Pub. date: 2006 | Online Pub. Date: September 15, 2007 | DOI: 10.4135/9781412952668 | Print ISBN: 9781412909488 | Online ISBN: 9781412952668| Publisher:SAGE Publications, Inc.About this encyclopedia
Puerto Rican Americans
Puerto Rican Americans are the second-largest Hispanic group in the United States (following Mexican Americans); they constitute approximately 10% of the Hispanic population and 1% of the total population in the United States. In a legal sense, Puerto Ricans in the United States are migrants, American citizens coming from a U.S. territory. However, their experiences in the mainland resemble those of immigrant groups, because they come from a Hispanic sociocultural tradition and speak Spanish as their primary language. Because Puerto Ricans move frequently from the island to the mainland and back, to understand the mental health issues among Puerto Rican Americans it is necessary to be familiar with their experiences both in the island and on the mainland United States. Cristóbal Colón landed in Puerto Rico (called Borikén by its inhabitants) in 1493 and claimed the island and its Taíno native population for Spain. By the 1800s, the Puerto Rican ...