HispanicVista Columnists
Puerto Rican Pioneers In New York City: Forging an Urban Path
- HISTORY
- Puerto Rican Pioneers In New York City: Forging an Urban Path
- By John P. Schmal
-
In New York’s General Election of November 2, 1937, residents of New York City’s Seventeenth Assembly District went to their neighborhood voting stations to vote for three candidates: a Republican, a Democratic and a Socialist. By the time the polling booths had closed, the three candidates had received the following votes:
- Meyer Alterman, the Democratic candidate – 6,218 votes
- Oscar Garcia-Rivera, the Republican candidate – 8,798 votes
- Jose Castro, the Socialist candidate – 275 votes
-
New York’s Red Book of 1938 tells us that another 2,516 votes out of the 17,807 cast were categorized as “unrecorded.” With this vote, Oscar Garcia Rivera became the first Puerto Rican to hold elective office in the continental United States. Although the Democratic Party held considerable power in the Northeast during this period of American history, the people of Spanish Harlem had cast their vote for a Republican – and for a native-born Puerto Rican – who would serve their community in the New York State Assembly for three years (up to 1940).
Born November 6, 1900 in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, Garcia Rivera attended primary and secondary schools in Mayaguez before coming to New York City in 1925. Even at an early age, Oscar had demonstrated exceptional scholarship and leadership qualities. He served as Valedictorian at the Escuela Central Grammar (Junior High School) and was later elected as Class President at the Mayaguez High School in 1925.
After moving to New York, García Rivera became active in union causes and eventually fulfilled his dream to study law at Columbia University. In 1930, he became one of the pioneer law graduates from the St. John's University School of Law, which had been established three years earlier. He was admitted to the Bar of the State of New York in 1934 and then established his own law firm.
When Garcia Rivera decided to run for office 1937, he received widespread support from many notable politicians, including Mayor LaGuardia. With his election, Garcia Rivera became the first Puerto Rican in history to be elected to public office in the continental United States. In 1938, Garcia Rivera was refused renomination by the Republic party. The Republican County Committee decided to swing its support to an African-American attorney, John Ross, because Garcia Rivera “hung around too much with Communists and members of the American Labor Party.” But, Garcia Rivera was determined to his serve his community and, according to historian Angelo Falcon, he charged a “Tammany plot” and ran instead on the American Labor party line and defeated the Republican candidate.
During this short stay in the New York Assembly, Assemblyperson Garcia Rivera became a strong advocate of minimum wage laws, controlled working hours and the right of workers to organize. Even after leaving office, he continued to play a significant role in New York’s Republican Party, as a member and officer in the New York Puerto Rican Republican Association.
Oscar Garcia Rivera became a pioneer for the Puerto Rican legislators who would follow in the subsequent decades. Between 1940 and 1950, the Puerto Rican population of New York City increased from 61,463 to 254,880. And by 1960, it had reached 612,574. With their growing population came a new political clout. In 1953, Ed Flynn, boss of the Bronx County Democratic organization, selected Felipe N. Torres as candidate for the New York State Assembly. With the support of Bronx Democrats, Torres won his bid for office.
Born in Salinas, Puerto Rico, Felipe Torres had graduated from Ponce High School, Puerto Rico, and served as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War I. Shortly after the war, he came to New York (in 1919). After receiving an LL.B. degree from Fordham University Law School, Señor Torres was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1927 and engaged in the general practice of law. Felipe N. Torres was first elected to as a member of the Assembly to fill a vacancy in the Bronx’s Fifth District. Reelected four time times, Assemblyman Torres served in this position until 1962.
As Señor Torres represented his constituents in the Bronx, he was joined by another Puerto Rican in the New York Legislature. In 1958, Jose Ramos Lopez, a Democrat, was elected to represent the 14th Assembly District of New York County.
Mr. Ramos Lopez was born on December 2, 1915 at Bayamon, Puerto Rico, but attended primary schools and high school in New York City. He received his LL.B. degree from St. John’s University Law School in 1939 and after practicing law for a few years became the Deputy Commissioner in the New York City Department of Correction from 1953 to 1954.
