Reyes Diaz 1

Josue Reyes Diaz

Dr. Guenzel
ENC 1102-0203
October 13th, 2018

Research Dossier
Despite being raised in the state of Florida most of my life, I am a Puerto Rican native. Hurricane
Maria brought devastation to the island and made the state of Florida the premier source of hope
for those forced to evacuate. At the start of the Fall 2017, weeks before Hurricane Maria made
landfall with the island, a small group of Puerto Rican UCF students including myself decided to
meet and form the Puerto Rican Student Association which saw unseen amounts of growth
during the Spring 2018 semester. During this semester I gained awareness of the impact that this
organization could have on not only the transferring students, but the entire university. It was
because of this that I ran for and was elected as the Secretary for this current academic year. A
student at the University of Central Florida, as well as now Secretary, I’ve had direct exposure to
the consequences of Hurricane Maria on education for both refugees and the state of Florida.
Realizing the situation, I was in during the midst of this sparked the exigence of my research. As
a United States citizen, it is our civic duty to be informed of the world around us and react
appropriately. The recent migrations from Puerto Rico to the state of Florida seem to prove
themselves permanent, which has required action from the state and its residents to properly
accommodate for the influx in population. My research focuses on the actions taken by higher
education institutions to ensure a smooth transition for refugee transfer students and how these
measures have impacted the goals of said students. The intended take away from my research is
a greater understanding of the transitions of these refugees and to use this information to improve
upon the already provided resources.
As I’ve gone through undergone the research process, I’ve been affirmed to discover that the
impact and reaction alike to the actions taken by higher education institutions in Florida have
been majorly positive. The opportunities provided by the Florida in this state of crisis has served
as a light of hope for many and their families. Through incentives such as in-state tuition and
resources like specific Puerto Rican Educational Relief Efforts sponsored by some universities,
transfer students have felt extremely welcomed and access to these additional resources has
inspired some to pursue a greater purpose in life than they otherwise would have. Data acquired
from organizations such as FEMA, the Census Bureau, and Centro all exhibit the trends of
Florida being the number one destination for Puerto Rican immigrants. Location makes this trend
seem intuitive, but you would be wrong to disregard the effort put in by the state to
accommodate for the over 200,000 new Floridian Puerto Ricans. Thanks to the resources
provided by the state of Florida and its universities, many higher education students share goals
to return to the island after they finish their education in order to help rebuild the island to its
former glory.
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Research Questions:
What inspires UCF to take charge and provide resources to Hurricane Maria students?

How does having access to these abundant resources impact the goals of incoming students?

Thesis: The recent migrations to the state of Florida from Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria
have led to an increase in membership of Puerto Rican students in higher education institutions
across the state of Florida which, through networking within the members of the colleges,
provide sufficient and abundant resources to accommodate for the influx of transfer students
both mentally and physically.

Field Research/Internet/Library: 2/23/5

Keywords:

 Hurricane Maria
 University of Central Florida
 UCF
 Transfer students
 Migration
 Resources
 Florida
 In-State Tuition
 Research Hub
 Exodus
 Florida Education

Types of Evidence: Scholarly: With the large-scale migrations being such recent event,
there is close to nothing on the topic to be found in the library. In terms of creating a background
for myself, I can search for works that elaborate how other natural disaster migrations in the pass
have been handled.

Internet research:
 UCF Puerto Rican Research Hub,
 FEMA,
 Centro: Center for Puerto Rican Studies,
 Orlando Sentinel

Field research: I will examine how recent Puerto Rican Transfer students interact with the
resources provided to them by the university. I also plan to conduct multiple interviews with
students and UCF Puerto Rican leadership to obtain a grasp of what the general opinion about
said resources is between these transfer students and leaders.
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Timetable:
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Annotated Bibliography
Background
 Enchenique, Martin. “Exodus: The Post-Hurricane Puerto Rican Diaspora, Mapped.”
CITYLAB, https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/03/exodus-the-post-hurricane-puerto-
rican-diaspora-mapped/555401/. Accessed 19 September 2018.
o Enchenique’s article provides a summary and perspective of the scale of the
Puerto Rican migration to the continental United States. Martin is a writer whose
works have been featured in numerous news websites and uses data collected by
FEMA and the Census Bureau to support his claims which boosts the credibility
of his claims. With his Latino heritage there exists some potential bias on how he
perceives the refugees, but regardless this source serves as an extremely valuable
to my research as it creates a perspective on how greatly Florida has been
impacted in comparison to other states, which helps with my argument.
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 Martin, Annie. “Puerto Rican college students head to Central Florida” Orlando Sentinel,
6 November 2017, https://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/education/school-zone/os-
college-students-puerto-rico-20171031-story.html. Accessed 7 October 2018.
o This article reports on Puerto Rican refugees coming to Florida to continue their
education post Maria. Annie Martin is a Northwestern University graduate that
focuses on writing about higher education. This source, written shortly after the
hurricane, indicates the genesis of the Puerto Rican exodus about to take place.
This helps set a foundation for my research.

