Demographics_of_Puerto

Demographics of Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico
Population	3,927,776
Male population	1,887,087
Female population	2,040,689
Population growth	0.47%
Birth rate	13.93/1,000
Death rate	7.86/1,000
Infant mortality rate	8.24/1,000
Life expectancy	78.29 years
Nationality	Puerto Rican
Demographic bureaus	2000, United States Census

The inhabitants of Puerto Rico immediately before the first European contact were part of the Arawak group of Native Americans (also known as American Indians due to some historical confusion). They called themselves Boriquen (alt. Borikén, Borinquén, Boricuas) and were named by Christopher Columbus in 1493 as the Taíno, along with the inhabitants of other nearby islands. (The Taíno had replaced the original human culture on the island, the Ortoiroid.)

Immigration

Population - Puerto Rico ¹
year	Population
1765	44,883
1800	155,426
1815	220,892
1860	583,308
1899	953,243
1910	1,118,012
1930	1,543,913
1940	1,869,255
1950	2,210,703
1970	2,712,033
1990	3,522,037
2000	3,808,610
The censuses from 1765 to 1887 were taken by the Spanish Government

The Spanish conquered the island, assuming government in 1508, colonized it, and enslaved the natives. Taíno numbers dwindled due to disease, warfare, and forced labor, and the Spanish began importing large numbers of slaves from Africa. Spanish men arrived on the island disproportionately to Spanish women; Taíno women were sometimes forced to marry them, resulting in a mestizo, or "mixed" ethnicity. Some women used marriage to white men to improve their social status; "cleanliness of blood" documents were used on the island until the 1870s.^{citations needed}

During the 1800s, hundreds of Corsican, French, Lebanese, Chinese, and Portuguese families, along with large numbers of immigrants from Spain (mainly from Catalonia, Asturias, Galicia, the Balearic Islands, Andalusia, and the Canary Islands) and numerous Spanish loyalists from Spain's former colonies in South America, arrived in Puerto Rico. Other settlers have included Irish, Scots, Germans, Italians, and thousands others who were granted land from Spain during the Real Cedula de Gracias de 1815 (Royal Decree of Graces of 1815), which allowed European Catholics to settle in the island with a certain amount of free land and enslaved persons. This mass immigration during the 19th century helped the population grow from 155,000 in 1800 to almost a million at the close of the century. During the early 20th century Jews began to settle in Puerto Rico. The first large group of Jews to settle in Puerto Rico were European refugees fleeing German–occupied Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. The second influx of Jews to the island came in the 1950s, when thousands of Cuban Jews fled after Fidel Castro came to power.²

In recent years, over 100,000 legal immigrants from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Venezuela, have also settled in Puerto Rico, but together they represent less than 5% of the population.^{citation needed}

Emigration

The word Nuyorican is sometimes used to describe Puerto Rican New Yorkers. The Spanish word for "Puerto Rican" is puertorriqueños.

Race and ethnicity

Race - Puerto Rico ³⁴
Year	White %	Non-White %
1802	48.0	52.0
1812	46.8	53.2
1820	44.4	55.6
1830	50.1	49.9
1877	56.3	43.7
1887	59.5	40.5
1897	64.3	35.7
1899	61.8	38.2
1910	65.5	34.5
1920	73.0	27.0
1930	74.3	25.7
1935	76.2	23.8
1940	76.5	23.5
1950	79.7	20.3
2000	80.5	19.5
2006est:	75.4	24.6
Racial composition of the Puerto Rican population, by the census, 1802-2000

Racial demographic history

The first census by the United States in 1899 reported a population of 953,243 inhabitants, 61.8% of them classified as white, 31.9% as mixed, and 6.3% as black.

A strong European immigration wave and large importation of slaves from Africa helped increase the population of Puerto Rico over thirteenfold during the 19th century, no doubt significantly diluting the Native American portion of the Puerto Rican gene pool. No major immigration wave occurred during the 20th century. ⁵

The federal Naturalization Act, signed into law on March 26, 1790, by President Washington, explicitly barred anyone not of the White "race" from applying for U.S. citizenship. This law remained in effect until the 1950s, although its enforcement was tightened in the late nineteenth century regarding Asian immigrants, and by the Johnson-Reed act of 1924 imposing immigration quotas. In short, until late in the twentieth century, only immigrants of the White "race" could hope to become naturalized citizens. This is how Puerto Rico came about being forced to become U.S citizens in 1917.⁶⁷

Until 1950 the U.S. Bureau of the Census attempted to quantify the racial composition of the island's population, while experimenting with various racial taxonomies. In 1960 the census dropped the racial identification question for Puerto Rico but included it again in the year 2000. The only category that remained constant over time was white, even as other racial labels shifted greatly—from "colored" to "Black," "mulatto," and "other". Regardless of the precise terminology, the census reported that the bulk of the Puerto Rican population was white from 1899 to 2000.⁸

