Puerto Rican Harm Reduction is Everywhere

Recently my mom told me that “diaspora” is a tricky term that connotes an additional layer of otherness that is unnecessary. That, as Puerto Rican people, we are boricua. Period. Her sentiment echoes across generations; I feel it deeply. That my matria, homeland, resides in my grounding bone marrow and singsong of my voice. It can resonate as a deep wave that pours out and other times it is a gentle internal lullaby that, with rose gold hues, tells me you are you. Eres. 

Dialogues around identity and migration, of home, of being and belonging are part of Puerto Rican existence. In his poem on migration, Juan Antonio Corretjer wrote,  Borincano aunque naciera en la luna (Puerto Rican even if I had been born on the moon). And for those of us who migrate—repeatedly over generations, over lifespans, because of a hurricane, to work, for healthcare, for survival, who we are is also how we live. The migration between the archipelago and the mainland is the result of colonialism and imperialism. Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and Cuba as part of the Treaty of Paris of 1898 became bounties between Spain and the United States of America (US). Since then, migration, a result of the privilege and burden of US citizenship, is part of Puerto Rican life. 

Harm reduction is deeply personal as well as a movement. I am a harm reductionist because it is how I heal. I am a harm reductionist because I am an organizer. And I believe this is true for most of my comrades in the reducción de daños movement. I am part of Bronx Móvil, a mutual aid collective and harm reduction organization that, since 2018, has been hitting the streets of The Bronx and Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan with radical love. Created by harm reductionists who are Puerto Rican, our vision is harm reduction 24/7 that is culturally and linguistically centred. We organized because 70% of our participants (over 1,000 as of December 2022) are Puerto Rican, and most are housing insecure and unsheltered. We do this because how can we not? Bronx Móvil’s multiple identities include Queer, gay, formerly homeless, heterosexual, currently living in shelters, migrant, lovers, and loved ones of people who died due to HIV/AIDS, living with HIV, living or treated for Hepatitis C, trans, Black, multiracial Latinx, users of PEP/PrEP, formerly incarcerated, survivors of overdose, users of injection and other drugs, among many others.

Puerto Rican harm reduction crosses oceans. The previous quote by a member of the two harm reduction collectives Bronx Móvil and El Punto en la Montaña notes the challenges of the war on drugs, imposed in Puerto Rico as part of the colonial operating system that criminalizes people. Due to the intersections of patriarchy, capitalism, ableism, racism, colonialism, poverty, transphobia, homophobia, and sexism, it is those who are Black, Indigeneous, people of colour, and Queer folks who are targeted. 

An example of our work that transcends geography is Narcanazo. Members of both collectives collaborated to create this bilingual health promotion campaign.  Narcanazo is a play on Narcan, the brand name for naloxone, a medication that reverses an opioid overdose. And we are centring Puerto Ricans in The Bronx, where Bronx Móvil lives, and one of the epicentres of the US overdose crisis. Our pillars are education and action:

We created posters and a social media campaign in Spanish and English.

Our goal is community charlas and community naloxone kits readily available for use; it should be everywhere—cafeterias, bodegas, nail salons, barber shops, churches, etc. In 2022, Community Leaders trained the leaders of a coalition of Black churches, which resulted in over 100 naloxone kits distributed among parishioners in The Bronx. Staff of community kitchens, nail salons, and retail businesses have been trained, including a security guard of a Burlington Coat Factory who witnessed a sidewalk engagement and came out to be trained.  

Harm reduction is our way of creating homeland, here and there. It is to resist oppression including colonialism that manifests itself in rampant capitalism, the destruction of our archipelago, and the migration of Puerto Ricans. Once in the US, the struggles continue. The micro-battles to humanize in the mountains of the archipelago of Puerto Rico and on the streets of Nueva York are victories to save lives.