Approximately 3 million Puerto Ricans live in the continental United States, with a large concentration of 2 million in New York City. Migration from Puerto Rico to New York began with merchants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the second half of the nineteenth century most were political exiles. At the close of the century, many cigar makers, educated and politicized through workplace readings, settled in Lower Manhattan.

Since Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the US in 1898, the United States has served as the Puerto Rican escape valve to combat unemployment, economic hardship and overpopulation, despite mainland living conditions that sometimes were worse than those left behind. Once Puerto Ricans were granted citizenship in 1917, almost 11,000 moved to New York, creating a large enclave in East Harlem, where previous Puerto Rican immigrants had settled. In this community, later known as El Barrio, they preserved their culture and language through community groups and Spanish-language newspapers and books.

The most extensive migration occurred after the Second World War as thousands saw their way of life disappear as industrialization, the decimation of agriculture and population growth rapidly created severe unemployment. In the 1950s, airlines introduced lower fares and opportunities for unskilled, semi-skilled and agricultural labor expanded on the mainland. An estimated 470,000 predominantly working-class and rural Puerto Ricans emigrated, including more women than previously During the 1950s and 1960s, most migrants settled in New York City and New Jersey, but others populated Chicago, IL, Philadelphia, PA and Cleveland, OH.

Although American citizens, Puerto Ricans were largely poor immigrants. They occupied substandard housing, faced unscrupulous landlords and lacked familiarity with US cities and cold weather. They faced discrimination because of their race and ethnicity, language (and accents) and religion. Other problems of inner-city poverty— crime, gangs, drugs and, more recently high rates of AIDS/HIV—also afflicted them.

Religious and civic associations formed a collective fight against racism and discrimination, and gave the immigrants a political voice and a sense of dignity. They fought being viewed as the stereotypical Latino portrayed in Leonard Bernstein’s musical/film West Side Story (1957, film 1961). The Puerto Rican Travelling Theater, founded in 1967, presents plays in English and Spanish. The Museo del Barrio, founded in 1969, emphasizes contemporary Puerto Rican and Latin American artists.

In the 1970s, the pattern of migration began to shift. Many low-skilled workers returned as mainland manufacturing declined and jobs moved overseas. Others, who never intended to stay permanently, returned after years of work to buy their dream house. Yet, after the 1980s, many highly skilled university graduates and professionals reversed this flow, leaving the island to settle in the states.

The generation of Puerto Ricans born in the (continental) United States follows a different path. Taking advantage of educational opportunities, fluent in English, versed in American culture and seeking employment in the civil-rights era, they leave the barrio and have made inroads in the professions, the visual and performing arts, mass media, education and politics.