straightuphistory.files.wordpress.com · Web viewFollowing conscription in World War II and service in the Korean War, Puerto Rican emigration to the mainland increased significantly

Puerto Rican Migration to the Mainland:

A Diaspora of American Proportions

John Aguilar, Jr.

December 2012

In 1917, Puerto Ricans were granted United States citizenship under the

Jones Act. This established the island of Puerto Rico as an unincorporated territory

of the United States and its Bill of Rights and governmental structure.1 I am going to

explore how Puerto Rican migration has been affected by American citizenship,

most notably following World War II and the Korean War.

Following conscription in World War II and service in the Korean War,

Puerto Rican emigration to the mainland increased significantly. As newcomers of

the Aviation Age, Puerto Ricans were the first group to migrate mostly by air rather

than by sea or over land. They were also the first group to come to the United States

who were from a different cultural background, and yet were also American

citizens.2

The emigration movement of the Puerto Rican population was a veritable

overnight boom. In 1940, less than 70,000 Puerto Ricans lived on the mainland

United States. By 1950 the mainland’s Puerto Rican population had increased to

300,000, over four times the preceding decade. The population continued to swell,

as in 1960 the United States mainland was home to 887,000 Puerto Ricans and than

1.4 million in 1970, and then 1.7 million by 1975.3

In 1940, New York was home to 90% of the mainland population, a figure

that would drop to 57% by 1970, as the settlement of Puerto Ricans began to spread

1 http://www.topuertorico.org/history5.shtml, accessed on December 12, 20122 United States Commission on Civil Rights, and Kal Wagenheim. 1976. Puerto Ricans in the Continental United States: An Uncertain Future : A Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Washington: The Commission., p.193 Ibid, p.19

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http://www.topuertorico.org/history5.shtml

out and over thirty American cities would have a Puerto Rican population of 5,000

or more.4

Despite the New York City population remaining stable at approximately 7.9

million between 1950 and 1970, the ethnic makeup of the city had begun to change

noticeably. The Puerto Rican population had grown from 3%to 10%, the Black (and

Other) population from 10% to 23% and the white population had dropped to 67%

from 87%. New York City was home to the majority of the Puerto Rican migrants, as

they first came in to neighborhoods in East Harlem, later termed El Barrio.

Eventually the Puerto Ricans would spread out to the other boroughs, and the Bronx

became the greatest enclave with 39% of the Puerto Rican population by 1970.

Brooklyn would gain 33% while Manhattan remained home to only 23% of the

population, followed by Queens with a foothold of 5% of New York’s Puerto Ricans.5

As for their motivations, Puerto Ricans had mostly economic reasons for

leaving the island of their birth. Without political or religious persecution to

motivate them, Puerto Rican immigration tended to follow the availability of jobs on

the mainland and the relative wages compared to the island’s economy. In a typical

case of chain-link migration, Puerto Ricans were able to fly to New York cheaply and

quickly, “on a whim or in reaction to some personal setback, or in search of a better

life”.6

4 United States Commission on Civil Rights, and Kal Wagenheim. 1976. Puerto Ricans in the Continental United States: An Uncertain Future : A Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Washington: The Commission, p.205 Ibid, p. 206 Ibid, p. 24

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According to Joseph Monserrat, the former director of the Migration Division

of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the size of Puerto Rican migration was closely

related to job opportunities in the United States. A Puerto Rican economist, Dr. Rita

