Joseph Carvalho III, “The Puerto Rican Community of Western Massachusetts, 1898-1960” Historical Journal of Massachusetts Volume 43, No. 2 (Summer 2015). Published by: Institute for Massachusetts Studies and Westfield State University You may use content in this archive for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the Historical Journal of Massachusetts regarding any further use of this work:
[email protected] Funding for digitization of issues was provided through a generous grant from MassHumanities. Some digitized versions of the articles have been reformatted from their original, published appearance. When citing, please give the original print source (volume/ number/ date) but add "retrieved from HJM's online archive at http://www.wsc.ma.edu/mhj. 34 Historical Journal of Massachusetts • Summer 2015 War Ally Following the Spanish-American War in 1898, the U.S. annexed the island of Puerto Rico, where members of the 2nd Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment spent time after a battle in Cuba. The image above shows a flag used by a Puerto Rican regiment, the Third Provisional Battalion, deployed by Spain to defend Cuba during the Spanish- American War. After the war, the unit became the Porto Rico Voluntary Infantry under U.S. command. By 1920, it was the 65th Regiment, U.S. Infantry. 35 The Puerto Rican Community of Western Massachusetts, 1898–1960 JOSEPH CARVALHO III Abstract: This article attempts to chronicle the earliest connections between Western Massachusetts and Puerto Rico, and the experiences of earliest Puerto Rican residents of the region. Regional newspapers with special emphasis on the largest three newspapers in Western Massachusetts—the Springfield Republican, the Springfield Daily News, and the Springfield Union; the U.S.