page_title: Stateside Puerto Ricans
section_title: Identity
hierarchical_section_title: Stateside Puerto Ricans / Identity
caption_attribution_description: English: Ricky Martin at the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City, New York. Español: Ricky Martin en el Desfile Puertoriqueño en la Ciudad de Nueva York.
context_page_description: A Stateside Puerto Rican, also ambiguously Puerto Rican American, or Puerto Ricans in the United States is a term for residents in the United States proper, District of Columbia and the 50 US states, who were born in or trace family ancestry to the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.
  Aside from the US mainland and Puerto Rico itself, the US Virgin Islands, also a US territory, has a large Puerto Rican population. Like Stateside Virgin Islands Americans, Stateside Puerto Ricans are West Indian Americans who hold US citizenship and who have migrated to the US proper, and their descendants. Puerto Ricans who were born in Puerto Rico are US citizens, consequently, using the term "Puerto Rican American" only for those living in a U.S. state or incorporated territory is confusing if taken out of context.
  At 9.7% of the Hispanic/Latino population in the United States, Puerto Ricans are the second-largest Latino group nationwide, after Mexican Americans and are 1.77% of the entire population of the United States. Stateside Puerto Ricans are also the largest Caribbean-origin group in the country, representing over one-third of people with origins in the geographic Caribbean region.
context_section_description: Puerto Ricans have been migrating to the 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.
  Important Puerto Rican institutions have emerged from this long history. ASPIRA was established in New York City in 1961 and is now one of the largest national Latino nonprofit organizations in the United States. There is also the National Puerto Rican Coalition in Washington, DC, 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. In July 1930, Puerto Rico's Department of Labor established an employment service in New York City. 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.
  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. Notable attributes that set the stateside Puerto Rican population apart from the rest of the US Hispanic community, is facts such as, Puerto Ricans have the highest military enrollment rates compared to other Hispanics, Puerto Ricans are more likely to be proficient in English than any other Hispanic/Latino group, and Puerto Ricans are also more likely to intermarry other ethnic groups, and far more likely to intermarry or reproduce specifically with blacks than any other Hispanic/Latino group, especially African American males with Puerto Rican females.
caption: Ricky Martin at the annual Puerto Rican parade in Manhattan.
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