Puerto Rican Migrants in a Bronx Parish: A Survey of Fifteen Puerto Rican Families Residing in St. John Chrysostom's Parish, and Their Problems of Adjusting, 1957
Abstract
The phenomena of Puerto Ricans arriving en masse to our shores is not such a colossal event when we consider that significant movements of people from every part of the world to America have taken place long before the Puerto Rican migration began. However, significant in this new wave of migrants is that the Puerto Rican’s status is that of a citizen of the United States. Recognized or not, the Jones Act of 1917 declared this to be so. On the other hand, such an inheritance handed down through forty short years does not - and has not altered the cultural ties that the Puerto Rican had with his native country, or in some instances, with his mother countly, Spain. When these migrants set foot on new soil they do not shed their former customs, their languages, their cultural patterns. They cannot be expected to adopt completely the ways of an Americanized society with its high speed of life, when they have been nurtured in an unrestrained carefree attitude of "mananas." Ever since the beginning of this country, the immigrant groups have home the abuse of those who arrived before them. These very migrants of years past, who today Tare enjoying and sharing the final products of an amalgamated society," can look back and recall, that they, too, were confronted with inevitable problems of adjustment. Today the majority of these ethnic groups are for the most part assured of their security and social status. They are spectators looking at, and too often criticizing, their new neighbor. The Puerto Rican became the new star in an old role for now he is the one who is suddenly faced with language, housing, employment, climate and social problems.
Subject Area
Cultural anthropology|Social structure|Social work
Recommended Citation
Valenza, Rose Marie, "Puerto Rican Migrants in a Bronx Parish: A Survey of Fifteen Puerto Rican Families Residing in St. John Chrysostom's Parish, and Their Problems of Adjusting, 1957" (1957). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI30509553.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI30509553
