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New York's Puerto Ricans:
Formation and Future of a New Community
- Abstract
NEW York’s Puerto Rican immigrants, who have already established a community in the city larger than the population of Seattle or New Orleans, are a historical accident. When mass immigration from Europe was shut off in 1924, it seemed reasonable to expect that the last great wave of foreign immigrants had swept through the city. For a century it had taken in great numbers of Irish, Germans, Jews, Italians, Poles, Greeks, and other Europeans. But in 1924 it appeared that this movement had come to an end. For where were further foreign migrants to come from? The Mexicans, who did not fall within the scope of the quota law, stayed in the Southwest. The French Canadians, also outside the quota system, did not venture beyond New England.
New York City was still a magnet for migrants, but now they were English-speaking migrants, young men and women from all over the country, and Negroes from the South. For twenty years there was no considerable foreign immigration. The European refugees were relatively few in number compared to the immigrant movements of the past. The New York City public schoolteacher could always expect to have a few children from foreign countries, but the experience of whole classes, whole schools, of children who did not speak English, was, it seemed, a thing of the past.
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