Manuela Santiago Collazo (1936–2010) was a Puerto Rican politician who was the mayor of the city of Vieques (1985–2001). Santiago Collazo worked as a teacher at the Eugenio María de Hostos and José Gautier Benítez schools, as well as Assistant Superintendent of the Department of Education. She became Vieques' first female mayor during the 1984 general elections. She remained in that position until 2001. A popular politician among Vieques residents and among many mainland Puerto Rico residents as well, Santiago Collazo met with various difficult moments during her tenure as mayor: In 1989, Vieques was one of the most severely affected Puerto Rican cities after the passing of

Hurricane Hugo Hurricane Hugo was a powerful Cape Verde tropical cyclone that inflicted widespread damage across the northeastern Caribbean and the Southeastern United States in September 1989. Across its track, Hugo affected approximately 2 million peop ...

. Large amounts of money were required to return the town to normality, as the island-city's boat service to

Fajardo Fajardo (, ) is a town and municipality -Fajardo Combined Statistical Area. Fajardo is the hub of much of the recreational boating in Puerto Rico and a popular launching port to Culebra, Vieques, and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands. It is ...

had to be temporarily stopped, the local airline, Vieques Air Link, suffered temporary loss of some of their aircraft, and the city lost electricity and water services. The city was later also affected by other hurricanes and storms. In 1995, many important political figures wrote a letter to United States president Bill Clinton, asking for an investigation into an incident where an

atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

hit Vieques supposedly by accident in 1966. Santiago Collazo signed the letter. It could be said that this was a small beginning to what would later become mass protests by Vieques citizens against the presence of the military there. After

David Sanes David Sanes Rodríguez (1954 – 19 April 1999) was a native of Vieques, Puerto Rico whose death became a rallying point for those opposed to the U.S. military presence on and use of his home island for live-fire bombing practice. Sanes Rodríguez' ...

' death by a military bomb in 1999, the protests intensified, and, by 2003, the military left the island of Vieques. Santiago Collazo led a campaign to attract more airlines to Vieques' small airport facility. The campaign has succeeded in part: whereas during the early 1980s only Vieques Air Link and

Prinair Prinair is a Puerto Rican charter operator airline. It was Puerto Rico's domestic and international flag carrier airline for almost two decades from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. Despite previously ceasing scheduled commercial operations twice ...

provided service to the airport, now the airport is served by Vieques Air Link, Air Culebra and a number of other small carriers from around the rest of the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

. Manuela Santiago Collazo did not seek re-election in the 2000 General Elections. She He died on December 14, 2010 at Hospital del Maestro in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico after suffering a heart attack.

Legacy

An elementary school in Vieques was named posthumously after Manuela Santiago Collazo.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Santiago Collazo, Manuela 1938 births Mayors of places in Puerto Rico 20th-century Puerto Rican women politicians 20th-century Puerto Rican politicians 2010 deaths People from Vieques, Puerto Rico Women mayors of places in Puerto Rico