Yesterday was the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City and it’s cool to celebrate Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans in Hip Hop too, but how many of us actually know hat’s going on in Puerto Rico right now?

President Barack Obama is due to visit Puerto Rico next week in what will be the first official U.S. presidential visit to the territory in 50 years. The trip is said to be an effort to garner support among the Puerto Rican community in Florida. His trip comes at a time where there is controversy 92-mile natural gas pipeline that would cut across much of the island. The governor of Puerto Rico insists the project is safe but the pipeline has been dubbed Vía de la Muerte (Death Route) by critics who say it will expose people living near it to deadly explosions and cause irreversible damage to the island’s environmental and cultural resources. There have been protests in Puerto Rico and New York over the proposal.

Democracy Now! spoke with Dr. Arturo Massol, a biology professor and director of the Scientific and Technical Commission of Casa Pueblo, a community-based organization in Puerto Rico that is leading opposition against the pipeline project about it.