Diasporic Puerto Rican Communities in Transformation

une in as we explore the Fall 2025 CENTRO Journal on Puerto Rican migration. Recent decades have witnessed economic, political, ecological, and socio-demographic changes that have engulfed Puerto Rico, with out-migration being a common response to such transformations. While the Puerto Rican diaspora was once concentrated in New York City and Chicago, Puerto Ricans from the States and the archipelago continue to migrate to non-traditional destinations across the country, with the current majority residing in Florida. In the last decade, states like Georgia, Ohio, and North Carolina have experienced significant growth in their Puerto Rican population.

Cascading events in the past two decades such as the expiration of Section 936 tax breaks, a prolonged economic recession, Puerto Rico’s unaudited debt and the subsequent imposition of the Puerto Rican Fiscal Oversight and Management Control Board (la Junta), Hurricanes Irma and Maria, the earthquakes of 2019–2020, and the COVID-19 pandemic, all have contributed to migration. Exploitative labor recruitment of Puerto Ricans from the archipelago by stateside companies continues to draw people away. Concurrently, the Puerto Rican diaspora has grown, and Puerto Rican communities have diversified, though less is known about how Puerto Rican families and communities in the diaspora have become heterogenous through patterns of exogamy, cultural identities, regionalism, social mobility, and other factors.

Image Credit: Caldero Familiar, 2024. Photo credit: Rik Sferra. Mixed media installation of found and altered objects with printed digital collage.

This event is made possible thanks to the Mellon funded Rooted + Relational initiative.