port. However, the Spanish reaped the profits of those goods, and Puerto Ricans did not benefit because the Spanish took the profits back to their country, leaving Puerto Ricans with nothing.Although Puerto Rico had once been a large exporter, Puerto Rico was now forced to import necessary items from outside countries such as Mexico and Peru. During the period where the United States acquired the country from Spanish rule, the country experienced tremendous economical growth with a large wave of immigration into the country from Africa between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After World War II, however, Puerto Rico’s agriculture-based economy quickly disappeared and transformed itself into one based on industrial production. Factories began replacing plantations under an economic arrangement that anticipated many aspects of the U.S.-Mexico Maquiladora program. Favorable tax laws encouraged the establishment of new industries in the electronics and pharmaceutical fields. Poverty was a problem on the island. This was not because the island lacked the necessary resources to be self-sufficient, but because the island did not have a strong workforce. Puerto Rico’s economic structure could not support their people (Carrasquillo and Sanchez-Korrol, 1996, p. 101), and because of this Puerto Ricans found themselves deserting from the industrial and poverty-ridden circumstances in their homeland to metropolitan cities in the mainland United States, mainly New York City.Puerto Ricans brought a tremendous amount of culture and heritage from their homeland when they arrived to the United States. Puerto Ricans began creating their own communities, or barrios, consisting of urban centers, small businesses and other formal and informal centers so that Puerto Ricans would not lose touch from where they came from. However, beneath their culture and heritage lied the problems that Puerto Ricans faced when they arrived to the ...
