The Migration Division and its Work, 1947-1965

The first New York office director was Manual Cabranes followed by Jose/Joe Monserrat, both were second generation Puerto Ricans and trained as social workers in New York’s immigrant settlement houses.

The office developed a hybrid style that combined a consular component with the projection of the welfare state goals of a colonial government undergoing rapid transformation. Leaders of the Popular Democratic Party in Puerto Rico tried to make sure that the MD appear to be a-political even though it was formall a branch of the government of Puerto Rico in New York.  In the moments of the crassest sort of political interventions by the PPD in New York (the campaign by PPD authorities against American Labor Party leader Vito Marcantonio in 1949 and 1950) they kept the office out of the campaign even as its director (Cabranes) quietly facilitated information to Munoz Marin and others in Puerto Rico.

The Migration Division helped manage the expectations, rights and needs of migrants who considered themselves citizens of two nations. In this sense, the MD played the role of a consulate of sorts, that worked both to facilitate and legitimize the US citizenship rights of Puerto Rican migrants as much as to maintain and support the cultural and ethnic coherence of Puerto Ricans as a minority. By the mid-1950s anyone involved in work involving community services, welfare and work issues involving Puerto Ricans could recognize what labor journalist Mitchel Levitas stated in his New York Post articles: the Migration Division “is irreplaceable in helping the immigrants meet the multitude of strange and frightening problems in a land that is legally their own but which is foreign almost every other way."[4]

Once Clarence Senior became National Director in 1951, he worked aggressively with the labor unions to make them responsive to their growing Puerto Rican membership. For Senior and New York City office director Jose Monserrat, unions were fundamental pillars of American society, in Senior’s own words, “unions are one of the most important single institutions to help the speeding up of the adjustment process for Puerto Ricans.” He opposed restrictions on unions including the Taft Harley law and further measures proposed in Congress during the late 1950s.[5] The Migration Division refused to refer workers to worksites on strike and preferred unionized shops, steering workers away from worksites with the most complaints.

The Migration Division’s employment section monitored jobs and wages in New York’s economy and pushed local employment services (including the critical Federal USES) to hire Puerto Ricans. Soon the work expanded to include communication with the unions that organized the worksites where the office’s clients were referred.  The office was extremely sensitive to the condition of working class immigrants and their need to integrate with working class organizations. The MD employment section learned a lot about corrupt or unresponsive unions through the claims and complaints of workers against union officials. A 1952 complaint by young Puerto Rican workers at a ILGWU Local 91 garment shop led to an investigation by the Federal Department of Labor Wages and Hours division.[6] A similar complaint arrived in November 1953 from Carmen Cuesta and 30 Puerto Rican garment workers at Joan Douglass Underwear. They were not happy with Local 62 of ILGWU and reported they made about $30/week and not paid their overtime. After the intervention of Migration Division officials and other allies, the leader of the complaint, Laura Maldonado, had been elected assistant Chair Lady and the workers were offered 10% raises.[7]

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