that buy up land and replace coffee with tobacco and sugar production. Puerto Rico becomes a classic monoculture colony producing one crop for export to one market. The economic transformation results in high unemployment, desperate poverty, and migration to the U.S.

By 1930, 50,000 Puerto Ricans live in New York City including displaced agricultural workers, factory workers, skilled artisans, artists, students, and businessmen. Puerto Rican women become a major labor source for the City’s garment, manufacturing and service industry.

Puerto Ricans settle in Manhattan's Lower East Side, Upper West Side and Chelsea and in Brooklyn along the