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Residential Segregation on the Island: The Role of Race and Class in Puerto Rican Neighborhoods

2007; Wiley; Volume: 22; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1573-7861.2006.00004.x

1573-7861

Nancy A. Denton, Jacqueline Villarrubia,

Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

In this paper, we use racial data from Census 2000, available for the first time in 50 years, to examine the links among race, socioeconomic status, and residential location on the island of Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans overwhelmingly chose white as their race, and they chose only one race, not a combination of races that would seem more in keeping with the ideology of mestizaje. Overall, segregation by race is modest compared with residential segregation in the United States. In keeping with the Puerto Rican claim that class is more important than race, we find that segregation by race is generally lower than segregation between the lowest and highest income categories in all metro areas, but that the results for education and occupational status differ by metropolitan area. In San Juan‐Bayamón, the most diverse metropolitan area on the island, we find that as percent black increases, neighborhood socioeconomic status decreases, though the changes are not that stark, except in Loiza, a community of black Puerto Ricans and in some Dominican neighborhoods, though there are relatively few of these neighborhoods.