Atlas of Hispanic-American History

Puerto Ricans:

Life on the Island

At the end of the 20th century, Puerto
Rico continued to be economically suc-
cessful by the standards of other
Caribbean nations, but not by the stan-
dards of the United States. In 1995 Puerto
Rico’s per-capita gross product of $7,662
was a third of the average U.S. citizen’s
income on the mainland but was nearly
twice as high as the Dominican Republic’s
per-capita gross income and six times as
high as Cuba’s. As of the mid-1990s,
unemployment hovered at about 15 to 20
percent, and at least half of the population
of Puerto Rico lived below the U.S.
poverty line.
Puerto Rico’s status remained con-
troversial, and the actions of a few inde-
pendentista terrorists remained highly
visible in the century’s closing decades.
For example, in 1983 a terrorist group
called Los Macheteros (“bearers of
machetes,” the traditional Caribbean
sword) gained notoriety for robbing $1.7
million from an armored car company in
West Hartford, Connecticut. However,
few Puerto Ricans advocate outright
independence from the United States. In
a 1993 plebiscite, only 4 percent of
Puerto Ricans voted for independence.
Though independence from the
United States is not a popular option for
most Puerto Ricans, the 1993 vote

showed considerable division about

whether Puerto Rico should remain a

commonwealth or become a state. The

48.6 percent of voters who opted to retain

commonwealth status carried the day, but

with only a slight margin over the 46.3

percent of voters calling for statehood.

Statehood would give Puerto Ricans full

representation in Congress, but it might

also bring economic problems, since fed-

eral tax exemptions for businesses and

individuals would come to an end. If

Puerto Rico does ultimately become a

state, it will be the first with an almost

entirely Hispanic population.

CUBA AND

CUBAN AMERICANS

The story of the Cuban-American com-

munity since the 1970s has inevitably

been intertwined with the political rela-

tionship between the United States and

Cuba—just as it had in the years immedi-

ately following Castro’s takeover in 1959.

Although the United States has not

trained and sponsored a direct invasion of

Cuba since the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and the

former Soviet Union has not attempted

to place nuclear weapons in Cuba since

the Cuban missile crisis ended, the U.S.

government and the government of Fidel

Castro continued to play games of polit-

ical brinksmanship against each other.

A CHANGING COMMUNITY 205

Puerto Rican Population Distribution, 2000