But for those determined to stay — or unable to leave — recovery feels like running with a rubber band around your waist, yanking you back.

In May 2023, Clowns Without Borders arrived in Puerto Rico for a two-week tour that brought laughter and joy to survivors of storms, Covid, and earthquakes. The tour included CWB artists Arturo Gaskins (Puerto Rico), Leo Maldonado (Puerto Rico), Robin Lara (Mainland), and Bella Schleiker (Mainland). Our partner was Circo Nacional de Puerto Rico.

In this post, you’ll learn what recovery looks like for those trying not to be displaced and see the delight of children who experienced their first clown show.

All aboard!

The Quest for Post-Disaster Recovery: Avast, Is it Sailing the Silly Seas?

Puerto Ricans love their home: the natural beauty, delicious fruits, salsa music, and gatherings with friends and family.

But since Maria, the deadliest storm in US history since 1900, the quality of life for many Puerto Ricans has deteriorated. 

• Power outages are frequent because the infrastructure is old and inadequate.
• There are 150 schools that haven’t received government funding since the storm.
• In some places, decreased access to medical care puts people’s lives at risk.

You love to laugh — and you know how much laughter has helped you through difficult moments.

You can give the gift of laughter to a child in crisis every month with a donation of just $11 monthly.

What Went Wrong?

Yes, Hurricane Maria was a tremendously strong storm. But the US government’s slow and inadequate response made life in the aftermath less safe, more scary, and far more deadly.

A study published by BMJ Global Health concluded that the response to Maria did “not align with storm severity or prevention and recovery needs” when compared to government responses for Hurricanes Irma and Harvey that same year.

And the mortality outcomes show it:

It took 11 months to fully restore power.

The US government’s differential response to Hurricane Maria aligns with a history of using financial tools of colonization, the result of which has entrenched poverty and increased inequality.

No Joke: What Our Clowns Saw

CWB teams in Puerto Rico witnessed the pace of recovery in 2018 and in 2023.

As Puerto Rico team members witnessed the slow pace of recovery and the lingering effects of Hurricane Maria, they remained steadfast in their mission to lift spirits and bring people together.

Not Forgotten: Lifting Laughter and Spreading Joy in Puerto Rico

Clowns transport people to a world full of magic and play, helping children and families shift their perspectives, connect with others, and heal trauma.

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Through lively performances that included unicycle knife juggling, giant-sized underwear, and the thrilling cyr wheel, Team Puerto Rico created a joyful and carefree atmosphere for young and old.

Here’s what happened at three locations:

1. Las Marias, Puerto Rico

Las Marias is a rural mountain community that was cut off the grid for nine months following Hurricane Maria.

The team performed at a school there — one of the 150 schools that have not received government funding since Maria. The community opened the school, anyway! Though just once a week for now, it’s a brave start.

2. Comerío, Puerto Rico

Comerío is a mountain town in the eastern central region where 1,500 houses were destroyed and another 2,400 sustained significant damage. The slow pace of recovery here reminded residents of the second-class citizen treatment they receive from the US government.

Team Puerto Rico performed on a school basketball court. There were a lot of kids, teens, and young moms in the audience.

3. Islote, Puerto Rico

In Islote, a community on the north coast of the island, the team performed at an old school that is now a turtle sanctuary.

During the juggling, children joined us on stage and became part of the act! At the end of the show, all the kids played with our beach balls.

Conclusion

Following the devastating impact of Hurricane Maria, the pandemic, and earthquakes, CWB artists brought a much-needed respite of laughter to 1210 people in 15 communities throughout the island.

US citizens of Puerto Rico showcased the power of shared joy in strengthening bonds, fostering unity, and improving well-being.

To share joy with you, we’re leaving you with this montage of more photos from Puerto Rico.

Most importantly, the climate emergency is “without borders.” It will dramatically reshape life on earth, even impacting nations and individuals whose affluence will allow them to escape the deadliest effects.

Current Global Displacement

Global displacement is at record levels. The political and economic crisis in Venezuela is so severe that “Venezuelans displaced abroad” is now its own category describing 3.9 million people. Children disproportionately represent 42% of globally displaced people and only 30% of the world’s population. Nearly half of all 20.7 million refugees are children under the age of 18.

It’s clear that forced displacement drastically increased over the past decade, with no signs of slowing down. The climate crisis is also accelerating. Yet, “climate refugees” and “environmental migration” are largely absent from UNHCR’s conceptualization of forced displacement.

Environmental Migration

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), environmental migrants are people forced to move due to sudden or progressive changes to their environment. However, “environmental migrant” and “climate refugee” are conceptual terms. There’s no legal definition or binding agreement to incorporate these migrants into international policy.

Who Counts?

Imagine one farmer forced to leave her country because of worsening drought. Another flees severe flooding. Both are relatively common natural disasters, yet one is prolonged while the other is sudden. Extreme weather events will become more frequent as the climate crisis progresses. Would both people count as environmental migrants? In a future rife with disasters, how will we differentiate what’s “natural” and what’s “extreme”?

Determining the root cause of migration has huge consequences for migrants’ rights and legal protections. War, persecution, or other violence forced many of today’s displaced people to move. Future conflicts over increasingly strained or scarce resources will further blur the distinction between “political” and “climatic.”

NPR reports that the climate crisis is most likely to cause internal displacement, forcing people to relocate within their home countries. If so, the ranks of Internally Displaced People (IDP) could balloon. Alternatively, the same people already experiencing displacement could be forced to move again and again.

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) states:

The Defining Crisis Of Our Time

The UNHCR calls the climate emergency “the defining crisis of our time,” but there are few solutions in sight. In 2018, the UN General Assembly’s Global Compact on Refugees recognized the “reality of increasing displacement in the context of disasters, environmental degradation and climate change” while denying that these drivers are “root causes” of refugee movement. IOM’s Data Migration Portal confirms that it’s challenging to differentiate migration-triggering environmental factors from political, economic, or personal factors, because they’re so closely linked to one another:

In other words, it’s hard to come by quantitative data and qualitative data is considered insufficient.

Why We Need Climate Stories

CWB frequently works with communities experiencing climate-related crisis. In The Bahamas, Haitian migrant workers who had just survived Hurricane Dorian were at risk for deportation. Parts of Puerto Rico’s infrastructure remained abandoned or broken a year after Hurricane Maria—a year in which thousands of Puerto Ricans moved to the mainland United States. Indigenous Guaraní people in Brazil routinely defend their land against agribusiness tactics of clear-cutting—a practice that, when combined with rising global temperatures, may contribute to massive fires.

Is CWB – USA here to solve the climate crisis? No, of course not. However, CWB’s restorative-narrative approach recognizes the complexity of agency and self-determination within vulnerable communities. We regularly adjust our programming in response to stories from the field. Qualitative data drives our decision-making. Listening to environmental migrants can be a proactive force to change our collective fate, re-conceptualizing climate action from “aid offered to the powerless” to “action taken by the resilient.”