trust.

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Speaker 2: I can confirm a lot of Puerto Rican roads are

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Speaker 2: filled with create. People on the island often joke about it,

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Speaker 2: comparing the roads to the surface of the moon. Ten

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Speaker 2: years ago, Cheo drove over one that rattled more than

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Speaker 2: his axle. It's the reason I wanted to start this

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Speaker 2: podcast with him, because if I'm going to explain to

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Speaker 2: you what laverega means, what it means for Puerto Rico,

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Speaker 2: I need an example, and Chao's Brega tells the story.

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Speaker 2: Chao used to live in Miami. He was there for

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Speaker 2: nine years, working as a plumber, driving the same car

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Speaker 2: without issue for all that time. When he moved back

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Speaker 2: to the island in two thousand and nine, he even

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Speaker 2: had it shipped from Florida.

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Speaker 3: And when I start using my control, Rigo in less

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Speaker 3: than a jeer is damaged.

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Speaker 2: Then came the pothole. A decade later, he still remembers

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Speaker 2: where it was and what it looked like. A he

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Speaker 2: was going from Gudabo to San Juan. It was a

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Speaker 2: monster of a pothole de Anchokomona, maybe twenty inches wide

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Speaker 2: and six inches deep. It caused damage to his front axle.

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Speaker 2: He got it fixed for one hundred bucks or so,

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Speaker 2: and then he found himself a week later on the

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Speaker 2: same stretch of road passing the very same oyo.

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Speaker 4: I got the spray paint, white spray paint with me

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Speaker 4: in the car, and I stopped the car and go

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Speaker 4: walk to the pothole in the highway and the market

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Speaker 4: with white paint. Everybody hitting the same pottle with the

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Speaker 4: same damage.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's just too much money.

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Speaker 2: He posted the photos online and that Oo was born

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Speaker 2: in twenty eleven. Since then, he estimates he's painted over

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Speaker 2: one thousand potholes this way, tracing the jagged outline of

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Speaker 2: the crater and then straight lines like sun rays out

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Speaker 2: of it. And now other people do it too, sending

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Speaker 2: him photos and addresses from across the archipelago. The idea

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Speaker 2: is that the road crews will see the posts online

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Speaker 2: and go to repair the holes. But in austerity stricken

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Speaker 2: Puerto Rico, there's a lot that goes unrepaired or poorly fixed.

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Speaker 2: So the paint becomes a solution to the problem in itself,

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Speaker 2: helping drivers spot and avoid Los ojos and the potholes

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Speaker 2: are dangerous.

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Speaker 3: You can hit another car, you can lose control in

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Speaker 3: when you're driving.

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Speaker 2: You can lose a tire, your entire wheel can get

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Speaker 2: stuck in a crater. There are videos of this happening

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Speaker 2: mid Empire Akuilo Marca, Akilo Marca. And even when an

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Speaker 2: encounter with a pothole doesn't seem too.

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Speaker 3: Bad, maybe you don't get an accident or any damage.

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Speaker 3: But in a few days, you're gonna listen a new

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Speaker 3: sound in your courage, starting with noise. The card is

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Speaker 3: starting with noise in a few days.

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Speaker 2: The audio situation in Puerto Rico is one that you

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Speaker 2: just have to negotiate with or wrestle with. You can't

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Speaker 2: actually fix it, but you can cope.

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Speaker 3: Well, that's the brega in Puerto Rico.

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Speaker 5: That's lave Rega.

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Speaker 3: That's Laverega and Puerto Rico love rega.

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Speaker 2: There's no perfect English translation for this word that Puerto

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Speaker 2: Ricans use all the time in a way no other

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Speaker 2: Spanish speakers do. Cho says, bregando is like dealing with it.

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Speaker 2: But there are other definitions too, so as we were

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Speaker 2: in production for this episode, we asked Briquas for help

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Speaker 2: describing it and got voice memos from San Juan to queens.

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Speaker 2: When I here or use la brega, I'm referring to

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Speaker 2: the struggle, the struggles.

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Speaker 5: Lucha hussle in the hostle a hostle.

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Speaker 1: La brega has to deal with everyday life.

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Speaker 2: I call it that menacia, determination, survival work. Always to

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Speaker 2: do something in circumstances that don't let you get ahead, grinding.

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Speaker 5: You know what it means, you need to do it.

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Speaker 5: I commonly use it when someone asked me what are

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Speaker 5: you up to or how are you doing?

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Speaker 2: I'm cruising along, searching, continually, searching.

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Speaker 4: For something, showcasing our true Puerto Rican brilliance.

