Stateside Puerto RicansAtlas of Stateside Puerto Ricans: Abridged Edition without Maps. Angelo Falcon. Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration. ca. 2002. Page 3. Retrieved December 13, 2013.Promociones SMS y Dibella Entertainment firman al puertorriqueño americano Christopher "Golden" Galeano. BOXEOMUNDIAL.COM. Posted on August 29, 2013. or Puerto Ricans in the United States (), also known as Puerto Rican Americans (,Boxeo Telemundo Regresa el 21 de Junio a las 11:35PM/10:35C con una Segunda Temporada que incluye a Orlanda Cruz y una pelea por el titulo mundial. Telemundo Press Release. June 10, 2013. or La Reforma social: Lessons from the War and the Peace Conference Reforma Social: Revista mensual de cuestiones sociales, Volumes 20–21. p232.), are Americans in the United States proper, namely the 50 states and Washington, D.C., who were born in or trace any ancestry to the archipelago and island of Puerto Rico, a US unincorporated territory and insular area whose people are US nationals since the Treaty of Paris of 1898 and statutory birthright US citizens since the Jones–Shafroth Act of 1917.

The 2020 US Census counted the number of Puerto Ricans living in the United States proper at 5.6 million. As of 2024, the US Census Bureau estimates the Puerto Rican population to be 6.11 million, making up 1.8% of the US population. After Mexicans, Puerto Ricans are the second largest Hispanic group, representing 9.0% of the US Hispanic population. They are also the largest West Indian group, representing 40.4% of people with origins in the Caribbean.

The Northeast (2.7 million) and Florida (1.3 million) account for 65.4% of the Puerto Rican population in the United States proper. The states with the largest Puerto Rican populations are Florida, New York (995,000), Pennsylvania (494,000), New Jersey (484,000), Massachusetts (330,000), and Connecticut (300,000). Puerto Ricans make up the largest share of the population in Connecticut (8.3%), Florida (5.6%), New Jersey (5.1%), New York (5.0%), Massachusetts (4.7%), and Rhode Island (4.5%). They are the largest Hispanic group in Connecticut (42.7%), Pennsylvania (39.9%), Massachusetts (33.0%), New York (24.9%), New Hampshire (22.8%), and New Jersey (21.7%). They are the second largest Hispanic group in several states, including Ohio (25.3%), Rhode Island (23.4%), and Florida (19.4%), behind Mexicans (41.1%), Dominicans (38.8%), and Cubans (26.8%), respectively.

Greater New York is the metropolitan area with the largest Puerto Rican population, with New York City being the largest demographic, cultural, and historical center for Puerto Ricans in the United States proper. The portmanteau "Nuyorican" refers to Puerto Ricans and their descendants in the New York City area. Greater Orlando and Greater Philadelphia are the following metropolitan areas with the largest Puerto Rican populations. The largest share of Puerto Ricans in metropolitan areas are found in Springfield (23.2%), and neighboring Greater Orlando (13.7%) and Lakeland-Winter Haven (13.5%).

Identity

Puerto Ricans have been migrating to the continental United States since the 19th century and migrating since 1898, after the island territory was transferred from Spain to the United States, and have a long history of collective social advocacy for their political and social rights and preserving their cultural heritage. In New York City, which has the largest concentration of Puerto Ricans in the United States, they began running for elective office in the 1920s, electing one of their own to the New York State Assembly for the first time in 1937.Falcón in Jennings and Rivera 1984: 15–42

Important Puerto Rican institutions have emerged from this long history.Nieto 2000 ASPIRA was established in New York City in 1961 and is now one of the largest national Hispanic nonprofit organizations in the United States.Pantoja 2002: 93–108 There is also the National Puerto Rican Coalition in Washington, D.C., the National Puerto Rican Forum, the Puerto Rican Family Institute, Boricua College, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies of the City University of New York at Hunter College, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Conference of Puerto Rican Women and the New York League of Puerto Rican Women, Inc., among others.

The government of Puerto Rico has a long history of involvement with the stateside Puerto Rican community.Duany 2002: Ch. 7 In July 1930, Puerto Rico's Department of Labor established an employment service in New York City.Chenault 1938: 72 The Migration Division, known as the Commonwealth Office, also part of Puerto Rico's Department of Labor, was created in 1948, and by the end of the 1950s, was operating in 115 cities and towns stateside.Lapp 1990

