Celebrating the city's Puerto Rican heritage

Thursday marks the beginning of National Hispanic Heritage Month, a celebration of the histories, cultures, and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors hail from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

As festivities start across Philadelphia, consider the story of the city's Puerto Rican community, the second largest in the continental United States.

Puerto Rican goods and denizens traveled across the Atlantic long before the U.S. took formal control of the island in 1898 after the Spanish-American War. Pro-independence exiles, merchants, artisans, laborers, and students fleeing Spanish rule arrived in Philadelphia in the late 19th century.

Few made the 1,000-mile-plus journey at first. By 1910, fewer than 2,000 Puerto Ricans lived in the 48 states. It was not until the post-World War II economic boom that Philadelphia's Puerto Rican community began to grow in earnest.

According to the most recent Census Bureau figures, more than 133,000 Puerto Ricans called Philadelphia home in 2014, making up the city's largest and fastest-growing Latino group.

Despite these numbers and Puerto Ricans' long relationship with the U.S., many Americans are unaware of their fellow countrymen. A survey conducted this summer by the Economist and You-Gov found that fewer than half of mainland Americans considered Puertorriqueños natural-born U.S. citizens. Nearly the same percentage confused "Puerto Rican" with a separate national identity.

A civics refresher: The Caribbean island is classified as an unincorporated U.S. territory, along with Guam, American Samoa, and others. Granted American citizenship in 1917, Puerto Rican residents cannot vote in mainland general elections; nor do they have a vote in Congress. As citizens, those relocating to the U.S. are migrants, not immigrants.

With the Puerto Rican Day Parade held the final Sunday of September, Philadelphians receive a vibrant reminder of the intimate ties between the City of Brotherly Love and the Isle of Enchantment.

Hosted by the Council of Spanish Speaking Organizations, or El Concilio, the parade includes traditional dancers, floats, marching bands, city employees, and others traipsing down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway between 18th Street and Eakins Oval.

During a visit to Philadelphia, President Gerald R. Ford observed the revelers, saying, "The Puerto Rican Day Parade is a welcome opportunity to applaud the contributions of the Puerto Rican community to our national well-being."

The records of El Concilio documenting previous Puerto Rican Day parades - including photographs, fliers, and other ephemera - are available for research at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.