Chinese Immigration To Puerto Rico - Chinese Influence in Puerto Rico

Chinese Influence in Puerto Rico

Chinese Puerto Ricans are involved in operating Chinese restaurants, and others work in other sectors. Many members of Puerto Rico's Chinese minority have integrated both Puerto Rican and Chinese cultures into their daily lives. Some Chinese have intermarried with Puerto Ricans and many of today's Chinese-Puerto Ricans actually have Hispanic surnames and are of mixed Chinese and Puerto Rican descent, e.g., Wu-Trujillo.

There are various businesses which are named "Los Chinos" (The Chinese) and there is a Valley in the town of Maunabo, Puerto Rico called "Quebrada Los Chinos" (The Chinese Stream). The Padmasambhava Buddhist Center, whose followers practice Tibetan Buddhism, has a branch in Puerto Rico.

Los Chinos de Ponce (English: "The Chinese from Ponce"), formally "King's Cream", is an ice cream store whose owners are actually descendants of Chinese immigrants who arrived to Puerto Rico via Cuba in the early 1960s. The ice cream parlor, which is in front of the town square, Plaza Las Delicias, opposite the historic Parque de Bombas, opened in 1964.

Illegal immigration of Chinese nationals has become a problem in Puerto Rico. On November 28, 2007, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that 15 citizens of the People's Republic of China were arrested and indicted for human smuggling. According to the indictment, the defendants participated in an alien smuggling organization operating out of the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. The organization dedicated itself to transporting, moving, concealing, harboring and shielding aliens. They arranged the transportation and moving of Chinese nationals from the Dominican Republic into the United States.