Once, after World War 11, policymakers and economists saw the massive Puerto Rican migration to the United States as a partial and temporary solution to the island's poverty and un- employment (as well as a cheap source of labor in the fields and factories of the U.S. mainland). The migrants, too, often saw their sojourn as temporary, hoping to return someday to Puerto Rico and buy a house and a small plot of land, a parcela.
For many of the migrants, this hope foundered on reality. Instead,...