 Rivera, Fernando. “Hurricane Maria: When Dad wanted to flee, I understood Puerto
Rico’s peril” Orlando Sentinel, 19 September 2018,
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/os-op-2-weeks-without-dad-during-hurricane-
maria-20180918-story.html. Accessed 7 October 2018.
o Similar to most of my sources, this source provided me with a person specific
anecdote on how the Hurricane impacted an individual except in this case it was
the individual Fernando Rivera. The reason this is important is because Dr. Rivera
is the Puerto Rico Research Hub associate professor in the Department of
Sociology at UCF as well as the Interim Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty
Excellence director. Because of his strong Puerto Rican background, he has some
bias towards the population impacted by the island. Despite this, the information I
derived in terms of types of motivation used to push people towards change was
crucial for answering one of my research questions.

 “Timeline of Events in Puerto Rico” FEMA, 18 September 2018,

https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/documents/170388. Access 19 September
2018
o A list of events culminated by FEMA themselves, this source summarizes the
events that have taken place since the Hurricane made landfall on Puerto Rico.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is those responsible for tending to
disasters like those thus creating huge credibility of the source. My inclusion of
this source is because it is a visualization of information which has helped me put
the events since the hurricane into an order and allowed me to realize what
exactly has been done and why it is the case.


Evidence
 “City of Orlando Relief Efforts To Help Puerto Rico” City of Orlando,
http://www.cityoforlando.net/city-of-orlando-relief-efforts-to-help-puerto-rico/. Accessed
8 October 2018.
o This site not only provides resources for Puerto Ricans effected by the Hurricane,
it also gives an overview of actions taken to assist the specified population. This
source works as an example of accommodation outside of my other sources that
revolve around colleges making accommodations.
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 Centro: Center for Puerto Rican Studies. Hunter College, 2017,

https://centropr.hunter.cuny.edu/. Accessed 19 September 2018.
o This source serves as a gateway for resources whose goal is to upkeep the Puerto
Rican spirit alive and well outside of the island. This was the first source I
discovered that indicated some form of action taken to help ease the culture shock
of the migrations of the Hurricane and helped narrow down my research
questions.
 Hinojosa, Jennifer. Roman, Nashia. Melendez, Edwin. “Puerto Rican Post-Maria
Relocation by States.” Centro: Center for Puerto Rican Studies, March 2018,
https://centropr.hunter.cuny.edu/sites/default/files/PDF/Schoolenroll-v2-3-3-2018.pdf.
Accessed 8 October 2018.
o In this study, Hinojosa and Roman share research they underwent to determine
the Puerto Rican distribution among all 50 United States. The authors share their
methods used to collect the data showcased. This assists my personal research by
providing background and confirming Florida as the number one destination for
refugees, according to the numbers.

 Martin, Annie. “Puerto Rican students will get in-state tuition at UCF through 2023,
trustees decide” Orlando Sentinel, 27 September 2018,
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/education/school-zone/os-ne-puerto-rican-ucf-
tuition-20180927-story.html. Accessed 7 October 2018.
o In this news article, Annie Martin reports UCF’s Board of Trustees decision to
grant in-state tuition to students effected by Hurricane Maria. Annie Martin is a
graduated from Northwestern University and has previously written in multiple
news journals; she focuses on higher education. This source is crucial for a major
point in my research because it is the biggest accommodation that the university
has invested in for the Puerto Rican students.
 Ocasio, Bianca Padró. “UCF professor seeks to fill research gap as Puerto Rican
community grows” Orlando Sentinel, 24 August 2018,
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-puerto-rico-ucf-research-hub-
20180822-story.html. Accessed 7 October 2018.
o This article by Bianca Ocasio focuses on Fernando Rivera and his motivation and
intentions towards the newly instated Puerto Rican Research Hub that he founded
at UCF. An Emerson College graduate, Ocasio previously worked as a breaking
news intern and web producer for Politico. Originally from Puerto Rico, her
motivations to pursue this news story indicate some bias in favor of the research
hub, seeing as this sort of news is outside of her described “breaking-news”
background. Along with the In-state tuition, this marked another huge impression
on how residents of Florida are doing whatever they can to regulate the influx of
population.

Analysis
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 Will continue searching for scholarly articles that highlight the negative impacts that the
migration has had on education and the state of Florida in general.

Methods
 Agorakis, Stavros. Jasper, Mila. Laffrey, Anna. “How Florida Schools Adopted Puerto
Rican Students After the Hurricane” Sojourners, 19 March 2018,
https://sojo.net/articles/how-florida-schools-adopted-puerto-rican-students-after-
hurricane. Accessed 8 October 2018.
o In this article, the authors start off my comparing the 3 states where most Puerto
Ricans migrated to and primarily focuses on Floridan and specific examples of
this transition period. Mila Jasper and Anna Laffrey are both reporters for Medill
News Service while Stavros Agorakis is a student at Northwestern University,
studying journalism, psychology and business. He covers immigration and
education for Medill News Service. The idea presented by this source is similar to
the way I want to layout my research but in a more professional manner.
 Interview.
o I intend to get with a Puerto Rican faculty member involved with Puerto Ricans
students at UCF and get their take on concerns that students still have about the
whole process.
 Interview.
o I plan to obtain personal information on how a student has adjusted and reacted to
the transition from the island to Florida.