The ongoing devastating situation in Puerto Rico, where two-thirds of the population on the island still has no electricity and the health situation is dire, may not be at the top of your headline news anymore. But it is certainly first and foremost in the hearts and minds of Puerto Ricans in the diaspora, most of whom reside here on the U.S. mainland, more than twice the number of those who live on the island.
As more and more islanders arrive here in the wake of Hurricane Maria’s devastation and as volunteers who have headed to the island to help in rescue and recovery return, the sheer scope of the problem—and the reality of what is really happening—is making folks here more and more angry.
People here are taking note of who is standing up for Puerto Rico (especially elected officials), and who is not. Those who are not are also making the situation worse. Donald Trump tops the list of pendejos along with those who voted against the aid package, and those members of Congress who cancelled a hearing with San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz after she arrived in Washington last week.
Though mainland Puerto Ricans are not the largest among Spanish-language heritage groups in the contiguous states (that honor goes to Mexican-Americans), they are the second-largest.
Just who are they, where do they live, and what role have they played in enriching this place we call the United States?
There is no way I can cover in one story all the diasporican contributions, past and present, to these United States. I’m just going to offer a sample here today and links to more.
Contrary to the general idea that mainland Puerto Ricans are only located in New York and Florida, the populations are shifting demographically and the recent influx sparked by people fleeing Maria is bound to change those numbers.
Many people here who identify as “Puerto Rican” were not born on the island. Some are several generations removed. You will often hear the refrain “Tengo Puerto Rico en mi corazon” (I have Puerto Rico in my heart) and “Yo soy Boricua, pa'que tu lo sepas! (I’m Boricua [Puerto Rican] Just so you know), which was the title of a documentary made by Rosie Perez, and is also a 1995 hit rap tune by Taino (Joel Bosch).
You can read a review of the film here.
The history of Puerto Ricans on the mainland goes back farther than most people realize. Before written history, the Tainos from the island would trade with native groups on the mainland in what is now Florida, and the along the coast of what is now called Mexico.
After Spain seized the island of Borikén and made it a colony which became known as “Puerto Rico,” the island’s population developed into a sancocho of cultures and ancestries: European, forcibly converted Jews, free blacks from Spain, enslaved Africans, migrants from other islands, and descendants of the original Taino people.
The first major out-migrations took place during the time the island rule changed hands from the Spanish colonizers to the United States, and most of it was to New York City.
Puerto Ricans have both immigrated and migrated to New York City. The first group of Puerto Ricans immigrated to New York City in the mid-19th century when Puerto Rico was a Spanish Province and its people Spanish citizens. The following wave of Puerto Ricans to move to New York City did so after the Spanish–American War in 1898. Puerto Ricans were no longer Spanish subjects and citizens of Spain, they were now Puerto Rican citizens of an American possession and needed passports to travel to the mainland of the United States.
That was until 1917, when the United States Congress approved Jones-Shafroth Act which gave Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico a U.S. citizenship with certain limitations. Puerto Ricans living in the mainland United States however, were given full American citizenship and were allowed to seek political office in the states which they resided. Two months later, when Congress passed the Selective Service Act, conscription was extended to the Puerto Ricans both in the island and in the mainland. It was expected that Puerto Rican men 18 years and older serve in the U.S. military [2] during World War I. The Jones-Shafroth Act also allowed Puerto Ricans to travel between Puerto Rico and the U.S. mainland without the need of a passport, thereby becoming migrants. The advent of air travel was one of the principal factors that led to the largest wave of migration of Puerto Ricans to New York City in the 1950s, known as "The Great Migration". Similar to many other eastcoast cities, Puerto Ricans were the first Hispanic group to move to New York City in large numbers.
A major hurricane that hit Puerto Rico played a role in one of the other out-migrations.
On August 8, 1899, Puerto Rico experienced one of the most destructive hurricanes in history. It rained for 28 days straight and the winds reached speeds of 100 miles per hour. The loss of life and property damage were immense. Approximately 3,400 people died in the floods and thousands were left without shelter, food, or work.
The most devastating effect of San Ciriaco was the destruction of the farmlands, especially in the mountains where the coffee plantations were located. San Ciriaco aggravated the social and economic situation of Puerto Rico at the time and had serious repercussions in the years that followed.