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Speaker 2: If you're Briqua and someone asks you how it's going,

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Speaker 2: how you're doing, you might say, ah, yatusa aquiennabrega here

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Speaker 2: making it work, you know, dealing with it in the struggle.

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Speaker 2: In the last year, as we've been coping with this

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Speaker 2: pandemic and with so much else. I've used aquian abrega

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Speaker 2: more and more. How else could I answer when someone

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Speaker 2: asks how are you doing? There's an imbalance of power

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Speaker 2: when you're bregando, whether it's against your boss or some

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Speaker 2: larger injustice. It's an underdog's word. Abrega implies a challenge

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Speaker 2: we can't really solve, so you have to hustle to

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Speaker 2: get around it. And in Puerto Rico there are a

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Speaker 2: lot of challenges that seem unsolvable. Puerto Ricans are constantly

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Speaker 2: bregando with the jobs that don't pay enough, the electricity

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Speaker 2: that comes and goes. They are kids' schools that are closed,

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Speaker 2: the broken traffic lights that never get fixed, the hospital

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Speaker 2: that doesn't get built, the government's debts that aren't paid,

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Speaker 2: the frustration over status, austerity, colonialism, and la brega is

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Speaker 2: a word that came to the States with the diaspora

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Speaker 2: who have had to find a way to deal with

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Speaker 2: a new language, to navigate somehow being immigrants and citizens

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Speaker 2: at the same time, to struggle with displacement and discrimination.

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Speaker 2: But it's not just about dealing with the problem. It

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Speaker 2: can also be finding a way to fight the system,

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Speaker 2: to get around it, or somehow keep moving. There's an

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Speaker 2: edge of creativity too. It's like an art.

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Speaker 6: Some indidgals are very good at.

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Speaker 2: Gallio Dieis is a Puerto Rican writer and scholar and

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Speaker 2: professor emeritus at Princeton. He's thought a lot about the

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Speaker 2: way we use la brega, peppering it into our language,

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Speaker 2: even complimenting each other for struggling.

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Speaker 5: Well, it's interesting the expression.

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Speaker 6: I mean, we admire the way that she dealt with

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Speaker 6: the situation.

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Speaker 5: Because he was so.

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Speaker 2: Some twenty years ago, he published an influential essay called

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Speaker 2: El tele regard. The essay used the language of Labrega

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Speaker 2: as a lens to understand Puerto Rican history and politics

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Speaker 2: and identity, basically arguing that there's something about this word

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Speaker 2: that unlocks a lot about who we are.

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Speaker 7: I think it's so profound and so frequently used that

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Speaker 7: must go back a long long time.

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Speaker 2: Puerto Ricans are always in la brega, vulnerable and alert,

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Speaker 2: he wrote. Then the English word he thinks comes closest

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Speaker 2: is grapple.

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Speaker 6: La brega means that you have to invent, you have

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Speaker 6: to use what you have, and also have to pay

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Speaker 6: attention to others, and it's not that easy too.

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Speaker 2: In the last few years there have been even more

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Speaker 2: memorable examples of Puerto Ricans in la brega. I think

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Speaker 2: often about a video I saw after my yea of

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Speaker 2: a woman in Bayamon showing off her dad's invention, lad Busy,

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Speaker 2: a washing machine with bicycle handlebars attached so you could

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Speaker 2: spin it by hand even without electricity. Laura and I

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Speaker 2: think about how after Maria, communities came together, all the

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Speaker 2: networks that were formed to try and meet the needs

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Speaker 2: that weren't being met in a desperate situation area collect

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Speaker 2: they could.

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Speaker 5: Not wait for the state to do.

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Speaker 7: Other states failed in many.

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Speaker 2: Cases, and this is where la brega becomes a concept

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Speaker 2: that can be nauseating. Why do we take pride in negotiating,

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Speaker 2: in hustling, in putting up with how things are going

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Speaker 2: with the flow. What does it say about us that

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Speaker 2: we are so often pragmatic that that's our go to

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Speaker 2: And above all, what does it say that we have

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Speaker 2: a society and a government that requires us to be

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Speaker 2: in lavedrega all the time?

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Speaker 8: I don't want to contribute to a self celebratory idea

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Speaker 8: of Lavadega. There are many things to celebrate, but we

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Speaker 8: also have to recognize that there are failures, and we

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Speaker 8: have to acknowledge that pragmatism is helpful in some situations

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Speaker 8: and not in others.

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Speaker 2: In the long long months after Maria, when some Puerto

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Speaker 2: Ricans were without power for a whole year, we heard

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Speaker 2: a lot about resilience, Puerto Ricans resilience on display, and

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Speaker 2: I see.

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Speaker 1: The plight of the Puerto Rican people.

