The catastrophic conditions after Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, homeland to the second largest US Latinx group, also result from a long history of colonial exploitation exacerbated by economic downturn, debt crisis, and federally imposed austerity. US policies affecting agriculture and attracting contaminating industries set the groundwork for extreme environmental degradation, which in turn has long motivated local community activism, coalition-building, and de-colonial praxis. The authors illustrate that in Puerto Rico, environmental resistance has been a vanguard terrain of struggle against the deepening insertion of multinationals and continued degradation. Culminating with a glimpse of how the very basics needed for survival—such as water—have been sacrificed to the logics of capital extraction, this essay points to the urgency of making an environmental justice perspective of central concern to US Latinx Studies.

中文翻译：

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水是生命，但殖民地是大墓地：波多黎各斗争的环境地形

在波多黎各（美国第二大拉丁美洲人口）的故乡波多黎各发生玛丽亚飓风之后，灾难性的状况也源于长期的殖民剥削历史，经济衰退，债务危机和联邦施加的紧缩政策加剧了殖民剥削的历史。美国影响农业和吸引污染性产业的政策为极端环境恶化奠定了基础，而长期以来，这种环境又促使地方社区的积极性，联盟建设和非殖民主义实践。作者举例说明，在波多黎各，抵制环境一直是与跨国公司加深和持续恶化作斗争的先锋阵地。瞥见生存所需的最基本知识（例如水）是如何被牺牲于资本提取的逻辑的，