Chinese Immigration To Puerto Rico - 20th Century

20th Century

When the United States enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act on May 6, 1882, many Chinese in the United States fled to Puerto Rico, Cuba and other Latin American nations. They established small niches and worked in restaurants and laundries. The Chinese Exclusion Act, was a United States federal law which implemented the suspension of Chinese immigration. After the Spanish-American War, Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States under the conditions established by the Treaty of Paris of 1898. Chinese workers in the United States were allowed to travel to Puerto Rico. Some worked in the island's sugar industry, but most worked in re-building Puerto Rico's infrastructure and rail systems. Many of the workers in Puerto Rico decided to settle permanently in the island.

One of the reasons that the Chinese community in Puerto Rico did not flourish was because, in 1899, the War Department ordered the American officials in Puerto Rico to enforce the Chinese exclusion laws as requested by the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. They believed that Chinese agents were preparing to flood Puerto Rico with Chinese from other countries, who hoped thereby to get into the United States later. Even though Chinese nationals were not allowed to go from Cuba to Puerto Rico, those who were in the United States were permitted to travel back and forth between the United States and Puerto Rico without restrictions. The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed by the 1943 Magnuson Act, although large scale Chinese immigration did not occur until the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965.

In 1959, thousands of business-minded Chinese fled Cuba, after the success Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro. One of the results of the communist revolution was that the state took over private property and nationalized all private-owned businesses. Most of the Cuban Chinese fled overseas and among the places where many of them settled were Puerto Rico, Miami and New York.