Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Puerto Rican identity in the United States has long been influenced by pressure to Americanize and by pressure to maintain a common Puerto Rican nationalist identity (Davila 1997). Puerto Ricans in response have created a culture that is strongly influenced by Americanization policies, but still uniquely Puerto Rican (Davila 1997; Morris 1995). The Puerto Rican government has deliberately endeavored to direct the philosophy of Puerto Rican identity on the island and abroad (Davila 1997; Duany 2002a). This struggle for the maintenance of Puerto Rican culture against the affront of the Americanization influences has created a rift between Puerto Ricans who wish to maintain their Puerto Ricaness on the island versus the perceived threat of Nuyorican influences from the Diasporas. The Diaspora community in turn has fought for the maintenance of their own Puerto Rican culture in the face of a hostile environment in the metropolis (Flores 2000; Padilla 1986).In keeping with the question of adaptability for Puerto Ricans in the United States, my study will analyze the significance of the traditional assimilation paradigm as well as the segmented assimilation model on Puerto Ricans in the United States. Furthermore, using the 1989 Latino National Political Survey (LNPS) I will use structural level variables, such as the proportional size of each specific group in my study to Puerto Rican women in order to challenge the traditional assimilation and the segmented assimilation paradigms to the adaptability perspective. Initial findings have indicated that identity is strongly maintained even when Puerto Ricans out-group marry. However, the strength of their identity vary by the ethnic group they marry into.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Exogamy has long been used as a measure for determining the level of acceptability between ethnic and racial groups. This study will focus on exogamy between Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico and the largest national groups on the Island, specifically, Americans, Europeans, Cubans, Dominicans, Other Latin Americans, and Others. The data for Puerto Rico the analysis comes from the 1990 5 percent Public Use Micro Data Sample. A multinominal logistic regression was conducted to determine the odds a Puerto Rican will have to form or will form an exogamous relationship with either a European American, an African American, other racial non-Hispanic groups, Mexicans, Cubans, Dominicans, other Hispanics, and those with a generic Hispanic or Latino identity. Intermarriage that occurs in the island of Puerto Rico, the likelihood of exogamy is closely linked to the person’s birthplace and to the parent’s birthplace. Puerto Ricans are therefore much more likely to marry or cohabitate with another Puerto Rican born on the island versus all other possible group combination. In some cases particularly with Cubans, and Dominicans being a Puerto Rican born outside of Puerto Rico increases the likelihood of exogamy considerably.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: According to official census results, the Puerto Rican population became significantly whiter in the first half of the twentieth century. From about 62 percent of the population in 1899, the white share of the island’s population rose to nearly 80 percent by 1950. Social scientists and historians have long speculated about the source of this trend, but until now available data did not permit competing hypotheses of Puerto Rico’s whitening to be subjected to empirical test. Using newly available public use samples of Puerto Rican censuses, this paper considers three possible explanations for the statistical observation of an increasingly white Puerto Rican population: (1) demographic trends, (2) official Census Office procedures, and (3) changing social definitions of who is white. Focusing on the most intensive decade of whitening in Puerto Rico’s history, 1910-1920, the paper demonstrates that demographic trends contributed to the whitening of Puerto Rico, while official Census Office procedures worked to mitigate the magnitude of whitening rather than contributing to it. Puerto Rico became white in the early twentieth century primarily through racial reclassification driven by an expanding social definition of whiteness itself. The expansion of the social boundary demarcating whiteness, in turn, was spurred by Puerto Rican nationalist reaction to U.S. imperial rule.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper looks at the Puerto Rican Parade in Chicago and how its affiliated activities not only celebrate the presence but the Puerto Rican identity. This parade lets us see the inner struggle in this community. Findings suggests that Puerto Ricans have brought with them several of the problems and issues of their native land. Looking at the Annual Parade and affiliated activities held every year by the Puerto Rican Community of Chicago will illuminate these issues. What do the events surrounding these annual affairs say about them? How are the politics and problems of their homeland played out here through the parade? Who becomes involved in which role and why? Some of the community issues reflected in the Parade, include: Spanish speaking, racism, cultural identity, class struggle, political affiliation, gangs and police problems, and others. More that one can think is revealed by analyzing this cultural activity.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The sociological literature on stratification and social mobility, when it has focused on developing countries, has emphasized the causal linkages between class origins and social and economic outcomes. This emphasis was geared to ascertain the relative importance of merit versus social class as determinants of social advancement. However, few analyses have explored the relative importance of historical timing as a dimension of stratification. I examine specifically whether the timing of entry into the labor force impacts earnings attainment over time in a developing country. To examine this question, I consider the experience of employed adults in Puerto Rico from the 1940s to the 1990s. Puerto Rico is ideal in this regard because it has experienced a developmental path that has been followed by other countries. My findings suggest, that the contingencies of development impact labor market participants in neither the quasi-linear fashion postulated by human capital analyses or in the structural manner examined by more traditional theories of stratification in sociology.

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