A Short History of Boston's Puerto Rican Community

Matos-Rodriguez AFT -- Do Not Quote w / out the Author's Written Permission. ~ '.j ,) ~ ~~ 1 ~ ' ~~ ~ It was, according to several participants, the largest public protest by the <5 ~ ~ Puerto Rican community in almost thirty years. On a chilly December . :i ~ ~ ~ afternoon a crowd estimated at 500 people stood outside the offices of the ~ ~ ~:"t Boston Herald to protest an incendiary column written by Don Feder who ~ r { ~ "un-assimilable, welfare-driven, crime-prone aliens".2 In a rare moment, Puerto Ricans from different social classes, generations, and political and JJ4~ religious beliefs, were joined by the anger and disbelief that after more than a century of Puerto Rican presence in Boston such incidents could occur. After l ' ~ . ~ ~ the newspaper remained unresponsive to the protestors' requests, several ~ ~ 1- . ~ Puerto Rican "bodega" owners refused to sell the Boston Herald in their stores. ~...'l ""2 f ~ h i ~ The protest itself was also a testimony to both the community's capacity to 3 ~ ~ ~ come together during a crisis and to its historical fragmentation. The f ~ ~ :f J 1 Thanks to Carmen Whalen, Ruth Glasser, and Aviva Chomsky for commentaries on an ~ "~~ t earlier draft. Thanks also to my 'Bostonian teachers' -- Miren Urirate, Angel Amy Moreno, ~~ ~ Jose Masso, Jovita Fontanez, Jeffrey Sanchez, Edwin Melendez, Andy Torres, Mayari Sanchez, ~ -; Melissa Colon, Sandra Quifiones, Felita Oyola, Nancy Richards, Luis Aponte-Pares, Efram ~ ~ ~ Barradas, David Cortiella, Jose de Jesus, Willie Rodriguez, and Sonia Andujar -- for sharing ~ i ·1" ,-:i!.. (j with me their impressions on the current status and historical trajectory of the Puerto Rican '-..- ~ ) community in Boston. I also must thank those who allowed me to conduct formal interviews ~ )~ with them for their generosity and insights; they are listed individually in the footnotes. I also j ~'-. want to thank Sarah Swedberg, Jacquelyne Moore, and Julie Humann for their research ' - assistance. ~ 13 November 30, 1999. References to the protest can be found in "Protesters decry Herald ~ "-"1 columnist's treatment of Puerto Rico," The Boston Globe, December 8, 1999, B4. ~ t ) '4- 1 .~ ~ 8 ~ . Matos-Rodriguez 'Dogpatch' event articulated the long way the Puerto Rican community has before it is fully accepted by mainstream Bostonians. To provide a short history of the emergence of the Puerto Rican community in Boston, I want to accentuate three themes in this chapter.3 First, that late nineteenth century commercial and political ties between New England and Puerto Rico provided the roots for the subsequent and far more significant Puerto Rican migration into the Boston region beginning in the 1950s. This is often ignored by those who study racial, ethnic, and immigrant groups in the city and leads to the false impression that the links between Boston and Puerto Rico are a product of the late twentieth century. Second, Puerto Ricans, as well as the other Latino sub-groups who have moved into the Boston area, have developed strong and vibrant community institutions, particularly since the late 1960s. These institutions have seen some of their most significant accomplishments undermined by federal and local government policies. Two examples of this undermining process are the past and on-going urban renewal strategies that have targeted Puerto Rican neighborhoods for disintegration and further displacement; and current efforts to eradicate bilingual education programs in Boston's public schools. Urban renewal, displacement and the dispersion of low cost housing throughout the city has meant that Puerto Ricans (and other Latinos) are not concentrated in anyone geographical area with enough numerical strength to construct the institutional supports and the political power base that served 3 This chapter is a first attempt at providing some general information given the lack of published accounts regarding the history of Boston's Puerto Rican community. Hopefully more detailed studies will follow. 2 Matos-Rodriguez earlier European immigrants in Boston so well in the past (Uriarte 1993: 5). Finally, I want to argue that in the late 1990s a combination of renewed nationalist feeling and controversy over the appropriate response to pan Latino / a coalitions in the US have re-energized the militancy and mobilization of many sectors within the Puerto Rican community in Boston. The nationalist feeling emerged from sources both within the United States, led by struggles against civil rights obtained in the 1960s and 1970s, and within Puerto Rico, related to the on-going debates over the island's political future and the issue of the Navy's bombing of the island of Vieques. Sweet Connections: Commerce and Migration between Boston and Puerto Rico (1820s -1920). The designation of the Bostonian Sidney Mason as US consul in San Juan was a clear indication of the importance of the commercial links between the New England region and Puerto Rico in the early nineteenth century. Before