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Puerto Ricans Choose Florida, May Cause Political Shift
NewsMax.com Wires
Sunday, May 28, 2006
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Juaniuska Saldana thought about leaving Puerto Rico for years, but it took a two-week government shutdown earlier this month to get her to finally hop a plane to the U.S. mainland and scout out a new life.
Unlike previous generations, though, the 34-year-old computer technician and single mother skipped New York and other northern cities. Instead, she headed straight for Florida.
"I lived in New York City six years as a kid. It's a busy, more accelerated city, too much" she said. "I wanted to find a place that is safe for my son."
Saldana is not alone.
In recent months, Florida business and Puerto Rican community groups have been flooded with calls and visits from people looking to escape the island's latest political turmoil. The calls have subsided somewhat since Puerto Rico's legislators and governor reached a budget agreement that reopened the commonwealth's government offices and schools.
But experts say the frenzy highlights a demographic change that is just beginning to get notice and could have significant political effect in Florida and throughout the country - unlike other recent Hispanic immigrants,
Puerto Ricans, as U.S. citizens, can vote. "You don't have to wait for these immigrants to become naturalized and politicized," said Carlos Vargas-Ramos, a researcher at Hunter College's Center for Puerto Rican Studies.
For more than a decade, Puerto Ricans have slowly moved from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt. And nowhere is the change more noticeable than in Florida, which has supplanted New Jersey as the No. 2 state for mainland Puerto Ricans, behind New York. The number of Puerto Ricans in Florida was estimated at 656,300 in 2004, the latest year available, up 165 percent since 1990.
Much of that growth has come in the central Florida counties of Orange and Osceola, where nearly half of Florida's Puerto Ricans have settled.
The shift can be seen at "El Coqui Bakery & Deli," south of downtown Orlando, where the smells of roast pork and rice with gandules, or green pigeon peas, waft through the sunlit restaurant.
There, professionals and families sit beneath traditional pictures from the island and modern paintings by Puerto Rican artists.
Co-owner Chris Camacho, 41, was born in Long Island but raised in Puerto Rico. When he returned to the mainland six years ago, he chose Florida for the weather and community.
"There is such a need for a place like this," said Camacho, who opened the cafe nearly three years ago. "We're trying to make everyone comfortable. The modern young crowd and the older community."
Many of Camacho's customers lived in other parts of the U.S. before settling in Florida. Salvador Badillo, 30, who runs a cleaning company with his wife, spent 12 years in Connecticut before the cold finally drove him south. Now his father wants to join them.
"There it was so hard to find a job. You have to have a lot of experience and a degree," he said of the island. "Here you can start your own business. If you don't like the work, you change."
Experts say Florida's southern and central counties have drawn Puerto Ricans because they are more affordable than northern cities, have a booming service industry from tourism - think Disney - a warmer climate and a more laid back pace of life. They are also only a 2 1/2-hour plane ride from the island.
Luis Martinez-Fernandez, director of the University of Central Florida Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies Program, says central Florida is also attracting more educated Puerto Rican professionals, like Saldana, who are less drawn to the isolated enclaves that earlier generations sought out - or were forced into.
The critical mass is also starting to get notice from both major political parties. While Puerto Ricans have tended to vote Democratic, Republicans are eagerly wooing those in Florida. Earlier this month, the Republican Party's ensured that its booth was the first to great visitors at the regional Hispanic Business and Consumer Expo in Orlando.
State Rep. John Quinones, R-Kissimmee, the first Puerto Rican in the Legislature, has been touted as an up and coming leader by the state's top politicians since his 2003 election.
Democrats, though slower to dig in, are also beginning to see the potential of the Puerto Rican vote in Florida, Vargas-Ramos said. Democrats see the Puerto Ricans as a "counter" to Miami's predominantly Republican Cuban community, he said.
The growing influence of Puerto Ricans has also created some tension.
Last year the federal government filed suit over the way Osceola County commissioners are elected, saying the system, adopted in 1996, seeks to dilute Hispanic voting strength. The county is nearly 18 percent Puerto Rican and more than a quarter Hispanic but hasn't had a Hispanic commissioner since it adopted the new voting system. The case is ongoing.
But for Saldana, moving to Florida is not about politics.
"I want a place where I can find work, good schools for my 15-year-old son," she said from her home in San Juan. "I want a place where the government is not going to shut down."
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