Race and ethnicity Background In the late 1700s, 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 were classified as white, the opposite of the "
one-drop rule" in the United States. A strong wave of European immigration and the large importation of slaves from Africa increased the population of Puerto Rico sixfold during the 19th century. No major immigration wave occurred during the 20th century. The federal
Naturalization Act, signed into law on March 26, 1790, by President Washington stated that immigrants to the United States had to be White according to the definition under the British Common Law, which the United States inherited. The legal definition of Whiteness differed greatly from White Society's informal definition, thus Jews, Romani Peoples, Middle Eastern Peoples and those of the Indian Subcontinent were before 1917 classified as White for Immigration purposes but not considered White by the society at large. The Naturalization Act of 1870, passed during Reconstruction, allowed for peoples of African descent to become U.S. Citizens but it excluded other nonwhites. The U.S. Supreme Court in the case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) declared that all nonwhites who were born in the United States were eligible for citizenship via the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment. U.S. Immigration Policy was first restricted toward Chinese with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Gentleman's Agreement of 1907 in which Japan voluntarily barred emigration to the United States and the Immigration Act of 1917 or the Asiatic Barred Zone which barred immigrants from all of the Middle East, the Steppes and the Orient, excluding the Philippines which was then a US Colony. European Jews and Romani, although of Asiatic Ancestry, were not affected by the Asiatic Barred Zone, as they held European Citizenship. The
Johnson-Reed act of 1924 applied only to the Eastern Hemisphere. The Act imposed immigration quotas on Europe, which allowed for easy immigration from Northern and Western Europe, but almost excluded the Southern and Eastern European Nations. Africa and Asia were excluded altogether. The Western Hemisphere remained unrestricted to immigrate to the United States. Thus under the Immigration Act of 1924 all Hispanics and Caribbeans could immigrate to the United States, but a White family from Poland or Russia could not immigrate. Puerto Rican Citizenship was created under the Foraker Act, Pub.L. 56–191, 31 Stat. 77 but it wasn't until 1917 that Puerto Ricans were granted full American Citizenship under the Jones–Shafroth Act (Pub.L. 64–368, 39 Stat. 951). Puerto Ricans, excluding those of obvious African ancestry, were like most Hispanics formally classified as White under U.S. Law.
Censuses 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. According to the 1920 Puerto Rico 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, and 135 from the Dominican Republic). During the same 10-year period, 7,873 Puerto Ricans emigrated to the U.S. Of these, 6,561 were listed as "white" on the U.S mainland census, 909 as "Spanish white" and 403 as "black". 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 majority of the Puerto Rican population was white from 1899 to 2000. • White alone 2,495,997 • Black or African American alone 301,519 • American Indian and Alaska Native alone 11,775 • Asian alone 10,159 • Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone 129 • Some Other Race alone 431,443 • Two or More Races 332,051 • Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 3,547,288 • White alone, Not Hispanic or Latino 24,900 In 2020, the Census Bureau reported the following data: • White alone 560,592 • Black or African American alone 228,711 • American Indian and Alaska Native alone 17,870 • Asian alone 4,001 • Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone 593 • Some Other Race alone 838,316 • Two or More Races 1,635,791 • Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 3,249,043 • White alone, Not Hispanic or Latino 24,548 In the 2020 census, the percentage of the population identifying as white dropped to 17.1%, down from 75.8% in the 2010 census. A similar drop in identification as white was seen among Hispanics in the 50 states and
Washington, D.C., where the percentage of
Hispanics identifying as white dropped from 53.0% to 20.3%. The change has been attributed to the wording of the Spanish-language version of the census questionnaire.
Genetic studies Puerto Ricans, on average, have genetic contributions from Europeans, West Africans, and Native Americans of approximately 66%, 18%, and 16%, respectively. showed 66% of Puerto Ricans could trace their ancestry to male European ancestors, 18% could trace it to male African ancestors, and 16% could trace it to male Native American ancestors.
Non-Hispanic population In 2020, non-Hispanic residents of Puerto Rico made up 1.1% of the population, up from 1.0% in 2010. Their highest concentrations are in
Culebra (10.8%),
Vieques (8.0%),
Rincón (5.1%),
Dorado (3.4%),
Luquillo (2.9%),
San Juan (2.2%)
Guaynabo (2.1%) and
Humacao (2.0%).
Women in the diaspora In a study done on Puerto Rican women (of all races) born on the island but living in New York by Carolina Bonilla,
Mark D. 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. Although
autosomal markers tests seem to draw a more broad picture than that of single, gender-based
mtDNA and
Y-Chromosome tests, the problem with autosomal DNA is in the archaic categories used: "European", "Sub-Saharan African", "East Asian" & "Native American". "Asian" (South, North or East) & "North African" are not included. These generalized categories may not take into account the complexity of migratory patterns across the Old World. The study also found that, from the women sampled, 98% had European ancestry markers, 87% had African ancestry markers, 84% had Native American ancestry markers, 5% showed only African and European markers, 4% showed mostly Native American and European markers, 2% showed only African markers, and 2% showed mostly European markers. ==Religion==