IVETTE FELICIANO:

Yes, Hari. I was born and raised in Chicago but my family is actually from the mountain side of Puerto Rico, the northwest side of the island. It's a city called Lares. And every summer growing up we would go to Puerto Rico, so I definitely have a very strong connection to people there. And you know, when Hurricane Maria hit in September and millions of Puerto Ricans here on the mainland lost communication with those on the island because of the blackout, my family was in the same boat. My mom wasn't able to reach her siblings for months. So that experience was very emotional and thankfully everybody is OK.

But it inspired one of the first pieces that we did after the hurricane in Lehigh, Pennsylvania, it's a historic Puerto Rican enclave. And we talked about what people were experiencing there and beyond that, just sort of understanding that complicated relationship between the U.S. and Puerto Rico. The unincorporated nature of being a territory of the U.S. but not a part of the U.S. And what that's meant for taxation, for political participation and for government services and federal funding and how that's led up to the debt crisis that we have today.