Puerto Ricans: Building the Institutions for the Next Generation of Latinos

• In Event: Latino Political Alliances in the US: Comparative Historical Views

Abstract

In many recent analyses of immigration settlement and integration, relatively little attention has been paid to the role of earlier immigrant groups in developing the institutions that served later groups and the roles those institutions have played in the adaptation of new immigrants. Although work on recent immigrant groups provides an important and valid approach to understanding urban development and ethnic succession, my interest here is on how established Latino ethnic/immigrant communities have provided the historical base upon which newer Latino communities developed. I focus on the role that Puerto Ricans and the Puerto Rican migration played in contributing to (1) the Latino communities of today and (2) what New York City is today. Although this question applies to Puerto Rican settlements in other parts of the county, as the “great migration” of Puerto Ricans occurred during the long “immigration hiatus” (see Massey, 1995), I concentrate here on New York City, which now has a plurality of Latino residents. New York has been known for many years as the immigration portal, and is regarded today as the #1 global city, yet its Puerto Rican past is often ignored in both popular and academic analyses of the city’s Latino roots.

Author

• Clara E Rodriguez, Fordham University