Despite this relative prosperity emanating from industrialization, personal income still lags behind that in the poorest U.S. state. Language Spanish is the official language although English is widely spoken especially in hotels,restaurants, shops and nightclubs that attract tourists and many Puerto Ricans are bilingual. The linguistic marriage of English and Spanish after English was introduced in 1898 led to what many scholars call Spanglish, a colloquial dialect blending both languages into forms not considered classically correct in either linguistic tradition. This linguistic confusion was also accelerated by the mass migration to the U.S. mainland of thousands of Puerto Ricans, who quickly altered their speech patterns to conform to the language used in the urban Puerto Rican communities of cities such as New York and Chicago. Religion Complete freedom of Religion though predominantly Roman Catholic with a large minority of Protestant adherents of perhaps 1500 evangelical churches.
Religious freedom is guaranteed by the Commonwealth Constitution.
Puerto Ricans do not generally follow Catholic dogma and rituals as assiduously as do the churches of Spain and Italy. Spiritualism or Espiritismo , a quasi-magical belief in occult forces still flourishes.