This led many Puerto Ricans to move to Hawaii.
Puerto Rican immigration to Hawaii began when Puerto Rico’s sugar industry was devastated by two hurricanes in 1899. The devastation caused a world wide shortage in sugar and a huge demand for the product from Hawaii. Hawaiian sugar plantation owners began to recruit the jobless, but experienced, laborers in Puerto Rico.
On November 22, 1900, the first group of Puerto Ricans consisting of 56 men, began their long journey to Hawaii. After a long & rough journey, they arrived in Honolulu, on December 23, 1900, and were sent to work in one of the different plantations owned by the “Big Five” on four of Hawaii’s islands.
By October 17, 1901, 5,000 Puerto Rican men, women and children had made their new homes in the Hawaiian Islands. Records show that, in 1902, 34 plantations had 1,773 Puerto Ricans on their payrolls; 1,734 worked as field hands and another 39 were clerks and/or lunas (foremen).
Currently, there are over 30,000 Puerto Ricans or Hawaiian-Puerto Ricans living in Hawaii. Puerto Rican culture and traditions are still very strong in Hawaii.
Professor Edgardo Meléndez has written an interesting take on Puerto Ricans being moved from the island to the mainland. It’s titled:
Sponsored Migration: The State and Puerto Rican Postwar Migration to the United States
Puerto Rico is often left out of conversations on migration and transnationalism within the Latino context. Sponsored Migration: The State and Puerto Rican Postwar Migration to the United States by Edgardo Meléndez seeks to rectify this oversight, serving as a comprehensive study of the factors affecting Puerto Rican migration to the United States from the late 1940s to the 1960s. Examining the consequences of the perceived problem of Puerto Rican overpopulation as well as the cost of U.S. imperialism on the lives of Puerto Rican workers, Meléndez scrutinizes Puerto Rican migration in the postwar period as a microcosm of the political history of migration throughout Latin America.
Sponsored Migration places Puerto Rico’s migration policy in its historical context, examining the central role the Puerto Rican government played in encouraging and organizing migration during the postwar period. Meléndez sheds an important new light on the many ways in which the government intervened in the movement of its people: attempting to provide labor to U.S. agriculture, incorporating migrants into places like New York City, seeking to expand the island’s air transportation infrastructure, and even promoting migration in the public school system. One of the first scholars to explore this topic in depth, Meléndez illuminates how migration influenced U.S. and Puerto Rican relations from 1898 onward.
An article he wrote about his research unearthed a little-known fact about air travel:
The government of Puerto Rico fiercely lobbied the federal government to allow more flights to the island, and promote more competition among airlines to produce cheaper airfares that would allow more migrants to fly to the United States for work. One of the issues that worried Puerto Rican government officials was the large number of air accidents that clouded the Puerto Rican sky until the mid-1950s. Most of these crashes were by the so-called unscheduled airlines that moved passengers on charter flights sold by air travel agencies in Puerto Rico and the United States. These airlines were not properly regulated by federal laws.
Large numbers of the casualties in these air accidents were Puerto Ricans living in the United States going to Puerto Rico for vacations or to see family. Many others were farm workers going to work in the United States. After one of the worst air crashes of a plane carrying farm workers going to work in the Michigan sugar beet fields under a government-sponsored contract in 1950, the public began to link these accidents to the government's migration policy. After this tragedy, the government increased its regulation of unscheduled airlines doing business in Puerto Rico and entrusted the movement of farm workers under the FPP to the two scheduled airlines, Pan Am and Eastern, which monopolized the island market for decades to come.
He also brings up the political climate, which has echoes in today’s world of Trump xenophobia:
But even when the ideological inclination to promote migration was already there, there were several events that prompted the PPD government to enact its migration law in December 1947. A very crucial one happened in New York City that became known as the "Puerto Rican problem." In reaction to the massive entry of Puerto Ricans to the city since the end of the war, by the summer of 1947, a racist and nativist anti-Puerto Rican campaign swept the city. Initially, Puerto Rican and US functionaries and institutions clamored for the federal government to intervene to control this flow of people, which did not happen. Later, US and New York city functionaries urged the Puerto Rican government to intervene, which so it did.