The strength of stateside Puerto Rican identity is fueled by a number of factors. These include the large circular migration between the island and the mainland United States, a long tradition of the government of Puerto Rico promoting its ties to those stateside, the continuing existence of racial-ethnic prejudice and discrimination in the United States, and high residential and school segregation.Manuel Ortiz (1993). The Hispanic Challenge: Opportunities Confronting the Church. InterVarsity Press. Page 37.Luis o. Reyes. Mending the Puerto Rican Education Pipeline in New York City. Centro Journal: volume xxv, number ii. Posted in fall 2012. Attributes that set the stateside Puerto Rican population apart from the rest of the US Latino community are that Puerto Ricans have the highest military enrollment rates compared to other Latinos, Puerto Ricans are more likely to be proficient in English than any other Latino group, and Puerto Ricans are also more likely to intermarry with other ethnic groups, and far more likely to intermarry with Blacks than any other Latino group.English Proficiency Lower Among Mexicans Than Puerto Ricans in U.S. Education Week. Posted by Mary Ann Zehr on September 21, 2009.Sharon M. Lee and Barry Edmonston (June 2015). New Marriages, New Families: U.S. Racial and Hispanic Intermarriage . Population Bulletin. Vol. 60, No. 2.Nancy S. Landale, R. Salvador Olopesa, and Christina Bradatan. Hispanic Families in the United States: Family Structure and Process in an Era of Family change.Jeffrey S. Passel, Wendy Wang and Paul Taylor. 755 Marrying Out – Pew Research Center: Marrying Out. One-in-Seven New U.S. Marriages is Interracial or Interethnic . RELEASED June 4, 2010.Nathan Glazer (1997/Fourth printing: 2003). We are All Multiculturalists Now. Harvard University Press. Page 129.Multiracial population Orlando grows: Multiracial population. Posted by Jeff Kunerth, Orlando Sentinel (June 21, 2011)."Explorations in Black and Tan". IMDiversity. Posted on October 16, 2012, by Carol Amoruso, Hispanic American Village Editor.

Migration history

During the 19th century, commerce existed between the ports of the eastern coast of the United States and Puerto Rico. Ship records show that many Puerto Ricans traveled on ships that sailed from and to U.S. and Puerto Rico. Many of them settled in places such as New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War, some Puerto Ricans joined the ranks of the military armed forces. Because Puerto Ricans were still Spanish subjects, they were inscribed as Spaniards."The Puerto Rican Diaspora: historical perspectives"; By Carmen Teresa Whalen, Víctor Vázquez-Hernandez; page 176; Publisher: Temple University Press; ;

Even during Spanish rule, Puerto Ricans settled in the US. During the nineteenth century it was mostly political exiles who came to the mainland. Since 1898, Puerto Rico has been an "insular possession" and "unincorporated territory" of the United States, ruled for its first half-century by American generals and non-Puerto-Rican civil servants from the mainland, fueling migratory patterns between the mainland and the island. After the end of the Spanish–American War a significant influx of Puerto Rican workers to the US began. With its 1898 victory, the United States acquired Puerto Rico from Spain and has retained sovereignty since. The 1917 Jones–Shafroth Act made all Puerto Ricans US citizens, freeing them from immigration barriers. The massive migration of Puerto Ricans to the mainland United States was largest in the early and late 20th century, prior to its resurgence in the early 21st century.

U.S. political and economic interventions in Puerto Rico created the conditions for emigration, "by concentrating wealth in the hands of US corporations and displacing workers."Padilla, Elena. 1992. Up From Puerto Rico. New York: Columbia University Press. Policymakers "promoted colonization plans and contract labor programs to reduce the population. U.S. employers, often with government support, recruited Puerto Ricans as a source of low-wage labor to the United States and other destinations."

Puerto Ricans migrated in search of higher-wage jobs, first to New York City, and later to other cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston. In more recent years, there has been a significant resurgence in migration from Puerto Rico to New York and New Jersey, with an apparently multifactorial allure to Puerto Ricans, primarily for economic and cultural considerations; with the Puerto Rican population of the New York City area increasing from 1,177,430 in 2010 to a Census-estimated 1,494,670 in 2016, maintaining its status as the largest metropolitan concentration and cultural center for Puerto Ricans by a significant margin in the continental US.

New York City neighborhoods such as East Harlem in Upper Manhattan, the South Bronx and Bushwick, Williamsburg in Brooklyn are often the most associated with the stateside Puerto Rican population. However, the south-central portion of the Bronx (Castle Hill, Soundview, Longwood etc) has the highest concentration of Puerto Ricans in the NYC metro area. In Philadelphia, several neighborhoods in eastern North Philadelphia, especially Fairhill, have some of the highest concentrations of Puerto Ricans in the United States, Fairhill having the highest when being compared to other big city neighborhoods, with large swarths of blocks being over 80% Puerto Rican.2010 Census New York, NY 10029. Zip-codes.com.

New York City

Between the 1950s and the 1980s, large numbers of Puerto Ricans migrated to New York, especially to Brooklyn, The Bronx, and the Spanish Harlem and Loisaida neighborhoods of Manhattan. Labor recruitment was the basis of this particular community. In 1960, about 70% of stateside Puerto Ricans lived in New York City. They helped others settle, find work, and build communities by relying on social networks containing friends and family.

For a long time, Spanish Harlem (East Harlem) and Loisaida (Lower East Side) were the two major Puerto Rican communities in the city, but during the 1960s and 1970s, predominately Puerto Rican neighborhoods started to develop in the Bronx because of its proximity to East Harlem and in Brooklyn because of its proximity via the Williamsburg Bridge to the Lower East Side. There are significant Puerto Rican communities in all five boroughs of New York City.

Philippe Bourgois, an anthropologist who has studied Puerto Ricans in the inner city, suggests that "the Puerto Rican community has fallen victim to poverty through social marginalization due to the transformation of New York into a global city."Bourgois, Philippe. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2003 The Puerto Rican population in East Harlem and New York City as a whole was the poorest among all migrant groups in US cities. In 1973, about "46.2% of the Puerto Rican migrants in East Harlem were living below the federal poverty line." More affluent Puerto Rican professionals migrated to suburban neighborhoods on Long Island and in Westchester County, New Jersey and Connecticut.