Discuss the reasons for the migration of Puerto Ricans to the mainland. Who are the Neoricans?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Despite their citizenship, immigration officials occasionally challenge Puerto Ricans.
Because other Latin Americans attempt to enter the country posing as Puerto Ricans, Puerto Ricans find their papers scrutinized more closely than do other U.S. citizens.

Puerto Ricans came to the mainland in small numbers in the first half of the twentieth century, often encouraged by farm labor contracts similar to those extended to Mexican braceros. During World War II, the government recruited hundreds of Puerto Ricans to work on the railroads, in food-manufacturing plants, and in copper mines on the mainland. But migration has been largely a post-World War II phenomenon. The 1940 census showed fewer than 70,000 Puerto Ricans on the mainland. By 2010, more than 4.6 million Puerto Ricans lived on the mainland and 3.7 million residents lived on the island.

Among the factors that have contributed to migration are the economic pull away from the underdeveloped and overpopulated island, the absence of legal restrictions against travel, and the increasingly cheap air transportation. As the migration continues, the mainland offers the added attraction of a large Puerto Rican community in New York City, which makes adjustment easier for new arrivals.

New York City still has a formidable population of Puerto Ricans (786,000), but significant changes have taken place. First, Puerto Ricans no longer dominate the Latino scene in New York City, making up only a little more than a third of the city's Hispanic population. Second, Puerto Ricans are now more dispersed throughout the mainland's cities.

As the U.S. economy underwent recessions in the 1970s and 1980s, unemployment among mainland Puerto Ricans, always high, increased dramatically. This increase is evident in migration. In the 1950s, half of the Latino arrivals were Puerto Rican. By the 1970s, they accounted for only 3 percent. Indeed, in some years of the 1980s, more Puerto Ricans went from the mainland to the island than the other way around.

Puerto Ricans returning to the island have become a significant force. Indeed, they now are given the name Neoricans, or Nuyoricans, a term the islanders also use for Puerto Ricans in New York. Longtime islanders direct a modest amount of hostility toward these Neoricans, numbering near 100,000, or about 2 percent of the population. They usually return from the mainland with more formal schooling, more money, and a better command of English than native Puerto Ricans. It is no surprise that Neoricans compete very well with islanders for jobs and land.