The Puerto Rican population in the United States can be divided into people living in Puerto Rico and those living in one of the states. Over three million U.S. citizens live in Puerto Rico, which is a territory of the United States. Roughly six million Puerto Ricans live in the states — nearly double the number living on the Island. The number of Puerto Ricans living in the states is increasing, while the number living on the Island continues to fall.
All data from the U.S. Census Bureau
Where do stateside Puerto Ricans live?
- Florida has had the largest population of Puerto Ricans in the U.S., surpassing New York after Hurricane Maria hit the Island in 2017. The most recent data from the Census Bureau shows 1,302,970 Puerto Ricans in the state.
- New York is next, with 1,001,051.
After Florida and New York, the numbers drop but are still significant.
- Pennsylvania is number three, with 492,463.
- New Jersey is next up with 484,119.
- Massachusetts has 330,470.
- Connecticut follows with 301,931, which is almost half of its Hispanic population.
- Texas and California have both surpassed the 200,000 threshold. Census takers most recently counted 213,610 Puerto Ricans in California and 258,571 in Texas. These two states are the most populous in the Union, so the percentage of Puerto Ricans is much smaller than in a state like Connecticut, but the numbers are still significant.
Five states have reached the 100,000 level. Illinois, with 181,925, has long had a Puerto Rican community based in Chicago. Other states have joined the ranks in recent years: Georgia at 130,276; North Carolina, 150,526; Ohio at 153,653; and Virginia with 118,723.
The remaining states had fewer than 100,000 Puerto Rican residents. Montana has fewer than 2,000. Arkansas, Mississippi, Maine, the District of Columbia, New Mexico, Alaska, Nebraska, West Virginia, and Idaho (as well as Montana) all have fewer than 10,000 Puerto Rican residents.
What language do stateside Puerto Ricans speak?
Among the states mentioned above, nearly all had 46-64% “English only” speakers. In most of the 50 states, over half of the Puerto Ricans counted said that they spoke only English. The proportion who spoke a second language ranged from 36% to 67%. Surprisingly, the smallest percentages of Spanish speakers lived in California and Arizona, both states in which Spanish is widely spoken.
Loss of Spanish in the Puerto Rican Diaspora
If trends continue and the Puerto Rican population in the United States continues to grow while the population in Puerto Rico itself continues to shrink, fewer and fewer Puerto Ricans will be speaking Spanish.
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