A small group of Puerto Ricans carrying flags and wearing their colors, was causing a small commission on the subway car where I sat. The two German tourists that sat near me, clenched their Manhattan maps tightly beneath pale knuckles not sure whether or not all the commission was reason to worry. I turned to them an explained that this was NYC’s Puerto Rican Pride week. I don’t think that they understood my explanation on ethnic festivities. “But why are there so many PR’s”, the wife asked? “There’s a large population”, I explained. “They are so far away from Puerto Rico, why do they want to live in NY?” she asked. Her question although innocent enough was somewhat annoying. I thought of all the displacement that countries such as Germany caused people of color over the centuries and decided it best not to get into it right there and then. I took the easy way out and replyed, "for the same reasons that so many Turks now live in your country."
Case closed.
For the rest of you that dont mind a boring break down...
(click link below for full story)
Several correlations between the changing economic infrastructure and political interests in Puerto Rico were responsible for the migration trends of Puerto Ricans to the United States in the turn of the 20th century. These trends begun shortly after the Spanish-American war when the U.S. begun its occupation and industrialization of the island. The structural economic changes caused by the North American agricultural monopolies forced thousands of small farm owners to abandon or sell their family based businesses. These family operated farms could not compete with the large mechanized companies that produced higher yields in both sugar and, incidentally, on unemployment rates. The island was also undergoing a process of modernization and improvement in “the areas of health and sanitation [which resulted in a] reduction of mortality rates.” (Sảnchez-Korrol, pg. 17) This population boom and market reformation created a surplus of blue collar workers, unable to find employment on the island, to turn their attention to the North American job market.
New York favoritism over other metropolises, by Puerto Ricans, was based on legislation, a prosperous job market and community establishment. The Johnson Act of 1921 guaranteed job placement of Puerto Ricans and Blacks over European immigrants after the First World War. The act was revised in 1921 and furthered the chances of Puerto Rican placement by limiting U.S. admittance of foreign born immigrants to 2%. (Sảnchez-Korrol, pg. 31) Despite fluctuating job opportunities, which often resulted in migrations back to the island, Puerto Rican’s for the most part secured positions in textiles, hotel and restaurants business, cigar making, domestic service, and laundries in New York City. The migration trends that were for the most part economically influenced would have not been so overwhelming had the bonds of kinship and island identity not been as strong. It was these ties and the establishment of Puerto Rican identified sectors in the city, that helped ensure the institution suspicious jibaro a safe haven in what would have otherwise been a total foreign experience. It was the formal and informal avenues of communication (the family intelligence network) amongst the island dwellers and city immigrants, in conjunction with industrial and legislative promises that made the Northern market a lucrative prospective.
Happy Puerto Rican Pride and solidarity to our friends in Vieques.
one of my friends from florida goes on and on about she cant walk five steps in new york without seeing a puertorican flag.