Contents
Puerto Ricans in the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Estadounidenses de Puerto Rico
Val Ramos · Sonia Sotomayor · Luis Guzman
Nydia Velázquez · Samuel A. Ramirez, Sr. · Jimmy Smits
Jennifer Lopez · Joseph M. Acaba · Ana Ortiz
Total population
Puerto Rican
4,216,533 Americans[1]
(1.4% of total United States Stateside population)
Regions with significant populations
Northeast (Especially in New York and Boston), Florida, Illinois, Ohio and California
Languages
Religion
Mostly Roman Catholic. Minority Protestantism, Santeria, Islam, Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Other Spanish people · Amerindians · Mestizos · Mulattos · Zambos · Taíno · African people · Europeans
Puerto Ricans in the United States (or "Puerto Rican Diaspora," "Nuyorican", "stateside or mainland Puerto Ricans" or, Puerto Rican American (Spanish: Estadounidenses puertorriqueños) are Americans of Puerto Rican origin, including those who migrated to the United States mainland from the island.[2][3]
They form the second largest Hispanics group in the United States,[4].[5] Most Puerto Ricans descend from a combination of Europeans,[6] especially Spaniards, the indigenous Taino peoples, now extinct since the 1500s and a minority Africans, and with a small number of Asians, mostly Chinese.
Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory ("Commonwealth") of the United States and the residents of the island have been United States citizens since 1917 through an Act of the United States Congress (see Jones-Shafroth Act). There are now close to four million Puerto Ricans living stateside (the Diaspora), with reports that this number exceeds the number of the population in Puerto Rico for the first time in 2003. Despite the new demographic trends, New York City continues to be the home of the largest Puerto Rican community in the United States with Central Florida having the second largest Puerto Rican community, but Puerto Ricans live in all 50 US states and territories, including large numbers in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Some of the strong presence of Puerto Ricans in Hawaii, Arizona, and California is due to previous generations of Puerto Ricans moving to those states in the early 20th century to fill positions as farm laborers. Today they are filling professional positions within the Federal Government, including, NASA, DOD, US Customs and within the private sector. Puerto Rico has become an important source of professionals in many engineering fields, medical profession and other top notch positions in America. The adverse side of this relocation of professionals to the US Mainland, has caused a dramatic drain of highly educated professionals from the island of Puerto Rico.
Introduction
The recent attention Stateside Puerto Ricans have been receiving in the media as a potential swing vote, especially in Florida, has promoted greater interest in this community. While Puerto Rican-Americans have a long and proud history of fighting against prejudice and ignorance in the United States, there is a longstanding concern that the people of Puerto Rico are not as informed as they should be about the history and challenges faced by their compatriotas who have ventured Stateside since the mid-1800s. (Duany 2002: 29-32) Recent dramatic demographic changes are occurring within the US Puerto Rican community, making such a dialogue more relevant and critical than ever.
For example, as this new century began, the growth of the Puerto Rican population in the United States (outside of Puerto Rico) was such there has been much speculation about its size relative to that of Puerto Rico. According to the latest figures available from the Census Bureau (unpublished data from their Current Population Survey [CPS]), the Stateside Puerto Rican population in 2003 was estimated at 3,855,608. (Census Bureau 2003)
On the other hand, in 2003, the Census Bureau estimated that the total population of Puerto Rico was 3,878,532. The 2000 Census count found that the Puerto Rican portion of the Island’s population was 95.1 percent of the total (other Latinos made up another 3.4 percent, and non-Latinos made up an additional 1.2 percent). (Census Bureau 2001: 4) By applying this percentage, we estimate that in 2003 the Island’s population that identified itself as Puerto Rican was 3,692,362. If the CPS estimate is correct for the Stateside Puerto Rican population, then by 2003 the Puerto Rican population in the U.S, for the first time, exceeded that on the Island — It did so by 163,246 persons, making it 4.4 percent larger.
This demographic development is a major turning point in Puerto Rican demographics history. It also represents an instance where Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans find themselves in a historical position of global proportions: currently, the phenomenon of a country’s diaspora outnumbering its own population is unprecedented in the hemisphere. Examining Puerto Rico’s total population in 2003 (including non-Puerto Ricans) the Stateside Puerto Rican population is 99.4 percent its size. Among U.S. Spanish speaking people, the Mexican American population is the largest group by far (now over 26 million), representing the largest ethnic population outside of Mexico with 25.4 percent. (Census Bureau 2004a)
To give a sense of the scale of this Puerto Rican demographic phenomenon, the only comparable situation would be that of the Irish, which is so atypical that it underscores the uniqueness of the Puerto Rican case. As a result of the catastrophic potato famine of the 19th century and other developments, today the Irish American population is close to 6 times (594.7 percent) that of the combined populations of Ireland and Northern Ireland. (Census Bureau 2004b) The largest ethnic group in the United States, the Germans, represents 52.1 percent of the population of Germany. (Grosfoguel 2003: 219)
This represents a new and not well understood phenomenon, but one that could serve to redefine the relationship between Puerto Rican-Americans and the population of Puerto Rico. The implications of this new demographic development in the Puerto Rican population aqui y alla (here and there) were not lost on the government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The Government has designed programs to reach out to the Puerto Rican communities in the United States in cultural affairs, civic participation and other areas, recognizing that this is a population whose future is closely linked with the future of Puerto Rico, and vice-versa.
The term "Stateside Puerto Ricans"[citation needed] is used here to describe the Puerto Rican population residing in the United States (outside of Puerto Rico). It is less ambiguous[citation needed] than other terms more usually used such as "mainland Puerto Ricans", "Puerto Ricans in the United States", "U.S.-based Puerto Ricans" and Nuyoricans to mean "Nueva York/New York" Puerto Ricans. In which, given Puerto Rico's political relationship with the United States and the presence of Puerto Ricans in foreign countries, can be imprecise in many respects.
There are a few conventions used here that need to be understood at the outset. The statement "The people of Puerto Rico are not a separate race and the use of racial defining terms such as 'White,' 'Black,' 'Asian,' and 'Native American' apply to Puerto Ricans as much as they apply to other Americans" is erroneous. There are no more full-blooded Amerindians in Puerto Rico; the native Taino is officially "extinct". [1] [2] Statistics presented in this essay are largely from a federal government survey, the Current Population Survey (CPS), which is based on a sample generating statistics that are subject to sampling error and some variability depending on the variable and geographic levels being used. (Census Bureau 2003) Finally, the analysis of these statistics is meant onsuggestive of the conditions facing these communities and is far from definitive, at times posing provocative questions that require further research and analysis.