As a representative for his Manhattan district, Assemblyman Ramos Torres sponsored bills to provide collective bargaining rights, unemployment insurance and workers' compensation for hospital workers. He also sought to ease voting restrictions for Puerto Ricans by omitting a literacy test for any who had voted previously. In 1964, he easily won reelection to the 14th district, defeating the Republican candidate by 18,380 to 1,135 votes. In 1967 he was elected as a Civil Court judge and in 1978 he was appointed an acting State Supreme Court justice, serving until his retirement in 1985 in the civil division of Supreme Court in Manhattan.
With the publication of the 1960 census, it was revealed that Puerto Ricans represented 9.2% of the population of New York City. Although Puerto Ricans represented almost one in every ten New Yorker, their representation in the Assembly was only 1% (two of out 50 seats).
In the 1962 General Election, one more Puerto Rican elected official took his place in the New York Assembly. Carlos M. Rios, a Democrat-Liberal born in Ponce, Puerto Rico on March 5, 1914, was elected to represent the 10th Assembly District of the Yorkville, East Harlem area of New York County. Although he only served until 1965, Assemblyman Rios would become one of the founders of the Puerto Rican National Civil Rights Organization and of the Legion of Voters.
Two years later, Eugene Rodriguez, a native of New York City and graduate of the Brooklyn Law School, was elected to serve the Fourth Assembly District. He had served with counter-intelligence corps of the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict. Assemblyman Rodriguez would soon be followed to the Assembly by Robert Garcia.
Puerto Ricans have a long tradition of serving in the American military and received acclaim for their heroic contributions to the American cause during the Korean War. In 1950, Robert Garcia, a native of the South Bronx, enlisted in the U.S. Army. He served in the 15th Regimental Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division and earned two Bronze Stars during the Korean War. After the war he attended City College of New York and New York Community College. In 1957 he trained as a computer programmer at the RCA Institute and worked as a computer engineer until 1965. In 1965, Mr. Garcia was elected to the New York Assembly and two years later he became the first Puerto Rican elected to the New York State Senate. By 1975 he had risen to the rank of Deputy Minority Leader. He would serve as a Representative to Congress from 1978 to 1990.
These six men were pioneers. Their determination and effort paved the way for many politicians, including Herman Badillo, who would become the first Puerto Rican elected as a Representative of New York to the U.S. Congress in 1971.
- Sources:
- Baver, Sherrie. “Puerto Rican Politics in New York City: The Post-World War II Period,” In James Jennings and Monte Rivera, Puerto Rican Politics in Urban America (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1984).
- East Harlem News. “People, Places and Events in our Community: Oscar Garcia Rivera,” January 1, 2000: Online: <http://www.east-harlem.com/mt/archives/000102.html>. [Accessed June 10, 2006].
- Falcon, Angelo. “A History of Puerto Rican Politics in New York City: 1860s to 1945,” In James Jennings and Monte Rivera, Puerto Rican Politics in Urban America (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1984).
- Hartman, Myron D. (ed.). The New York Red Book, 1961-1962 (Albany, New York: Williams Press, Inc., 1961).
- Hartman, Myron D. The New York Red Book, 1965-1966 (Albany, New York: Williams Press, Inc., 1965-66).
- Hutchins, Mason C. (ed.). An Illustrated State Manuel: The New York Red Book, 1938 (Albany: J.B. Lyon Company, Publishers, 1938).
- New York Times, June 30, 1938.
- Sánchez Korrol, Virginia E. From Colonia to Community: The History of Puerto Ricans in New York City (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).
- _______________________________________________________________________
-
John Schmal was born and raised in Los Angeles, California.
He attended Loyola-Marymount University in Los Angeles and St. Cloud State
University in Minnesota, where he studied Geography, History and Earth
Sciences and received two BA degrees. Mr. Schmal has been a life-long
history buff and is also a skilled genealogist. His genealogical specialties
including tracing lineages in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Southwestern
U.S.A. He is the coauthor of "Mexican-American Genealogical Research:
Following the Paper Trail to Mexico" (Heritage Books, 2002). He has
also coauthored three other books on Mexican-American themes, all of them
published by Heritage Books in Maryland. He is an Associate Editor of
www.somosprimos.com and a board member of the Society of Hispanic
Historical and Ancestral Research (SHHAR). Presently, in addition to writing
weekly columns for HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com),
he is writing a book on the indigenous peoples of Mexico
and on the ports of entry along the Mexican-US border. Mr. Schmal has
a passionate love of Mexican history and has been writing short histories of
each state, which are being compiled at the following link:
http://www.houstonculture.org/mexico/states.html