M. Maldonado supported this view when she also found in her studies that Puerto

Ricans followed higher wages and better job markets.7

In support of Monserrat’s and Maldonado’s findings, recruiters went to

Puerto Rico looking for workers to fill needlework sweatshops in the 1950’s. This

proved to be thee greatest decade of Puerto Rican migration as 41,000 persons per

year migrated to the mainland in search of work. With seasonal work such as sugar-

cane cultivation resulting in idle time for several months of the year, factory jobs

provided a step up in social mobility. In that decade, 20% of the island’s population,

over 400,000 people, moved to the mainland from Puerto Rico.8

However, the social mobility that was experienced was indeed relative to

that of Puerto Rican society on the island. While jobs available to Puerto Ricans paid

more than ones on the island itself would have, the jobs tended to reflect

“downward mobility” rather than upward. Puerto Ricans could only go from being

unskilled to semi-skilled or skilled workers. White-collar jobs and business

ownership remained largely closed off to them.9

The 1960s brought more jobs to Puerto Rico in the form of factories and

served to slow the influx of migrants. The annual number of persons moving to the

7 United States Commission on Civil Rights, and Kal Wagenheim. 1976. Puerto Ricans in the Continental United States: An Uncertain Future : A Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Washington: The Commission., p.248 Ibid, p.249 Baker, Susan S. 2002. Understanding Mainland Puerto Rican Poverty. Philadelphia: Temple University Press., p. 41

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mainland slowed to 20,000 per year. The trend reversed in 1970 when the U.S.

economy took a downturn and despite Puerto Rico’s high unemployment rate of

19%, more Puerto Ricans returned to the island than the number who went to the

mainland. Ever since 1970, the yearly net migration rate has reversed, as Puerto

Ricans tend to stay on the island or perhaps migrate to other countries, a topic not

covered in this paper.

It must be noted however, that Puerto Ricans have always maintained a

pattern of return migration, moving back and forth between the island and

mainland freely. Some observers quantify the two Puerto Rican communities

(mainland and island) as two parts of a whole, connected by aerial pathways. I find

that the social obstacles that Puerto Ricans encountered in the mainland had great

influence on this migratory behavior. While the mainland offered economic

opportunity and social mobility, there exist some vices that are not attractive to

immigrants. Puerto Ricans faced “discrimination, low wages, poor educational

facilities for their children and substandard housing.”10

Susan Baker conducted a study that analyzed where in the United States the

Puerto Rican population tends to succeed or fail economically. She found that in the

Northeast and mid-west, Puerto Ricans have lower incomes than their Southern and

Western counterparts.11

10 United States Commission on Civil Rights, and Kal Wagenheim. 1976. Puerto Ricans in the Continental United States: An Uncertain Future : A Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Washington: The Commission., p.2811 Baker, Susan S. 2002. Understanding Mainland Puerto Rican Poverty. Philadelphia: Temple University Press., p.75

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According to Frank Bonilla, Puerto Ricans did not understand the sharp

racial divides that existed in mainland society and had no desire to involve

themselves in what they perceived to be an ugly, meaningless fight. Clara Rodriguez,

a professor at Pace university, fleshed out this perspective when she explained how

Puerto Ricans identified culturally first rather than racially, while mainland

Americans identified racially first, then culturally.12

A “culturally unified and racially-integrated people,” Rodriguez wrote, was

forced to assimilate into a divided society that espoused no divisions theologically,

yet supported a white/non-white structure in practice with non-whites as the

inferior side of the coin. Rodrigues cites Robert Schwartz as pointing out how

Puerto Ricans had to “regress” to a racist society,13 a view that is shared by many

Puerto Ricans today.

A unique feature of Puerto Rican culture at the time that they began to join

mainland society was the music. Regardless of one’s perceived “race” among

mainland Americans, Puerto Rican music which had been traditionally based on

“Indian, African and Spanish elements”, incorporated White rock and Black soul.

Despite any racial differences Puerto Ricans of all colors danced to the music in the

same way, unlike most Whites and Blacks, who danced differently from one another.

