'Climate migrant' fled catastrophe in Puerto Rico for the safety of Minnesota

Ivan "Banjo" Fontánez had never encountered the idea of a climate change refugee until he walked into the Hennepin County Government Center in downtown Minneapolis in 2017.

He told a county worker he had just moved from Puerto Rico, still in ruins from Hurricane Maria. He was seeking assistance for his infant daughter and was told they qualified for benefits as refugees from a natural disaster. In about 45 minutes they had rental assistance, health insurance and SNAP benefits — "It was very helpful," he said.

He had become a climate migrant in Minnesota.

"I don't think of myself as that, but I guess I am," Fontánez said. "That's the reason I moved. Straight up."

Fontánez, 37, joined the largest exodus Puerto Rico has ever seen — and part of a global migration scientists say will only grow as people leave homes affected by climate change-induced weather extremes, moving to safer locales. One Florida State University study predicts the Twin Cities area could see 17,800 displaced people arrive by the end of the century, just due to coastal flooding within the United States.

More than 133,000 people migrated from Puerto Rico to the mainland United States in 2017 and 2018, according to the Jorge Duany, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University. As U.S. citizens, Puerto Ricans can move much more easily around the country than other people. About a third settled in Florida.

The rest fanned out across the mainland. Census data shows about 137 people moved from Puerto Rico to Minnesota from 2016 through 2020, although it's not known how many came because of Hurricane Maria. At least 12,000 Puerto Ricans live in Minnesota. "Sotaricans" are state's second-largest Latino community.

Comunidades Organizando el Poder y la Acción Latina (COPAL), a Latino advocacy group in Minneapolis, said stories such as those of Fontánez are part of a broad new conversation that Minnesota needs to undertake about climate-driven migration. The notion that Minnesota is "climate-proof" gained traction in New York Times reports that highlighted Duluth as a destination. While that's an overstatement, Minnesota will fare better than many states, said the state's senior climatologist Kenny Blumenfeld.

This August, COPAL plans to lead 15 lawmakers, elected officials and other community leaders from around Minnesota to Puerto Rico. It's still drawing up the invite list; Rep. María Isa Pérez-Vega, DFL-St. Paul, will be part of the delegation.

The group wants the week-long trip to deepen the Minnesotans' understanding of environmental catastrophe — and resilience. The island uses solar-powered refrigerators to chill medications such as insulin if the electrical grid is damaged, and some are working to grow more local food to increase community self sufficiency.

"This isn't 'look at how Puerto Rico has suffered and let's avoid that,'" said Ryan Pérez, COPAL's organizing director. "This is 'look at how Puerto Rico has survived and how communities are thriving and fighting back,' and how we can adopt those models here."

It's the second such climate delegation COPAL has helped organize. It made a similar trip to Honduras and El Salvador in 2019.

Carolina Ortiz, COPAL associate executive director, said Minnesota communities need to be better prepared to receive climate migrants — even if that's not how they describe themselves — from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and other places.

"Are we ready for that?" Ortiz asked.

Fontánez said the terms "climate migrant" and "climate refugee" have a sad connotation that doesn't feel right to him. He thought about it, and suggested "weather trekker."

"I'm a move-forward kind of guy," he said. "Music is my secret weapon."

Fontánez grew up singing, drumming and playing guitar in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. Music saw him through his first move to Minnesota. That was in 2001, when he was 15, after his mother accepted a job teaching in St. Paul Public Schools.

Music is how he deals with life. He wrote his signature song, "A Veces," or "Sometimes," at 17, just after graduating from Harding High School. It's about the intensity of an adolescent love.

In 2007, when he was 21, Puerto Rico's arts scene, beaches and nightlife beckoned. He resettled in San Juan, the capital city.

He went to work for his brother's marketing company and playing in bars and concert venues around the island. He and his wife, Jeannette, had their first daughter. He and some partners were planning to open a restaurant and bar.

He never would have left, he said. And then it all changed.

Hurricanes in Puerto Rico are like blizzards in Minnesota, Fontánez said. People cope. So as the storms barreled toward Puerto Rico in September 2017, he loaded up his car with rope, hand saws, machetes, batteries and canned food. The family left their apartment to ride out the storm in his aunt's battened-down house nearby.

The storm stalled over Puerto Rico. "Like a tornado, but it lasted 24 hours," Fontánez recalled.

It was one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. Hurricane Maria killed nearly 3,000 people in Puerto Rico and left $90 billion in damage there and in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

There's evidence that ocean temperatures and changes in atmospheric circulation patterns may have contributed to the storm stalling over Puerto Rico, said MIT climatologist Ali Sarhadi. Climate change is making hurricanes more intense and destructive, as warming oceans fuel storms by releasing more heat and water vapor. That drives heavier rainfall, as does the warmer atmosphere that holds more moisture. Rising sea levels make coastal flooding more destructive.

Hurricane Maria's torrential rains drove flooding and landslides. When the hurricane finally subsided, Fontánez opened the door. In front of him stood a mountain that should have been a lush, emerald green. It was brown. The winds had stripped all the leaves from the trees.

His aunt's house and their apartment were okay, but there was no power, no light, no water, no ATMs, no government: "Everything failed," he said.

He and his neighbors swiftly organized to respond. The streets were clogged with debris and uprooted trees. He was in charge of a cleaning brigade to hack paths with machetes and saws.

One local business had a generator where everyone charged their phones. Friends back in Minnesota told him about relief efforts underway; he told them what to send.

It was sweltering. There were dead animals everywhere. Generators roared. The baby was having a difficult time, plagued by mosquitos. When a friend wrangled them plane tickets to Dallas, they took the opportunity and left.

After a few days in Dallas, the family flew to Minnesota and stayed with Fontánez's mother. Fontánez then returned to Puerto Rico to help with recovery. The space for his restaurant and bar dream became a storage area, and sawmill for lumber to rebuild. He and others made delivery runs to remote communities with water purifiers, portable toilets, food and other supplies.

He and other performers put on evening shows. As he sees it, life's challenges are opportunities if you see them the right way, and that's what most of his music is about.

"It's about 'Everything will be OK.' 'You can do this.' 'Change the way you think,'" he said. "It's what's kept me alive."

But he eventually realized that Puerto Rico's recovery would take a very long time.

He flew back to Minnesota at the end of 2017. He and Jeannette talked. They decided to stay. Life in Puerto Rico had become too difficult.

Hurricane Maria is Puerto Rico's 9/11, he said.

"Ask any Puerto Rican," he said. "It's pre- and post-Maria. A lot of people had to reinvent themselves."

Friends and family helped Fontánez reconnect so he was not starting from zero. He dove back into the music scene and joined the Twin Cities Mobile Jazz Project, a nonprofit that mentors youth through music. He co-founded a marketing agency, Happigreat, he and his wife had another child, and they bought a house in St. Paul.

When the pandemic halted live performances, he turned to working as a studio musician in the small studio his longtime friend Kyle Borchert built in the basement of a large old northeast Minneapolis duplex. That's where he started playing with the reggaeton and dancehall band Lightning and Thunder.

A cozy spot stuffed with sound equipment, instruments and furniture, guitars hanging on the wall, the basement studio became their refuge. Band members still gather there every Thursday evening to jam.

On one of those nights, Fontánez strummed his guitar to a slow dance beat, his head nearly touching the ceiling. He crooned "A Veces" into the microphone.

Lo que yo siento no termina, no caduca, y no perece.

What I feel does not end, does not expire and does not perish.

Data editor MaryJo Webster contributed to this story.