Portal:Hispanic and Latino Americans/Featured article/11

Garment factory worker

The History of women in Puerto Rico traces back its roots to the Taíno, the inhabitants of the island before the arrival of Spaniards. During the Spanish colonization the cultures and customs of the Taíno, Spanish, African and women from non-Hispanic countries blended into what became the culture and customs of Puerto Rico. Many women in Puerto Rico were Spanish subjects and were already active participants in the labor movement and in the agricultural economy of the island.

After Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States in 1898 as a result of the Spanish-American War, women once again played an integral role in Puerto Rican society by contributing to the establishment of the state university of Puerto Rico, women's suffrage, women's rights, civil rights, and to the military of the United States.

During the period of industrialization of the 1950s, women in Puerto Rico took jobs in the needle industry, working as seamstresses in garment factories. Many Puerto Rican families also migrated to the United States in the 1950s, which included women. Currently, women in Puerto Rico have become active in the political and social landscape in the continental United States in addition to their own homeland, with many of them involved in fields that were once limited to the male population, as well as gaining influential roles as leaders in their fields. (more...)