We would like to thank the editorial board and reviewers of the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE) for providing us the space to publish the findings of an entire youth participatory action research (YPAR) project. We would also like to thank the Instituto de Investigaciones Interdisciplinarias at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), Cayey for facilitating the research published in this special issue by connecting us with UPR students in the Interdisciplinary Research course INTD 4116.
Rarely do we have the opportunity to share with our colleagues what is being presented in this unprecedented special issue. The research highlighted in this volume, "Youth Participatory Action Research on Puerto Rican University Students' Experiences with Hurricane Maria: Shifting from Resilience to Resistance" includes not only senior researchers’ documentation of the YPAR process but most importantly, the original research conducted and written up by undergraduate student researchers from the University of Puerto Rico, Cayey. The students' significant accomplishments should be duly noted given the challenging circumstances that they had to overcome to produce the knowledge offered in this issue. As you will read, the students had to contend with the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and its disruption to their lives, families and communities in Puerto Rico and the diaspora. Furthermore, the students persisted with their education and work on this YPAR project for 3 years (2019-2022) despite the consistent defunding of public education created by the fiscal crisis that has had a devasting impact on Puerto Rico. Some students were involved in activism to prevent budget cuts to their university and continue to work to preserve funding for affordable higher education, since it is one of the key avenues for economic and social mobility. Finally, the students conveyed the article content in this issue with their second language of English, representing another major accomplishment on their part. None of the students who participated in the YPAR project imagined themselves as published academic researchers. Their experience allowed them to incorporate these new research skills and knowledge into their identities in a way that was not expected on their part. We are extremely proud of the students and their tenacity to overcome the numerous obstacles they encountered in becoming published authors.
The arc of transformation in youth participatory action research: creative expression to creative resistance
Ashley D. Domínguez & Julio Cammarota
This special issue, Youth Participatory Action Research on Puerto Rican University Students introduces the Puerto Rican University Students Experiences with Hurricane Maria: Shifting from Resilience to Resistance project, which focused on the resiliency of Puerto Rican undergraduates who experienced Hurricane Maria. The project began with this particular focus but as the YPAR project unfolded, students shifted more toward understanding their actions and those of other young Puerto Ricans as resistance.
Cultivating hope through creative resistance: Puerto Rican undergraduates surviving the disasters of climate and colonization
Regina Deil-Amen, Julio Cammarota, Yareliz Zayas Cruz & Gina Pérez
This article details what occurred during a youth participatory action research (YPAR) project involving Puerto Rican undergraduates who at first focused their analysis on how their experiences with Hurricane Marıa could be framed as resiliency and then eventually adopted a framework of resistance to further capture their actions, stances, and practices in response to government neglect.
Erasure and resistance: the state of public education in Puerto Rico
Rima Brusi
In April 2018, somebody painted over a mural in the Julia de Burgos public school’s cafeteria, turning the wall into a blank, off-white slate.The mural’s erasure symbolically encapsulates a combination of forces that are behind the radical transformation of public schools and col-
leges in Puerto Rico: the colonial relationship the island has with the United States after the latter took possession of it in 1898; Puerto Rico’s unpayable debt, partly triggered and exacerbated precisely by its colonial condition; and the takeover of the island by disaster capitalism in the wake of the debt default and hurricanes Irma and Maria.
Psychological effects before, during and after Hurricane Maria
Genesaret Flores Roque
The initial problem that this research seeks to analyze is the negative psychological effects that the passage of Hurricane Maria had on Puerto Ricans. Maria was a hurricane that passed the island of Puerto Rico on 20 September of 2017 and left the island devastated for months, even years.
The impact of Hurricane María on the political participation of Puerto Rican University students in UPR Cayey
Adriana M. Rodríguez Vázquez
This research paper focuses on the political participation of students from the University of Puerto Rico in Cayey (UPR-Cayey) after Hurricane Marıa. The culture, perspective, politics, and resistance of these students are researched in light of other sub-contexts, such as the protests pressuring the former governor of Puerto Rico Ricardo Rossello to resign.
The influence of government negligence on the way people experienced the essential services of hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies after Hurricane Maria
Deyaneira Laboy Baiz
Hurricane Marıa had a profound impact on the way essential health services were given during the emergency period that followed its landfall on Puerto Rico. The main objective of this research was to find out what people with health conditions in need of essentials services from hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies did during the emergency period.
The migration and culture of Puerto Ricans: art as a method for resistance
Minely E. Cáceres Rivera, María del Mar Rivera Colón & Gabriel Pérez Otero
The initiative to investigate the themes of migration, art and culture in this research arose from our experiences after Hurricane Maria. We begin with the view that culture, in the form of art etc., is threaded through the entire post-hurricane experience, from response and resilience to recovery and resistance.