One of the early arrivals to New York City from Puerto Rico helped shape the future of its libraries. Arturo Schomburg was born Jan. 24, 1874 in Santurce, Puerto Rico.
While Schomburg was in grade school, one of his teachers claimed that blacks had no history, heroes or accomplishments. Inspired to prove the teacher wrong, Schomburg determined that he would find and document the accomplishments of Africans on their own continent and in the diaspora. Schomburg was educated at San Juan's Instituto Popular, where he learned commercial printing. At St. Thomas College in the Danish-ruled Virgin Islands, he studied Negro Literature,
Schomburg immigrated to New York City on April 17, 1891, and settled in the Harlem section of Manhattan. He continued his studies to untangle the African thread of history in the fabric of the Americas. After experiencing racial discrimination in the US, he began calling himself "Afroborinqueño" which means "Afro-Puerto Rican". He became a member of the "Revolutionary Committee of Puerto Rico" and became an active advocate of Puerto Rico's and Cuba's independence from Spain.
Today, the New York Public Library’s black history and culture collection is housed at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Some illustrious arrivals to New York City had lives that ended in tragedy. This was the case for Julia de Burgos.
Julia Constanza Burgos García was born on February 17, 1914 in the town of Carolina, the eldest of thirteen children. Although her family’s poverty made it difficult for her to attend college, she persevered and graduated from the University of Puerto Rico with a two-year teaching certification in 1933. She participated actively in both the feminist and nationalist movements on the island at the time, while working as a teacher and journalist and publishing her poetry in local literary magazines.
She completed her first poetry collection by 1935, entitled Poemas exactas a mi misma (Poems to Myself). But she considered the collection juvenilia and refused to publish it and saved only one poem from this collection–“Río Grande de Loíza” (Great Loiza River), which remains one of her best-known. “Río Grande de Loíza” praises the landscape of her home island while remembering the legacy of conquest and slavery that marks Puerto Rico. She included this poem in her second collection, Poema en veinte surcos (Poem in twenty furrows), published in 1938. That collection explores equally themes of social justice and women’s rights, establishing de Burgos as an anti-imperial, anti-colonial feminist. Canción de la verdad sencilla (Song of the Simple Truth), published in 1939, won the Literary Prize from the Ateneo Puertorriqueño, the leading Puerto Rican cultural institution of the time.
By the time Julia de Burgos left Puerto Rico for New York on January 18, 1940, with no plans to return, she had already written three collections of poetry and published two. She had been married and divorced. “I want to be universal,” she exclaimed in a letter to her sister, Consuelo, shortly after her arrival in New York. She stayed there for only a short time before moving to Cuba for a couple of years, then returned to New York only to struggle to earn a living as a writer because of racial, ethnic and linguistic discrimination. She did publish her work in local Spanish-language newspapers and worked as the art and culture editor of Pueblos Hispanos, a New York-based newspaper that promoted progressive social and political causes, including Puerto Rican independence. She was awarded by El Instituto de Literatura Puertorriqueña in 1946 for her essay “Ser o no ser es la divisa” (To Be or Not To Be Is the Motto), in which she advocated for Puerto Rican independence. Her final collection of poetry, El mar y tú (The Sea and You) contains poems that she wrote while in Cuba and New York. It was published posthumously in 1954.
De Burgos was an ambitious and brilliant woman who worked diligently on two fronts—to establish herself as a writer of international acclaim and to eradicate injustice. Her feminist politics and her Afro-Caribbean ideas allow us to read her as a precursor to contemporary U.S. Latina/o writers. While it is rare for a poet to become a cultural icon, she has evoked feelings of bonding and identification in Puerto Ricans and Latina/os in the U.S. for more than half a century. Many U.S.-based Latina artists and writers embrace her legacy, such as Mariposa, Andrea Arroyo, Luzma Umpierre, Rosario Ferré and Yasmin Hernandez. Nuyorican poet Sandra María Esteves notes that de Burgos represents:
all of those women, like my own mother, who migrated to New York in the early part of the century in search of a better life, only to be confronted with a different reality.
DeBurgos’ life ended in a pauper’s grave.