and after his 1829 appointment, Mason was an active merchant in the trade between New England and San Juan. Puerto Rico bought wax, lumber, tools, codfish, some linens, but primarily flour, from New England. In exchange, New Englanders acquired tropical products from the island: tobacco, coffee, sugar, and other fruits. The same trading networks that brought Sidney Mason, and others from Boston to SanJuan, facilitated that a small number of Puerto Ricans came to settle in Boston in the nineteenth century. Puerto Rico was, even in the nineteenth century, the subject of interest among prominent Bostonians. The first Bostonian on record to have delivered a lecture or talk about the island was one of the brothers of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Two of the Emerson brothers traveled to San Juan in the early 3 Matos-Rodriguez nineteenth century attempting to mitigate the effects of tuberculosis. Edward Bliss Emerson, who worked for Sidney Mason, lived in San Juan from 1831-34 when he died. Charles Emerson, on the other hand, visited San Juan in the winter of 1831-32, disliked the city and returned to Boston. In 1833, he gave a "Lecture on Porto Rico" to an audience at the Concord Lyceum (Matos Rodriguez 1993: 26-50). Charles' talk was as much an informational lecture regarding the Island as it was an indictment of slavery and the consequences of that institution on the character of a nation. Emerson's lecture used Puerto Rico in 1833 as the perfect foil for his abolitionist agenda. References and evidence about Puerto Ricans living in Boston prior to the 1850s are hard to come by. In 1860, for example, census data shows only 3 Puerto Rican-born persons living in Boston (see Table 1). Although the three were born on the island their parents were U.S. born, suggesting that they might have been born during a family business trip. This provides further evidence of the commercial ties that allowed people to move between the Caribbean and Boston during the nineteenth century. In 1880, three other Puerto Ricans were living in Boston: Alfred Brown, Josephine Haines, and Jesus Melendez. Brown, whose mother was Puerto Rican and his father from st. Vincent, was a twenty-year old black single man. Although he listed cigar worker as his occupation, at the time of the census count he was an inmate. Haines was a thirty-four year old white married housewife living in 115 Norfolk Street in Dorchester. Melendez, for his part, was a thirty-six year old married white man living in 105 Hudson Street. He was a cigar maker. He was listed among other cigar manufacturers in The Boston Directory -- a guide of area businesses -- of 1880 and his shop was located on 372 Atlantic Avenue 4 Matos-Rodriguez (The Boston Directory, 1880: 1062). Melendez is one of about a dozen of cigar manufacturers listed in 1880 who had obvious Spanish last names.4 «INSERT TABLE 1 » The small number of Puerto Rican-born residents remained pretty stable until the 1910-1920 period. In 1910, the census listed 10 Puerto Ricans living in Boston; the number had jumped to 48 by 1920.5 Although one can only speculate about the reasons for this small increase, it is very probable that migration was encouraged given that the second decade of US colonialism in Puerto Rico helped to strengthen existing commercial ties between Boston and the island. Also, the decision of granting US citizenship to Puerto Ricans in 1917 should have also facilitated and encouraged travel. The censuses, of course, do not tell the whole story. Puerto Rican patriot and abolitionist Eugenio Maria de Hostos, for example, was in Boston in 1875. That year, Hostos sailed from the port of Boston as part of a small group of freedom fighters destined to Cuba (Andreu Iglesias 1980: 98). The expedition was aborted when the boat they had chartered, the Charles Miller, almost sunk off the coast of Boston. In the 1890s, Puerto Rican and Cuban patriots formed the Cuba-Borinquen club to promote independence from Spain. Cuban poet Jose Marti, the hero of the "Cuba Libre" movement, spoke to club members in 1892 (Uriarte 1993: 3). In 1895, a chapter of the Partido 4 The census figures come from: 1860 US Census, Massachusetts, Suffolk County [publishing info, 186x] and 1880 US Census, Massachusetts, Suffolk County [publishing info, 188x]. 5 The census data comes from 1910 US Census, Massachusetts, Suffolk County [publishing info, 191x] and 1920 US Census, Massachusetts, Suffolk County [publishing info, 192x]. 5 Matos-Rodriguez Revolucionario Cubano was formed in Boston to promote the cause of Cuban and Puerto Rican independence (Andreu Iglesias 1980: 119). There was also significant growth in the level of Bostonian financial interests in the island of Puerto Rico after the u.s. annexation in 1898. The commercial and trading ties that existed since the nineteenth century developed. In time Bostonian capital began to own directly sugar properties in the Island and also became involved in financing and banking.

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