Migrating Soldiers: The Puerto Rican Diaspora and Military Service

• In Event: World War I and the Inclusive-Exclusion of Puerto Rican Soldiers

Abstract

The role of military service and war in spreading the Puerto Rican diaspora is an understudied phenomenon of paramount importance for the understanding of Puerto Rican migration and settlement patterns. This is not a new phenomenon. The WWI era witnessed the first Puerto Rican massive labor exodus to the continental U.S.- a direct result of the manpower needs created by the war. Puerto Rican seasonal and permanent migration, however, was neither limited geographically to the U.S. nor confined to civilian labor. Since the occupation of Hispaniola and other minor interventions in the Circum-Caribbean, Puerto Ricans have provided military personnel, served in colonial and imperial bureaucratic roles, and used their service to the metropolis as a key to unlock the gates blocking both spatial and socio-economic movement.

In this presentation I will show how Puerto Rican military personnel has historically dispersed the diaspora beyond traditional centers of Puerto Rican migration and strengthened the bridge between the Puerto Rican archipelago and the continental U.S. I will also theorize the causes for the elevated percentage of veterans that seem to prefer to relocate to the U.S. after completing their military service while putting this phenomenon within the context of a transfer, or loss, of human capital.

Author

• Harry Franqui-Rivera, Hunter College