Migration Settlement | Immigration

The Great Puerto Rican Migration

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In New York, most incoming Puerto Ricans settled in Spanish Harlem and commuted downtown each day to work in the city's booming factories.
By the 1960s, more than a million Puerto Ricans had migrated to the United States in search of opportunity.

By the mid 1900s, Puerto Rico's population was booming well beyond the number of jobs available. With political unrest at a crescendo and American factories recruiting heavily on the island, more than a million Puerto Ricans took advantage of their U.S. citizenship-and affordable air travel-and emigrated between 1945 and 1960. Some settled across the Midwest and California, but 85 percent put down roots in New York City's barrios, distinctly Puerto Rican communities and creative hotspots that spawned the Nuyorican literary movement as well botanicas, selling Afro-Caribbean spiritual goods and medicinal herbs. The first Puerto Rican Day parade marched through Manhattan in 1958 and continued to grow as more islanders arrived-by 1955 more than 700,000 and up to a million a decade later. Struggling to learn English, many faced discrimination and the challenges of high crime and poverty in the barrios, but those tight-knit communities also helped support their growing presence in the continental United States.

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Puerto Ricans were considered the first mass migration of a mixed-racial group, which caused tensions once they reached the mainland.

 

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Because of the surplus of planes after World War II, air travel suddenly became more affordable. One-way tickets between San Juan and New York City cost as little as $35, about a month's wage.

 

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Though the vast majority of migrants settled in cities, a small minority continued farming-working as migrant hands in Florida, the Connecticut Valley, and in California where they harvested a variety of crops including tobacco.

 

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Puerto Ricans retained their rich culinary traditions that mixed African, European, and native flavors, introducing the United States to new dishes that included plantains, beans, citrus, and fish.