Letters to the Editor | Oct. 6, 2022

I, like many others, am filled with sadness for the lives lost and upended by Hurricane Ian. But as things move toward cleanup and recovery, I’m forced to ask, how many times are we, the taxpayers, supposed to pay for rebuilding a community that is built on a sandbar? This, unlike many natural disasters, is not a one-and-done. Sandbars move over time. Just ask those who build homes on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. I suspect that many of those who can afford to live in places such as Sanibel Island are better off than the average American and probably in favor of lower taxes and privatization. So perhaps those who insist on living in places like this should self-insure by privatizing an insurance fund so that they don’t have to come running to the taxpayers when their slice of paradise gets knocked down. Am I being unsympathetic? No more so than those, such as Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Ron Desantis, who voted against funds for Hurricane Sandy victims.

Douglas K. Smithman, Dresher

As a woman of a certain age, I remember as a teenager when the crack epidemic exploded into my middle-class Germantown neighborhood. I couldn’t understand how or why. It wasn’t until decades later that I learned something more nefarious was at play. Fast-forward 40 years later, guns are now flooding my neighborhood. Many pundits scream for the heads of District Attorney Larry Krasner and Mayor Jim Kenney, who recently had a ban to help keep our children safe at recreation centers rejected and called a “feel-good measure” by gun rights activists. I almost missed reading that the Commonwealth Court ruled earlier this year against a Philadelphia ordinance that required gun owners to tell police when a firearm had been lost or stolen. Stalled in the Senate is a ban against owning, selling, or making high-capacity semiautomatic weapons. Why? Then I saw the video of four armed assailants jumping out of a white van and carjacking a man at Sunoco, again in my Germantown neighborhood. My neighbors are defenseless. Stop focusing on what the “left” hand is doing, and start paying attention to the “right.” Congressional hearings need to start again, and now.

K. Mayes, Philadelphia

I recently listened to a newscast depicting our president broadcasting that his administration pledged to support Puerto Rico because of the hurricane. He stated he felt a kinship with the people of Puerto Rico because of his many visits and that he is from a small diverse state, saying, “I was sort of raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically.” What exactly does that mean? Am I expected to believe that this rich 79-year-old white man raised in the United States believes that he was “raised in the Puerto Rican community”? This is ludicrous.

I moved to the United states from Puerto Rico in 1969. My parents firmly believed that we needed to assimilate into American culture. We quickly learned English, and my father, a line cook at Bethlehem Steel, took courses in English at the local community college to improve his language skills. My mother, now 89 years old and fluent in both languages, worked at a sewing factory for decades. We proudly and with great effort released our Spanish accents and became Americanized. At home, our Puerto Rican culture was cherished with Spanish meals and gatherings with relatives. However, as I look back at my upbringing, we were barely raised in a “Puerto Rican community,” so I am incredulous that Joe Biden was raised in such a community. His comments were obviously politically motivated and lacked any degree of insight, compassion, or emotional intelligence.

Yes, providing aid after a catastrophe is commendable. But identifying yourself as being part of another culture, which is foreign to you, is irresponsible, arrogant, and dismissive of the rich, beautiful Puerto Ricans who, with our strong work ethic, contribute to society daily.

Norma Alicea-Alvarez, Cherry Hill