The Face of the Puerto Rican Chicago.
While there were small enclaves of Puerto Ricans during the 30s and 40s, Puerto Ricans did not begin to move to Chicago in mass until the 1950s (Padilla, 40). Similar to Mexicans, Puerto Ricans came to Chicago to seek employment. Thanks to the US transforming Puerto Rico’s “multicrop agriculture economy” to be reliant on a single cash crop, many Puerto Rican farms went out of work (Padilla, 39). In fear of economic collapse, the Puerto Rican government encouraged people to come to the US. This was made possible thanks to The Jones Act of 1917, which gave citizenship to Puerto Rican citizens. As such large industrial companies like Castle, Barton and Associates took advantage of this legal statues and began recruited Puerto Rican men to work as unskilled foundry laborers and Puerto Rican women to serve as domestic workers in 1946 (“Puerto Ricans”). While at first, many Puerto Ricans moved to New York City (to learn more, please visit the NYC group, links located below), thanks to limited employment options Puerto Ricans began moving west (Padilla, 39-40). As such, the Puerto Rican population size in Chicago would then double between the 1950s and 1970s.
During the 50s-70s years, barrios or small Puerto Rican neighborhoods began to be established in Chicago. Puerto Ricans did not join their Mexican counterparts in the South Chicago (Steel), Back of the Yard (packing houses), and Near West Side (railroad), bur rather towards the center of the city (Padilla, 40). Segregation for Latinos was not as strict as it was for African Americans. As such, Puerto Ricans often settled in predominately white neighborhoods without any real pushback from the community—a strong contrast to the alienation Mexicans faced from the very beginning (Padilla, 40-41).
Work Cited:
- "Puerto Ricans." Encyclopedia of Chicago. Chicago Historical Society, 2005. Web.
- Padilla, Felix M. Latino Ethnic Consciousness: The Case of Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans in Chicago. Notre Dame, IN: U of Notre Dame, 1985. Print.
