Puerto Rican Hartford: A Model for Publicly Engaged Community History

Four New England cities feature in the top ten cities for the Puerto Rican population in the United States, a demographic trend that is important for understanding contemporary migration and settlement patterns of one of the fastest growing groups in the New England area. Connecticut currently has the sixth-largest Puerto Rican population on the U.S. mainland, with Puerto Ricans comprising 8.5% of the state’s total population and over half of the state’s total Latinx population. Additionally, in 2021, Hartford’s Puerto Rican residents comprised 34% of the city’s population according to the American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates. This paper will delve into how Hartford became a Puerto Rican city. To support this claim, it will profile Puerto Rican individuals, institutions, churches, mutual aid organizations, businesses, and civil rights organizations to demonstrate how and why Puerto Ricans have made Hartford their home. The paper combines oral histories and community archives to document the historical experiences of Puerto Rican working-class people and tobacco workers. The paper will discuss how this approach provides an understanding of Hartford's transformation from an individual and community perspective that centers and uplifts Puerto Rican experiences and voices and the implications for local and regional migration and settlement in New England.