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Speaker 5: They're very recently such.

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Speaker 2: Resilient, tremendously resilient, so much so that there was a

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Speaker 2: backlash against that word. It was as though Puerto Ricans

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Speaker 2: were being congratulated for being able to put up with

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Speaker 2: so much, even as aid and recovery was being denied.

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Speaker 2: This came up with Cio Santiago from a adopt a

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Speaker 2: Pothole too, that we shouldn't always have to be in

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Speaker 2: Labrega patching up potholes instead of actually repairing them. And

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Speaker 2: yet he keeps painting the ojos and posting them because

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Speaker 2: he's hopeful that the effort helps people, it might even

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Speaker 2: save them. Think of it as an act of solidarity

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Speaker 2: of citizenship. That's part of La Brega too, as I

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Speaker 2: was producing this episode thinking about potholes. There was actually

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Speaker 2: breaking pothole news. Former Governor Ricardo Roseo spoke to The

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Speaker 2: New York Times, his first public interview since the summer

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Speaker 2: of twenty nineteen, when he resigned and left the island

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Speaker 2: after thousands of people protested relentlessly demanding he leave office.

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Speaker 2: It was during those protests he claimed in this new

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Speaker 2: interview that his car had hit a huge pothole. His

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Speaker 2: five year old daughter thought it was a gunshot, and

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Speaker 2: he says it was that the pothole incident and his

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Speaker 2: daughter's reaction that got him to resign, not because he

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Speaker 2: heard the demands of an outraged public. Puerto Rican Twitter

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Speaker 2: exploded with memes of potholes protesting the former governor, or

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Speaker 2: asphalt taunting him. There was one of a crater photoshopped

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Speaker 2: on to Chigavada's face, a revolutionary pothole. Twitter was roasting Rosello,

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Speaker 2: but the memes were also pointing to the twisted irony

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Speaker 2: that the governor was panic at something Puerto Ricans deal

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Speaker 2: with every day and something his administration was responsible for fixing.

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Speaker 2: Arcadio has been thinking about those outraged people who went

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Speaker 2: into the streets to march against the governor, Los in

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Speaker 2: dignallos and what happens when people see their power.

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Speaker 5: But just looking so many young people, so many and

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Speaker 5: every day and so vibrant, what it meant to me

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Speaker 5: was that there was a deep reserve of energy and

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Speaker 5: thought and moral conviction there. You know, it's there, It's there,

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Speaker 5: and it was such a joy to see that it's there.

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Speaker 7: We can imagine a different plot, a different ending. Yeah,

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Speaker 7: that doesn't mean we will succeed, but we can imagine

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Speaker 7: in spite of the harshness of the real. That's labria

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Speaker 7: collectiva and the individual.

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Speaker 2: Too, bargallio. That's part of La Brega, imagining a better

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Speaker 2: reality together. This series is an anthology about Puerto Rico.

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Speaker 2: Each episode opens a door to a different aspect of

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Speaker 2: the Puerto Rican experience Our Brega. It's about our history

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Speaker 2: and our present. In many ways, it's about colonialism and

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Speaker 2: about what it means to be a people. And the

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Speaker 2: reason we decided to make this series is that since

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Speaker 2: Hurricane Madia hit, media around the state started paying more

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Speaker 2: attention to Puerto Rico, but many of the conversations centered

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Speaker 2: around US politicians or if we could or should be

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Speaker 2: admitted as the fifty first state of the Union. Those

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Speaker 2: conversations didn't really focus on us, and so in this

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Speaker 2: series we start with the principle that we deserve to

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Speaker 2: hear stories about ourselves and how we got here, which

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Speaker 2: is why every episode is in two languages, so we

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Speaker 2: don't leave anyone out, either on the island or in

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Speaker 2: the diaspora. From WNYC Studios and Futuro Studios, I'm Alana

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Speaker 2: Casanova Burgess and this is La Brega. Labrega's production team

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Speaker 2: includes Marlon Bishop Eszeguelrorigua, Sandino, Mark Pagan, Victor Ramos, Luis Treyes,

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Speaker 2: Stephanie Lebau, Alisha beet Etube Leah Sha Damren, Rosanna Cavan,

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Speaker 2: and Gabriel Lavaz. Leadership support for Labrega is provided by

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Speaker 2: the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation and the john S and

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Speaker 2: James L. Knight Foundation, with additional support provided by Amy B.

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Speaker 2: Liss And coming up next episode, how a suburb of

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Speaker 2: San Juan sits at the border between the American Dream

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Speaker 2: and the Puerto Rican One. Asta Labroxima, Mayapo, bong Bo,