drumpf called her weak and a poor leader, but San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz shows strength in ways that weakling drumpf never could, by displaying genuine love and empathy for her people and her native Puerto Rico.
Cruz scaled the ladder of success here in the states, matriculating from Boston University and Carnegie Mellon before rising to the top Human Resouces positions at Scotiabank and the Treasury Department, but Puerto Rico called her heart home:
"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," she said. "So when I settled back in Puerto Rico in 1992, I had to come to terms with all of that."
Cruz plunged back into politics after returning to the island after 12 years on the mainland.
She became an adviser to Sila Maria Calderon, then the mayor of San Juan, and who later became Puerto Rico's first and only female governor.”
She then ran for Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives, losing in 2006 before winning a seat in 2008. Along the way she learned a valuable lesson, which she used in this week’s confrontation with the resident:
"Politics is a rough game, and sometimes as females we are taught that you have to play nice," she once said in an interview. "Sometimes you can't play nice."
A member of Puerto Rico’s Popular Democratic Party, Carmen employed her allies in the LBGT community, among students, Dominican immigrants and Taxi Drivers to win the Mayorship in 2012.
Since Maria has hit, Carmen has worked tirelessly in the streets of San Juan, distributing what scant resources she could gather herself, biting her tongue for days at FEMA and drumpf’s slow response before lashing out in frustration yesterday...
“As darkness fell on Thursday, families searched for water by the light of dwindling cellphone batteries and moonlight. They passed through a tunnel beneath a city wall, and found at the exit a water tank left there by the city — a godsend.
And then they found their mayor.
Cruz hugged them as they came to her. She handed to each family a small solar-powered lantern — "a box of blessings," she called it.
"Now this is life," she told The Post.”
Would that we had a leader of such caliber, Carmen.
Love to you and your people.