During the Great Depression, unemployment decreased incomes and increased the cost of living for working class Puerto Ricans. Landlessness, low wages, malnutrition, parasites, gastrointestinal diseases, and infectious illnesses caused a low life expectancy of 44 years (García-Colón 2020:40-41). World War II created more unemployment and food scarcity. By the 1940s, many rural workers still lived in small houses constructed of straw, pieces of castoff wood, metal from galvanized iron, and cardboard. These conditions led many agricultural workers to take advantage of any opportunity to migrate. The outbreak of the Second War facilitated the hiring by U.S. farmers of migrant contract workers from Mexico, Canada, and British West Indian territories, opening the possibility for Puerto Rico’s government officials to promote the hiring of Puerto Rican workers. Migration expanded the opportunities for a population suffering economic distress.
Image 1. Poor family husking corn outside their home. Photo taken by Jack Delano in July 1946. The Office of Information for Puerto Rico, Archives of the Puerto Rican Diaspora, Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, Hunter College, CUNY.
Image 2. A house built in a parcela in Toa Alta. Resident and his son building a latrine in the foreground. Photo taken by Edward Rosskam in November 1945. The Office of Information for Puerto Rico, Archives of the Puerto Rican Diaspora, Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, Hunter College, CUNY.
Image 3. Government of Puerto Rico’s pamphlet: División de Educación de la Comunidad. 1966. Emigración. San Juan: Departamento de Instrucción Pública.
Image 4. Farmworkers being recruited by an official of the Puerto Rico Department of Labor, circa 1950s. Courtesy of the Records of the Migration Division, Archives of the Puerto Rican Diaspora, Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, Hunter College, CUNY.
Image 5. Chartered flight with Puerto Rican migrant farm workers, circa 1948. Courtesy of the Records of the Migration Division, Archives of the Puerto Rican Diaspora, Centro de EstudiosPuertorriqueños, Hunter College, CUNY.
Image 6. Puerto Rican migrant farmworkers disembarking in Buffalo, New York, circa 1948. Courtesy of the Records of the Migration Division, Archives of the Puerto Rican Diaspora, Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, Hunter College, CUNY.
Image 7. PRDL official Eulalio Torres greeting migrant farmworkers arriving in the United States, circa 1948. Courtesy of the Records of the Migration Division, Archives of the Puerto Rican Diaspora, Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, Hunter College, CUNY.
Continue to: The Establishment of Puerto Rico Farm Labor Program
