The Reasons Behind Puerto Rican Migration To America

2570 words - 10 pages

The Reasons Behind Puerto Rican Migration to America

As a Puerto Rican who was born and raised in Hartford, I did not think much about how or why my parents are here in the United States. It was after reading the articles in Hist 247 Reader: Latinos in the USA that I began to question the reasons and conditions of my grandparent's migration. Many think that Puerto Ricans began to migrate to the United States after 1898 when the United States took over Puerto Rico but Puerto Ricans have been migrating to the US since 1840's. The Puerto Rican migration is best described in two different experiences. The first experience from later 19th Century to early 20th Century is the migration due to the economic and social situations in Puerto Rico while the second experience from 1940's to the present is mostly due to the chain migration and the thought that the United States will offer them a better life. Both waves of migration brought new experiences to the United States like the struggle of identity, politics, and power.

The fundamental motive for leaving Puerto Rico was economic. The article "The Genesis of the Puerto Rican Migration" mentions that during 1878-1879 there was a major shift in capitalist mode from haciendas to sugar plantations. Around 1870 braceros and peasants began to leave the island to go to Santo Domingo, Cuba, etc... Under North American domination 1898-1901, Puerto Rico became an expansion in which allowed " for control of the means of production in the colony and the transformation of the "sugar islands" into exporters of products needed in the metropolis" (Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueño 348). To the United States, Puerto Rico became a means to gain more capital and power in the Caribbean. I agree with Clara Morel when she writes," "Under the domination of the United States, Puerto Rico didn’t have control over their means of production. Instead, the United States possessed that power and transformed their island into a metropolitan economy. Workers were subjected to the changing demands of US capital expansion, and their migratory movements were shaped accordingly. The United States used Puerto Rico as a medium through which they could gain power and accumulate more monetary resources. And undoubtedly, Puerto Ricans signified nothing more to them than a reserved workforce". In the article "Imperialism and Agrarian Capitalism 1898-1930" the author writes, "Between 1898-1940 the growth, employment , and patterns of movement of the Puerto Rican population were conditioned by the establishment and decline of the capitalist plantation system on the Island. The degree of relative overpopulation varied in the major branches of production- cane cultivation, sugar manufacture, tobacco and needlework and this engendered both the movement within the colony and the emigration out" (104). As overpopulation became a big issue so did unemployment. Migration occurred because many Puerto Ricans thought that by leaving Puerto Rico they...

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