When Snow Came to San Juan

When Snow Came to San Juan

For several years in the early nineteen-fifties, Puerto Rico received snow, right around Christmas. Children in San Juan rode a sled and had a giant snowball fight in the tropical weather. It wasn’t a miracle, or a meteorological outlier. The snow was a gift from San Juan’s longtime mayor, Felisa Rincón de Gautier, who had fallen in love with snow during her years in New York. It was delivered by Eastern Airlines, which milked the publicity for all it was worth. A young New Hampshire girl escorted one delivery, wearing a hat and a cable-knit sweater. The snow didn’t cost Puerto Rico anything, but it certainly came with strings attached. At a time when the independence movement was being harshly suppressed, in favor of a continued colonial relationship with the United States, the fetishization of the northern “white Christmas” reads to some as a gesture of cultural imperialism that has never quite ended. And even recently—as the island still faces routine blackouts of its electrical grid, years after Hurricane Maria—the mayor of a small town proposed building an ice-skating rink. WNYC’s Alana Casanova-Burgess reports on why the snow came, and what it meant to Puerto Ricans.

Our story was produced in collaboration with “La Brega,” from WNYC Studios and Futuro Studios.

New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you. We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better. Take the survey here.

Jaksot(1022)

Patrick Radden Keefe on “London Falling,” His Book About a Teen-Ager’s Mysterious Life and Death

Patrick Radden Keefe on “London Falling,” His Book About a Teen-Ager’s Mysterious Life and Death

When Patrick Radden Keefe was living in London while shooting the TV adaptation of his book “Say Nothing,” he heard about a teen-ager who fell from a luxurious apartment tower in mysterious circumstan...

21 Huhti 19min

A Genocide Scholar Asks “What Went Wrong” in Israel

A Genocide Scholar Asks “What Went Wrong” in Israel

Omer Bartov is an Israeli professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University. He grew up in a Zionist home and served as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces, but he has long been conc...

17 Huhti 39min

Anna Wintour as Vogue Icon

Anna Wintour as Vogue Icon

Anna Wintour graces the cover of Vogue’s May issue alongside her theatrical double: Meryl Streep in the role of Miranda Priestly, from “The Devil Wears Prada,” whose much-anticipated sequel comes out ...

14 Huhti 38min

Sam Altman’s Trust Issues at OpenAI

Sam Altman’s Trust Issues at OpenAI

At the end of February, OpenAI’s C.E.O., Sam Altman, made headlines by swiftly cutting a deal with the Pentagon for his company to replace Anthropic, which had balked at the Trump Administration’s bid...

10 Huhti 49min

Pick Three: Spring Sports News

Pick Three: Spring Sports News

The New Yorker staff writer Louisa Thomas, who writes the Sporting Scene column, talks with David Remnick about the biggest basketball stories this season: how LeBron James embraced a new late-career ...

7 Huhti 14min

How Donald Trump’s War on Iran Helps Vladimir Putin’s War on Ukraine

How Donald Trump’s War on Iran Helps Vladimir Putin’s War on Ukraine

In 2021, when Olga Rudenko and other journalists launched the English-language news outlet the Kyiv Independent, they were committed to making a publication that wouldn’t face political pressure from ...

3 Huhti 36min

A Former Federal Prosecutor on Why He Quit Donald Trump’s Department of Justice

A Former Federal Prosecutor on Why He Quit Donald Trump’s Department of Justice

Thousands of federal prosecutors have been fired or have resigned from their roles since Pam Bondi took over as Attorney General. She has made no secret of weaponizing the Justice Department to pursue...

31 Maalis 22min

John Lithgow on the Controversial Authors Roald Dahl and J. K. Rowling

John Lithgow on the Controversial Authors Roald Dahl and J. K. Rowling

The new play “Giant,” on Broadway, dramatizes the scandal around Roald Dahl, the beloved children’s-book author who, in the nineteen-eighties, began making antisemitic statements and invoking stereoty...

27 Maalis 28min

Suosittua kategoriassa Politiikka ja uutiset

uutiscast
aikalisa
ootsa-kuullut-tasta-2
politiikan-puskaradio
rss-ootsa-kuullut-tasta
tervo-halme
rss-pinnalla
rss-podme-livebox
otetaan-yhdet
aihe
rss-asiastudio
the-ulkopolitist
rss-ulkopoditiikkaa
et-sa-noin-voi-sanoo-esittaa
rss-raha-talous-ja-politiikka
radio-antro
lotta-paakkunainen
rss-kaikki-uusiksi
rss-merja-mahkan-rahat
rss-girls-finish-f1rst