Editing Demographics of Puerto Rico (section)

===Race and ethnicity===
====Background====
In the late 1700s, Puerto Rico had laws like the ''Regla del Sacar'' or ''Gracias al Sacar'' where a person of mixed ancestry could be considered legally white so long as they could prove that at least one person per generation in the last four generations had also been legally white. Therefore, people of mixed ancestry with known white lineage were classified as white, the opposite of the "[[one-drop rule]]" in the United States.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=qLSU-SiojsYC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22 ''Not of Pure Blood.''] Jay Kinsbruner. [[Duke University Press]]. 1996. Page 22. Retrieved January 27, 2012.</ref>

A strong wave of European immigration and the large importation of slaves from Africa increased the population of Puerto Rico sixfold during the 19th century. No major immigration wave occurred during the 20th century.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3659/is_200108/ai_n8981492|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070608151127/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3659/is_200108/ai_n8981492|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 8, 2007|title=Mitochondrial DNA analysis reveals substantial Native American ancestry in Puerto Rico Human Biology – Find Articles|date=June 8, 2007|access-date=October 14, 2017}}</ref>

The federal [[Naturalization Act of 1790|Naturalization Act]], signed into law on March 26, 1790, by President Washington stated that immigrants to the United States had to be White according to the definition under the British Common Law, which the United States inherited. The legal definition of Whiteness differed greatly from White Society's informal definition,{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}} thus Jews, Romani Peoples, Middle Eastern Peoples and those of the Indian Subcontinent were before 1917 classified as White for Immigration purposes but not considered White by the society at large.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}} The Naturalization Act of 1870, passed during Reconstruction, allowed for peoples of African descent to become U.S. Citizens but it excluded other nonwhites. The U.S. Supreme Court in the case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) declared that all nonwhites who were born in the United States were eligible for citizenship via the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment. U.S. Immigration Policy was first restricted toward Chinese with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Gentleman's Agreement of 1907 in which Japan voluntarily barred emigration to the United States and the Immigration Act of 1917 or the Asiatic Barred Zone which barred immigrants from all of the Middle East, the Steppes and the Orient, excluding the Philippines which was then a US Colony. European Jews and Romani, although of Asiatic Ancestry, were not affected by the Asiatic Barred Zone, as they held European Citizenship. The [[Immigration Act of 1924|Johnson-Reed act of 1924]] applied only to the Eastern Hemisphere. The Act imposed immigration quotas on Europe, which allowed for easy immigration from Northern and Western Europe, but almost excluded the Southern and Eastern European Nations. Africa and Asia were excluded altogether. The Western Hemisphere remained unrestricted to immigrate to the United States. Thus under the Immigration Act of 1924 all Hispanics and Caribbeans could immigrate to the United States, but a White family from Poland or Russia could not immigrate. Puerto Rican Citizenship was created under the Foraker Act, Pub.L. 56–191, 31 Stat. 77 but it wasn't until 1917 that Puerto Ricans were granted full American Citizenship under the Jones–Shafroth Act (Pub.L. 64–368, 39 Stat. 951). Puerto Ricans, excluding those of obvious African ancestry, were like most Hispanics formally classified as White under U.S. Law.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}}

====Censuses====
The first [[1899 Puerto Rico Census|census]] by the United States in 1899 reported a population of 953,243 inhabitants, 61.8% of them classified as white, 31.9% as mixed, and 6.3% as black.<ref name="PR 1905">{{cite book | author=Office of the Secretary | title=Register of Porto Rico | publisher=Office of the Secretary | year=1905 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vekCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA8 | access-date=September 17, 2022 | page=8}}</ref>

According to the 1920 Puerto Rico census, 2,505 individuals immigrated to Puerto Rico between 1910 and 1920. Of these, 2,270 were classified as "white" in the 1920 census (1,205 from Spain, 280 from Venezuela, 180 from Cuba, and 135 from the Dominican Republic).
During the same 10-year period, 7,873 Puerto Ricans emigrated to the U.S. Of these, 6,561 were listed as "white" on the U.S mainland census, 909 as "Spanish white" and 403 as "black".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/demsem/loveman-muniz.pdf|title=How Puerto Rico became white|website=Ssc.wisc.edu|access-date=October 14, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207224431/http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/demsem/loveman-muniz.pdf|archive-date=February 7, 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Until 1950, the U.S. Bureau of the Census attempted to quantify the racial composition of the island's population, while experimenting with various racial taxonomies. In 1960 the census dropped the racial identification question for Puerto Rico but included it again in the year 2000. The only category that remained constant over time was white, even as other racial labels shifted greatly—from "colored" to "Black", "mulatto" and "other".
Regardless of the precise terminology, the census reported that the majority of the Puerto Rican population was white from 1899 to 2000.<ref name="mona.uwi.edu"/>

{{update section|date=May 2022}}

According to the 2015 Race and Hispanic Origin estimate (2011–2015 American Community Survey) published by the [[US Census]] Bureau, the data for Puerto Rico was as follows:<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.census.gov |title=Race and Hispanic Origin, Puerto Rico |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=2016 |website=US Census |publisher=US Department of Commerce |access-date=February 18, 2017 }}</ref>
* White alone 2,495,997
* Black or African American alone 301,519
* American Indian and Alaska Native alone 11,775
* Asian alone 10,159
* Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone 129
* Some Other Race alone 431,443
* Two or More Races 332,051
* Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 3,547,288
* White alone, Not Hispanic or Latino 24,900
In 2020, the Census Bureau reported the following data:

* White alone 560,592 
* Black or African American alone 228,711
* American Indian and Alaska Native alone 17,870
* Asian alone 4,001
* Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone 593
* Some Other Race alone 838,316
* Two or More Races 1,635,791
* Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 3,249,043
* White alone, Not Hispanic or Latino 24,548

In the 2020 census, the percentage of the population identifying as white dropped to 17.1%, down from 75.8% in the 2010 census. A similar drop in identification as white was seen among Hispanics in the 50 states and [[Washington, D.C.]], where the percentage of [[White Hispanic and Latino Americans|Hispanics identifying as white]] dropped from 53.0% to 20.3%. The change has been attributed to the wording of the Spanish-language version of the census questionnaire.{{citation needed|date=February 2023}}