Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Emigrating Puerto Ricans now favor Florida

Climate and nearness to family still on the island are big reasons the state has moved ahead of New York, a study says.

ORLANDO - Wanting a change in life, Mildred Fernandez took early retirement from IBM and moved from Puerto Rico to the Orlando area a dozen years ago because of its climate and closeness to family and friends still on the island.

She wasn't alone.

During the 1990s, Florida replaced New York as the top destination for Puerto Rican migration to the mainland, according to a study released Thursday.

Florida's proximity to the U.S. territorial island, its warm weather, its reputation as a retirement haven and declines in manufacturing jobs in New York combined to cause the change in pattern, according to the study by Jorge Duany of the University of Puerto Rico and Felix Matos-Rodriguez of Hunter College. They released the study at a Hispanic Summit sponsored by the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce.

"Puerto Ricans are still concentrated in New York City ... but over the last four decades, the proportion of Puerto Ricans living in New York has declined drastically," Duany said.

New York state still has the largest proportion of Puerto Ricans living on the mainland, but its share declined from almost 75 percent in 1960 to less than a third in 2000. About 1.05-million Puerto Ricans now live in the state.

By contrast, Florida's share of mainland Puerto Ricans has grown from more than 2 percent in 1960 to 14 percent in 2000, giving the Sunshine State the second-largest concentration. About 571,000 Puerto Ricans now live in Florida.

"Florida has weather very similar to Puerto Rico," said Fernandez, who is now an Orange County commissioner. "We're also so close to Puerto Rico. That's one of the basic considerations. A lot of people leave family back on the island and they want easy communications."

Orlando now has the fourth-largest Puerto Rican population in the continental U.S., trailing New York, Philadelphia and Chicago.

Jim Carlson Otero's Puerto Rican parents settled in Orlando in 1984 to get away from a crime wave on the island. Since then about 40 relatives have followed from Puerto Rico.

"Family is a No. 1 reason people move here," said Otero, a community outreach coordinator for the city of Orlando.

Puerto Ricans in Central Florida tend to be less segregated from people of other cultures than their counterparts in Northeast cities, Duany said.

"They look very different from the so-called "barrios' in the Northern cities," Duany said of Puerto Rican neighborhoods in Central Florida. "These are primarily suburban housing, subdivisions. ... Many are able to buy good houses in quality neighborhoods."

However, Central Florida Puerto Ricans still lag behind other Hispanics and non-Hispanics in key areas of income, education and the ability to speak English well, according to the study.

"Puerto Ricans have a long ways to go in ... achieving socio-economic equality," Duany said.

The study says Florida's estimated 571,000 Puerto Rican immigrants are concentrated in three main areas:

Orlando area - 206,000

Miami-Dade, Broward - 155,000

Tampa area - 68,000

[Last modified March 4, 2005, 00:30:22]