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Welcome to the California Puerto Rican History Project
The Puerto Rican community in Northern California goes back to November of 1900, when Puerto Rican workers being transported to Hawai'i for contract labor in the sugar industry arrived in San Francisco, after a grueling journey by ship and train. They had been recruited in the hurricane-devastated countryside of Puerto Rico, in some cases without knowing where they were being taken. They traveled by steamboat to New Orleans, and were loaded onto special Southern Pacific trains, and kept there by armed guards. The trains were parked by day, sometimes in the middle of the desert, and ran at night, in order to prevent the Japanese-led sugar workers labor movement from learning about this new influx of cheap labor. Disease spread through the trains, and passengers, especially children, died. Guards deposited their bodies at empty train depots during the night, in order to avoid investigations into health conditions on the train.
On their arrival in San Francisco, some continued to Hawai'i and made their lives there. Others would work for several years in Hawai'i and then return to San Francisco, and around fifty of the first group of migrants refused to board the ship to Hawai'i and founded the San Francisco Puerto Rican community.
In 1998, Puerto Rican historian and writer Aurora Levins Morales, and historian/archivist Nitza Medina obtained funding from the Western Region Puerto Rican Council and began collecting oral histories, photographs and documents about the history of that community. Photographer Barry Kleider was commissioned to take portraits of community elders. Additional funding from the Hayward Area Historical Society, allowed Dr. Levins Morales to collect additional oral histories, documents, historical recordings from early radio broadcasts, and to commission additional portraits. The exhibit California Century: Puerto Ricans in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1900-2000, opened in the summer of 2002.
On this site, you can explore the exhibit, listen to excerpts of oral histories, visit our image galleries and learn about organizations, publications and other resources on California Puerto Ricans,
On their arrival in San Francisco, some continued to Hawai'i and made their lives there. Others would work for several years in Hawai'i and then return to San Francisco, and around fifty of the first group of migrants refused to board the ship to Hawai'i and founded the San Francisco Puerto Rican community.
In 1998, Puerto Rican historian and writer Aurora Levins Morales, and historian/archivist Nitza Medina obtained funding from the Western Region Puerto Rican Council and began collecting oral histories, photographs and documents about the history of that community. Photographer Barry Kleider was commissioned to take portraits of community elders. Additional funding from the Hayward Area Historical Society, allowed Dr. Levins Morales to collect additional oral histories, documents, historical recordings from early radio broadcasts, and to commission additional portraits. The exhibit California Century: Puerto Ricans in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1900-2000, opened in the summer of 2002.
On this site, you can explore the exhibit, listen to excerpts of oral histories, visit our image galleries and learn about organizations, publications and other resources on California Puerto Ricans,