In February 1953, she wrote one of her last poems, "Farewell in Welfare Island". It was written during her last hospitalization and is believed by her peers to be one of the only poems she wrote in English. In the poem she foreshadows her death and reveals an ever darker concept of life. On June 28, 1953, Julia de Burgos left the home of a relative in Brooklyn, where she had been residing. She disappeared without leaving a clue as to where she went.
It was later discovered that on July 6, 1953, she collapsed on a sidewalk in the Spanish Harlem section of Manhattan, and later died of pneumonia at a hospital in Harlem at the age of 39. Since no one claimed her body and she had no identification on her, the city gave her a pauper's burial on Hart Island, the city's only potter's field.
Eventually, some of her friends and relatives were able to trace her, find her grave, and claim her body. A committee was organized in Puerto Rico, presided over by Dr. Margot Arce de Vázquez, to have her remains transferred to the island. Burgos's remains arrived on September 6, 1953 and funeral services for her were held at the Puerto Rican Atheneum. She was given a hero's burial at the Municipal Cemetery of Carolina. A monument was later built at her burial site by the City of Carolina.
On June 3rd, organizers of the National Puerto Rican Day Parade and El Museo del Barrio put together an event where people gathered in East Harlem, New York to celebrate Julia de Burgos' 100th year of birth. They gathered on the street where her body was found and held a ceremony followed by readings of Julia's work and a short skit about her life.
This special education teacher in Hartford Connecticut uses de Burgos’ work to connect with and inspire her students. Through her words, de Burgos has become an important symbol for many young Puerto Ricans.
There are many volumes of her work in Spanish, with English translations. As an introduction, I would suggest that you read Becoming Julia de Burgos: The Making of a Puerto Rican Icon, by Vanessa Perez Rosario.
While it is rare for a poet to become a cultural icon, Julia de Burgos has evoked feelings of bonding and identification in Puerto Ricans and Latinos in the United States for over half a century.
In the first book-length study written in English, Vanessa Pérez-Rosario examines poet and political activist Julia de Burgos's development as a writer, her experience of migration, and her legacy in New York City, the poet's home after 1940. Pérez-Rosario situates Julia de Burgos as part of a transitional generation that helps to bridge the historical divide between Puerto Rican nationalist writers of the 1930s and the Nuyorican writers of the 1970s. Becoming Julia de Burgos departs from the prevailing emphasis on the poet and intellectual as a nationalist writer to focus on her contributions to New York Latino/a literary and visual culture. It moves beyond the standard tragedy-centered narratives of de Burgos's life to place her within a nuanced historical understanding of Puerto Rico's peoples and culture to consider more carefully the complex history of the island and the diaspora. Pérez-Rosario unravels the cultural and political dynamics at work when contemporary Latina/o writers and artists in New York revise, reinvent, and riff off of Julia de Burgos as they imagine new possibilities for themselves and their communities.
When the author speaks of Nuyorican writers and poets, I must pay homage here to a beloved departed comrade, word artist Pedro Pietri.
Pedro Pietri was a poet known for redefining the standards of spoken word. Through the 1970s and 80s his humorous yet hauntingly truthful performances awakened the souls of many Puerto Rican immigrants who had fallen asleep on unfulfilled dreams. Though many would have liked to have called New York their home, it is obvious from Pietri’s work that a warm welcome was never offered them.
His most well-known poem, “Puerto Rican Obituary,” offers this much. This footage, unearthed for the 40th anniversary of the Young Lords Party, which Pietri was a very active member, shows him reciting the poem at the height of this movement. He first read the poem at the Young Lords’ takeover of the First Methodist Church, back in December 28, 1969.
One of Pedro’s poems is titled Puerto Rican Obituary (full text here).
They worked
They were always on time
They were never late
They never spoke back
when they were insulted
They worked
They never took days off
that were not on the calendar
They never went on strike
without permission
They worked
ten days a week
and were only paid for five
They worked
They worked
They worked
and they died
They died broke
They died owing
They died never knowing
what the front entrance
of the first national city bank looks like
Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
All died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
passing their bill collectors
on to the next of kin
All died
waiting for the garden of eden
to open up again
under a new management
All died
dreaming about america
waking them up in the middle of the night
screaming: Mira Mira
your name is on the winning lottery ticket
for one hundred thousand dollars
All died
hating the grocery stores
that sold them make-believe steak
and bullet-proof rice and beans
All died waiting dreaming and hating
It is the poets, musicians, and performance artists who best express what it is to be Puerto Rican and here on the mainland. I have already written about Mariposa and her marrying Puerto Rico to raise funds for the island. I promise to share many others in future stories.
