Rebuilding a Puerto Rico barrio: ‘Dead Is the Only Way They’ll Ever Get Me to Leave’

Laborers lured from the countryside during the island’s postwar industrial boom established a squatters settlement. The harbor was a bustling site of factories, military bases and jobs, but nobody had supplied housing for workers.

Victor Manuel Torres, who has lived for more than half a century in a barrio called Vietnam, in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, Jan. 15, 2019. Hurricane Maria led to a host of new plans to fix island barrios plagued by chronic flooding. A look at the Vietnam neighborhood shows why they may never be achieved. (Christopher Gregory/The New York Times)

(Written by Michael Kimmelman)

Victor Manuel Torres raised one hand, about waist level, indicating how high the sea rose in his house during Hurricane Maria last year.

Then, with his other hand, he lifted a rusty machete. At 77, he has lived for more than half a century in a barrio called Vietnam, abutting San Juan Harbor. For nearly as long, municipal authorities have tried to evict him. “This is how I have held them back,” he told me, waving the machete. “The storm was a passing shower compared to what we have survived here.”

Today numbering some 250 families, Vietnam began like many barrios in Puerto Rico. Laborers lured from the countryside during the island’s postwar industrial boom established a squatters settlement. The harbor was a bustling site of factories, military bases and jobs, but nobody had supplied housing for workers. So the workers did it themselves.