OF THE PUERTO RICAN PEOPLE: A CARTOGRAPHY (PART II)

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Puerto Rican Migrations to the United States and the Caribbean (1898-2012)

1898 -1940s After the U.S. takeover of Puerto Rico during the Spanish­Cuban-American War (1898), the island is ceded to the United States. In the following years, there is an influx of U.S. govern­ment officials, businessmen, professionals, missionaries, and members of the armed forces coming to Puerto Rico.

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Puerto Rican rural workers are encouraged by the new U.S. colonial regime to migrate to the Dominican Republic, Cuba, St. Croix, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico (Yucatan) to work in agricultural fields.

1900-1921 Migration of Puerto Rican contract workers to the sugar planta­tions of Hawaii is fostered by the U.S. colonial regime in Puerto Rico, and encouraged by U.S.-based companies and some political leaders.

Poster Content by Edna Acosta-Belen

Puerto Rican migration begins to increase in the 1910s at a modest pace and in larger numbers after Congress passed the Jones Act in 1917, granting U.S. citizenship to all island Puerto Ricans. According to the U.S. Census, there were around 2,000 Puerto Ricans living in the United States in 1910. The popula­tion increased to 69,967 by 1940.

Great Mi mfion Mid-1940s- 1960s Mass migration of Puerto Ricans to New York City accelerates in the mid-1940s, after the end of World War II (1946).1t con­tinues during the 1950s. U.S. cities, such as Chicago, Philadel­phia, Newark, Camden, Paterson, and Dover, NJ, Hartford, CT, Lorain , OH, Gary, IN , Milwaukee, WI, among others, received large numbers of Puerto Rican migrants. The largest increases in the migrant population occurred during this period . In the 1950 the U.S. Puerto Rican population had tripled within a decade to over 301,375 and by 1960 almost tripled again to 892,513.

1960s -1970s As a result of the Cuban Revolution (1959), over 30,000 Cuban exiles settle in Puerto Rico in the 1960s and 70s. By the year 2000, the Cuban population in Puerto Rico had decreased to around 20,000 people, indicating some possible out migration of Cubans from the island to the United States.

1960s- 201 Os Dominican immigration to Puerto Rico and the United States (largely to New York) begins to increase by the early 1960s, and accelerates in subsequent decades. Over 100,000 Do­minicans came to Puerto Rico between 1960-2000. For many, Puerto Rico was a springboard to immigrating to the continen­tal United States. The 2010 Census recorded about 60,000 Dominicans living in Puerto Rico.

Poster Content: The Puerto Rican Heritage Poster Series was developed by Dr. Edna Acosta-Belen. Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Latin American, caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies (LACS) and Women's Studies at the University at Albany, SUNY.

For a brief period in the early 1970s, there was some return migration of Puerto Ricans from the United States to the island, In recent decades, Puerto Ricans have been moving out of New York City or moving directly from the island to smaller U.S. cities and suburban areas in the Northeast, the South, and the West Coast. In 2010, the states with the largest num­bers of Puerto Ricans (a population of over 100,000) were New York, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, California, Illinois, and Texas. Migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States continues to increase, as well as the percentage of Puerto Ricans who are U.S. born. The 1970 stateside Puerto Rican population was about a million and a half and grew to slightly over two million in 1980, and to over two and a half million in 1990. Between the 2000 and 2010 U.S. Census, the stateside Puerto Rican population soared from 3,406,178 to 4,623,716. Two thirds of this population in 2010 was U.S. born and only about one third was born 1n

Puerto Rico.

Poster Series Design by Jorge Fish Rodriguez

Acknowledgments: We want to acknowledge the valuable assistance of the Centro Ubrary and Archives and Centro Publications staff; of doctoral student Jacqueline Hayes at the Center for Latino, Latin American, and Caribbean Studies (CELAC) and Dr. Hui·Shien Tsao at the Center for Social and Demoiifaphic Analysis (CSDA), University at Albany, SUNY; and of Professors Virginia sanchez Korrol at Brooklyn College, Edwin Melendez and Edgardo Melendez at Hunter College, Carlos Rodriguez Fraticelli at the University of Puerto Rico.Rio Piedras, and Christine E. Bose at the University at Albany, SUNY.

Bibliography: Edna Acosta·Belen and carlos E. Santiago, Puerto Ricans in tile United States: A Contemporary Portrait (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006); cesar Ayala and Rafael Bernabe, Puerto Ricans in tile American Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007); Mario R. Cancel and Hector R. Feliciano, Puerto Rico: Su transformad6n en el tiempo (San Juan: Editorial Cordillera, 2008); Centro History Task Force, Labor Migration Under Capitalism: The Puerto Rican Experience (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1980); Francisco Moscoso and Lizette Cabrera, Historia de Puerto Rico (Guaynabo, PR: Editorial Santillana, 2008); Fernando Pic6, A History of Puerto Rico: A Panorama of Its People (Princeton, NJ: Marcus Wiener, 2006); Virginia sanchez Korrol, From Colonia to Community: The History of Puerto Ricans in New York City (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. First edition, 1983); Francisco Scarano, Puerto Rico: Cinco sig/os de llistoria (San Juan: McGraw·Hill, 1993); and Blanca G. Silvestrini, y Marfa Dolores Luque de sanchez, Historia de Puerto Rico: Trayectoria de un pueblo (San Juan: Cultural Puertorriquefia, 1987).

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