STRUGGLING FOR SPACE, CREATING LATINA/O URBAN CULTURES

How did the environment of living and working conditions of NYC in the early to mid-1900’s effect incoming Puerto Ricans health?  Was it their fault or NYC’s for the outcomes?  In this blogpost I will argue that the poor living and working conditions that were supplied for Puerto Rican immigrants, did in fact contribute greatly to their overall health and well-being.  I will also argue about how they were perceived when immigrating into the country and how that led to this type of treatment and low standard of living. 

To start off, why did Puerto Ricans want to immigrate to the U.S. in the first place?  They saw job opportunities, congressional legislature, efficient transportation routes, a new way of life, a healthier and more prosperous life. (pg. 28) Little did they know that they would be looked down upon as this problem for NYC, and later deemed as “The Puerto Rican Problem.”  Puerto Ricans seen as a problem to NYC because they were bringing in disease, living in densely populated areas, and incorporated a dirty life style that was meant to ruin the “NYC way of life.”  Not many people stopped to think that it was possibly NYC’s problem, and that it was the reason there was a Puerto Rican problem.  Puerto Ricans were put up in the ghetto of public housing.  I don’t know about you but that doesn’t seem to clean to start off with!  The U.S. was looked at as the land of opportunity, not the land of stay cramped and get by.  Living in the conditions that they had was what created this problem.  Close living quarters is a disease playground and combine that with high volumes of people and then you have an unsanitary/dirty living environment.  I believe that the Puerto Ricans were not the reason for this, but the city itself and how they went about handling the immigrants was.

Also looking into just the Puerto Ricans personal health, it was not improved when they moved to the U.S.  Many of the jobs that were given to Puerto Ricans were blue collar.  In 1930-36, the highest numbers of job hiring’s were in laborers and construction, laundry and factories. (pg. 33) I know from my experience with the topic of job safety and health, that these are among the top when it comes to injury and disease.  Puerto Ricans left in hopes of a better life and to be settled down in a new job in a factory was not it.   There are immediate health risks such as personal injury due to equipment, exposure to factory chemicals, sickness due to long hours of work, high prevalence of asthma forming, etc.  There were also long term effects like respiratory problems and cancer later on in life.  So I could ask the real question, did NYC really turn out to be the sanctuary that most Puerto Ricans believed it to be?

Source: Sanchez Korrol, Virginia E. 1994. From Colonia to Community: The History of Puerto Ricans in New York City. Ch. 2 [31]