The music was decidedly “Puerto Rican” and unified the people.14

12 United States Commission on Civil Rights, and Kal Wagenheim. 1976. Puerto Ricans in the Continental United States: An Uncertain Future : A Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Washington: The Commission, p.3113 Rodriguez, Clara E. 1989. Puerto Ricans: born in the U.S.A. Boston: Unwin Hyman. P.4914 Ibid, p.55

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In keeping with the themes of economics and racism, Carmen Teresa Whalen

and Victor Vasquez-Hernandez focused on a more detailed explanation for Puerto

Rican migration to the mainland. Recruited into labor-contracts with big promises,

Puerto Ricans were taken to Hawai’i, California, New Orleans and even Ecuador in

order to provide cheap labor. Demeaned by their so-called benefactors, rural Puerto

Ricans were described as “peasants who would prefer to remain idle until someone

solicited their services” by Governor Charles Allen in 1901. The theory of

“overpopulation” and the desire to export what was termed the most undesirable of

Puerto Rican society created a source of cheap labor for American contractors.15

Following the granting of U.S. citizenship, through letters back to Puerto Rico,

the first wave of migrant laborers established the motivation for successive waves

of migration. Without any immigration barriers to restrain them, more and more

Puerto Ricans were able to travel to the mainland in search of opportunity.

Providing a view of the political situation rather than an economic one, Whalen and

Vasquez-Hernandez outline the reasons for the passing of the Jones Act. World War

I stressed American resources, and the people of Puerto Rico had American

citizenship given to them despite lack of representation in Congress. The move was

an attempt to “abate the Puerto Rican dissatisfaction with the colonial regime, quiet

political agitation for independence, and serve to permanently bind the country to

the United States.”16

15 Whalen, Carmen Teresa, and Víctor Vázquez-Hernández. 2005. The Puerto Rican diaspora: historical perspectives. Philadelphia: Temple University Press., p.716 Ibid, p. 13

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Figuring into the United States’ needs to defend the Panama Canal and

provide security in the Caribbean, Puerto Rico became a valuable military asset.

Puerto Rico was included in the draft and 241,000 Puerto Rican men registered for

service. 17,855 men served in the Army by October 1918. Approximately 4,000 of

them were sent to guard the Canal. 17

Puerto Rican migration patterns have become a victim to the dilemmas of

colonialism. They have had to choose between remaining on the island and being

subject to American colonialist practices, or moving to the mainland to deal with the

quandaries of a racist society that seeks to divide itself while promoting a “melting

pot” where everyone is theoretically equal. U.S. citizenship, government policies and

investment have all directly affected the people of Puerto Rico by displacing

laborers and creating social networks that led to the formation of Puerto Rican

communities all over the United States. Not content to accept their fates, Puerto

Ricans endeavored to improve their lives and their surroundings, using their status

as American citizens to secure their rights within American society even as they

continued to maintain close ties to the island community.

17 Whalen, Carmen Teresa, and Víctor Vázquez-Hernández. 2005. The Puerto Rican diaspora: historical perspectives. Philadelphia: Temple University Press., p.14

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18 Collazo, Sonia G., Camille L. Ryan, Kurt J. Bauman, 2008, Profile of the Puerto Rican

Population in the United States and Puerto Rico: 2008, Presented at the Annual

Meeting of the Population Association of America, Dallas TX, April 15-17, 2010

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Bibliography

Baker, Susan S. 2002. Understanding Mainland Puerto Rican Poverty. Philadelphia:

Temple University Press

Collazo, Sonia G., Camille L. Ryan, Kurt J. Bauman, 2008, Profile of the Puerto Rican



Rodriguez, Clara E. 1989. Puerto Ricans: born in the U.S.A. Boston: Unwin Hyman.

Whalen, Carmen Teresa, and Víctor Vázquez-Hernández. 2005. The Puerto Rican

Diaspora: Historical Perspectives. Philadelphia: Temple University Press

United States Commission on Civil Rights, and Kal Wagenheim. 1976. Puerto Ricans

in the Continental United States: An Uncertain Future : A Report of the United

States Commission on Civil Rights. Washington: The Commission

http://www.topuertorico.org/history5.shtml, accessed on December 12, 2012

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straightuphistory.files.wordpress.com · Web viewFollowing conscription in World War II and service in the Korean War, Puerto Rican emigration to the mainland increased significantly