One of the most important centers for Puerto Rican history and research here on the mainland is located in New York City: “Centro,” the Center for Puerto Rican Studies.
Founded in 1973 by a coalition of faculty, students, and community leaders, Centro is the only university-based research institute solely devoted to the interdisciplinary study of the Puerto Rican experience in the United States.
Centro, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, is a uniquely innovative university-based research institute located at Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY), and dedicated to the interdisciplinary study and interpretation of the Puerto Rican experience in the United States. It houses the oldest and largest Latino research and archival institution in the Northeast United States. The Centro’s twofold mission is:
- to collect, preserve and provide access to archival and library resources documenting the history and culture of Puerto Ricans; and
- to produce, facilitate and disseminate interdisciplinary research about the diasporic experiences of Puerto Ricans and to link this scholarly inquiry to social action and policy debates.
Centro collects key information about mainland Puerto Ricans which should be of interest to those of you who are doing community and Democratic Party organizing.
The Puerto Rican Citizen, Voting-Age Population
Estimates of Post-Hurricane Maria Exodus from Puerto Rico
Hurricane Maria’s impact on Puerto Rico and its population is unprecedented. Though it is difficult to find comparable situations, we estimate that between 114,000 and 213,000 Puerto Rico residents will leave the island annually in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. From 2017 to 2019, we estimate that Puerto Rico may lose up to 470,335 residents or 14% of the population. In other words, Puerto Rico will lose the same population in a span of a couple of years after Hurricane Maria as the island lost during a prior decade of economic stagnation. Our projections indicate that Florida is the state most likely to be affected by the exodus — with an estimated annual flow of between 40,000 and 82,000 people.
The growth of the Puerto Rican voting population will also increase the chances for there to be more Puerto Rican voices in state governments and in Congress.
As long as island-dwelling Puerto Ricans do not have the vote, diasporicans and allies are their voice.
One of the strongest elected voices for Puerto Ricans, on the island or the mainland, has been that of Democrat Luis Gutiérrez, who represents Illinois's 4th Congressional District. Like many Puerto Ricans born on the mainland, he experienced a reverse migration as a child.
Gutiérrez was born and raised in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, then an immigrant and working-class community. His mother was an assembly-line worker, and his father was a cab driver. After his freshman year at St. Michael's High School, his parents moved the family to their hometown of San Sebastián, Puerto Rico. Gutiérrez, who had never before visited the island, reluctantly followed his parents; there, he learned to speak Spanish. Gutiérrez said of his experience moving from Chicago to Puerto Rico: "In Lincoln Park, I had been called a spic, then, all of a sudden, I land on the island and everyone calls me gringo and Americanito. I learned to speak Spanish well.
As he calls out Trump, he also gives a history lesson.
I was moved when he shifted from English to Spanish in the clip, crying out, “Planes were never missing when tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans had to go to war that the United States declared … so if there were planes to send people to war, there should be planes to bring food, and water, and health, and yes, electricity to the Puerto Rican people.”
Diasporicans are not going to stop speaking out, and will not forget those who have by their actions declared themselves to be the enemy.
What friends can do is support relief efforts and, more importantly, find out where your elected officials stand on continued aid to Puerto Rico. And if you haven’t checked, find out where the nearest Puerto Rican community is in your city or state.
Reach out. Explore the culture. Learn the history. Make some new friends.
Previous stories in this Sunday series:
Baseball players step up to the plate to fight for Puerto Rico's survival
Puerto Rico: Symbols and songs from the island of Borikén
The status of Puerto Rico: debate, discussion, and the impact of Hurricane Maria
The Puerto Rico tourists rarely see, and the U.S. role in Puerto Rican poverty
Feeding Puerto Rico
The Caribbean, the U.S., and how their past and present are intertwined