Intra-Regional Migration: Puerto Rican and Dominican Migration to the United States Virgin Islands

Abstract

Puerto Ricans and Dominicans have arrived in the United States Virgin Islands (USVI) primarily as economic or working-class immigrants on the sugar plantations and in the construction and tourism industry. Over time, these immigrants have used their disadvantaged positions to expand connections between friends and families in the USVI as well as in their departed homeland. Socially, they have maintained their mores and folkways, but Puerto Ricans have shifted away from their insular environment, merging their peasant and professional ways with black Virgin Islanders to form a new Porto-Crucian ethnic group. Racial mixing has become a part of the Puerto Rican experience in the Virgin Islands. In contrast, the Dominican immigrants continue to arrive with little capital and limited educational skills. Their main challenge is adjustment and integration in pursuit of economic security. The lack of well-paying jobs and a limited command of the English language explain why Dominicans are less economically successful than other ethnic groups. The Dominicans are building themselves and their community in the Virgin Islands, however. Both immigrant groups have maintained their native Spanish language, although not always in its original form.