An interesting anecdote to consider was that during this whole period, Puerto Rico had laws like the Regla del Sacar or Gracias al Sacar where a person of mixed ancestry could be considered legally white so long as they could prove that at least one person per generation in the last four generations had also been legally white. Therefore people of mixed ancestry with known white lineage where classified as white.⁹¹⁰

According to the 1920 Puerto Rican census, 2,505 individuals immigrated to Puerto Rico between 1910 and 1920. Of these, 2,270 were classified as "white" in the 1920 census (1,205 from Spain), (280 from Venezuela), (180 from Cuba), & (135 from the Dominican Republic). Although, in the same decade 7873 Puerto Ricans emigrated to the U.S, out of these 6561 were "white" on the U.S mainland census, 909 as "Spanish white" and 403 as "black".¹¹

The statistics show Puerto Rican's responses to the 2000/census 2006/survey, asking which race(s) they identify with. (The U.S. Census does not consider Hispanic a race, and asks if a person considers himself Hispanic in a separate question.) Although, the term "Hispanic" specifically refers to a person residing in the United States or Latin America of Spanish descent.

Genetic studies

A recent study of Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 800 individuals found 61.1% as having Amerindian maternal mtDNA, 26.4% as having African maternal mtDNA, and 12.5% as having Caucasian maternal mtDNA.¹⁷ Conversely, patrilineal input, as indicated by the Y chromosome, showed that 70% of all Puerto Rican males have inherited Y chromosome DNA from a male European ancestor, 20% have inherited Y chromosome DNA from a male African ancestor, and fewer than 10% have inherited Y chromosome DNA from a male Amerindian ancestor.

Dr. Juan Martinez Cruzado, a geneticist from the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez who participated in the design of the mDNA study, said accounts of life on Puerto Rico in the 1600 and 1700s "describe many aspects that are totally derived from Taino modus vivendi, not just the hammocks but the way they fished, their methods of farming, etc....It is clear that the influence of Taino culture was very strong up to about 200 years ago. If we could conduct this same study on the Puerto Ricans from those times, the figure would show that 80 percent of the people had Indian heritage."

Conversely, in a study done on Puerto Rican women born on the island but living in NY by Carolina Bonilla, Mark Shriver and Esteban Parra in 2004, the ancestry proportions corresponding to the three parental populations were found to be 53.3±2.8% European, 29.1±2.3% West African, and 17.6±2.4% Native American based on autosomal ancestry informative markers. Autosomal markers tests have been shown to draw a larger picture than that of gender based mtDNA and Y-Chromosome tests. More interesting was to see how much of the population showed any markers of each region. 98% of the people sampled had European ancestry markers, 87% had African ancestry markers, 84% had Native American ancestry markers, 5% showed only African and European markers, 4% showed only Native American and European markers, 2% showed only African markers, and 2% showed only European markers. ¹⁸

Religion

The Roman Catholic Church has been historically the most dominant religion of the majority of Puerto Ricans, with Puerto Rico having the first dioceses in the Americas.¹⁹ The presence of various Protestant denominations has increased under American sovereignty, making modern Puerto Rico an interconfessional country. Protestantism was suppressed under the Spanish regime, but encouraged under American rule of the island. Puerto Rico is also home to the largest and richest Jewish community in the Caribbean with 3,000 Jewish inhabitants. Many Puerto Ricans have converted, not only as individuals but as entire families. Puerto Rico is the only Caribbean island in which the Conservative, Reform and Orthodox Jewish movements are represented.²²⁰

Taíno religious practices have to a degree been rediscovered/reinvented by a handful of advocates. Various African religious practices have been present since the arrival of enslaved Africans. In particular, the Yoruba beliefs of Santeria and/or Ifá, and the Kongo-derived Palo Mayombe (sometimes called an African belief system, but rather a way of Bantu lifestyle of Congo origin) find adherence among very few individuals who practice some form of African traditional religion.

Miscellaneous

CIA World Factbook demographic statistics

Age structure:
0-14 years: 22% (male 441,594; female 421,986)
15-64 years: 65.5% (male 1,228,583; female 1,337,066)
65 years and over: 12.4% (male 211,283; female 276,120) (2005 est.)

Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 0.92 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.76 male(s)/female
total population: 0.92 male(s)/female (2005 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 78.29 years
male: 74.35 years
female: 82.43 years (2005 est.)

Nationality:
noun: American (US citizens) (Puerto Rican is akin to Pennsylvanian or Floridian or Hawaiian)
adjective: Puerto Rican

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 94.1%
male: 93.9%
female: 94.4% (2002 est.)

Contents

History of migration