Since the founding of New York City in 1626, when Afro Latinos named Paul d'Angola, Simon Congo, Anthony Portuguese, and John Angola, Big Manuel, Little Manuel, and Peter Santome, arrived here as bondservants, the Big Apple has had a Hispanic presence. In the forties and fifties, Spanish Harlem experienced a boom in immigration. Today, the Latino presence is an undeniable part of the city's character. The cultural influence is everywhere - in the Latin dance and jazz bands of the Palladium, in Puerto Rican stickball games, in Santeria ceremonies in El Barrio and the South Bronx, in Peruvians playing Andean melodies and selling indigenous-style clothing in the subways, and in sawdust-sprinkled Dominican bodegas in Washington Heights. The rich diversity of Hispanics in race, language, and religion helps make this city the vibrant cultural center that it is.

In an era of increased hostility toward immigrants, it is important that clear and concise information about the Hispanic community be disseminated, to counteract the scapegoating and racism that Hispanics sometimes encounter. When examining a city like New York, if one looks at the 1990 U.S. Census to find out how many Hispanics live there, the problem starts with the count itself. According to the 1990 Census, New York City's overall population was 7,322,564. Of that total, the Hispanic population of the city claimed 1,737,927, or 23.7 percent. That was up from the 1980 Latino count of 1,406,389, which represented 19.9 percent of the 7,071,544 population.

Yet these numbers don't tell the whole story. According to Angelo Falcon, president of the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy, which recently published the New York City Latino Neighborhoods Databook, by Christopher Hanson-Sanchez, "The census people admit to an undercount. They have a 5 percent undercount of Latinos nationally, and in places like New York, [it's] probably closer to at least a 10 percent undercount. That's in 1990. Right now, we're talking about over 2 million Latinos in the New York area." Adding in this uncounted population can easily push totals of Hispanics in New York to 2,000,000.

Nestled within New York are enclaves of Hispanic neighborhoods as well as mixed African-Latino, Anglo-Latino, and Asian-Latino areas. Overall, Hispanics live in all of New York's five boroughs - Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island - with Manhattan and the South Bronx containing the highest population of the city's two dominant Hispanic groups: Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. Queens contains a cosmopolitan mix of Hispanics who hail from the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central and South America. Staten Island has the smallest Latino population. In all cases, Latino groups have moved into neighborhoods that were in most cases previously inhabited by white Europeans - Irish, Italians, Poles, Greeks, Germans, and in a few cases, African Americans and West Indians.

"We started out on Sixth Street between A and B Avenues, and then we graduated to Third Street. In 1974 this was like a bombed-out area. Nowadays, to get a studio [apartment] in this neighborhood, you have to be talking about spending $800 to $900 dollars."

Of the 21 Latino neighborhoods in New York City, the longest-standing and most well-known areas include the Puerto Rican- dominated El Barrio (a.k.a. Spanish Harlem) - that comprises East Harlem, Manhattan Valley, and the Upper West Side - the Lower East Side (or Loisaida), the South Bronx, and the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Washington Heights and Inwood in upper Manhattan have the largest Dominican population. In Queens, specifically the neighborhoods of Corona and Jackson Heights, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Colombians, Ecuadorians, Cubans, and Argentineans form an impressive pan-Hispanic mix.

Hispanics have many reasons for venturing to New York. Often, it comes down to economics. Falcon states, "People come here from Latin America and the Caribbean to get jobs. Overwhelmingly, we are talking about poor communities - folks that are coming here to get a job, do well, and that economic motivation is the primary one." For Puerto Ricans, who since 1917 have been U.S. citizens, coming to the mainland has different consequences than it does for other Hispanic groups who are immigrants. Falcon notes: "The immigration issue, in terms of naturalization, is something that doesn't hit Puerto Ricans in the same way, although the consequences of all this . . . immigrant bashing does affect Puerto Ricans when the anti-immigrant bashing turns into anti-Latino bashing, whether it's job or housing discrimination."

According to Rene Lopez, a record producer, historian, and project manager for the General Medicine Clinic, Fulton Division, at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, "The Puerto Rican migration, more so than most migrations, was . . . a group of people who migrated here with the intent of moving back to the islands. There were two Puerto Rican migrations, at the turn of the century and after World War II between 1945 and 1948. [About] 200,000 Puerto Ricans arrived here because that war-time economy was a false one and it created a great amount of unemployment in Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rican migration was more transitory than the others because puertorriqueños generally came here with the idea of getting a start and going back to Puerto Rico."

Lopez also notes that the largely Puerto Rican communities also served as transitory points of departure for other Latino groups. "Cubans moved into Puerto Rican communities. That same community that's now solidly Dominican was solidly Cuban and was solidly Puerto Rican before it was Cuban. The Puerto Ricans left for the Bronx and other areas, and the Cubans left for either New Jersey or Florida." There was a sizable Cuban community in Manhattan from the thirties to the fifties that largely left the city for the suburbs and beyond. This especially applies to those Cubans who fled to New York from Castro's Cuba after the 1959 Communist takeover. Falcon notes, "The Cubans have been around for a long time, and they've been the only Latino population to decrease among all the other groups. There's been a long history of the Cuban population being an important part of the Latino population in New York City."

Since the mid-sixties, the rhythms of the merengue have heralded the arrival of the Dominicans to New York as the largest Latino immigrant group. While mostly situated in Washington Heights, the Bronx, and Corona, Queens, they have made their presence felt on cable access channels and in private cab companies, clothing stores, businesses, and politics. It's rumored that Leonel Fernandez Reyna won his bid for the presidency of the Dominican Republic largely through his campaigning in Washington Heights. But perhaps the most impressive aspect of the Dominican (and Latin) immigration is its ability to sustain the economy back home. Ramona Hernandez, an associate researcher at City University-New York (CUNY) Dominican Studies Institute, estimates that Dominicans send $600 million back to the island. "Some economists will tell you that the remittance constitutes the second or third largest revenue source in the country from the Dominican diaspora," she says.

But despite the delivery of the dollar, Hernandez also notes that Dominican business acumen still has a long way to go in New York. "You still have the Cubans dominating the business sector, here as well as Miami," Hernandez observes. "We did a study here where we looked at the census and we found that 8 percent of the New York City population claims itself to be self-employed. The Dominican population is about 7 percent. When you compare Dominicans with Puerto Ricans, yes, we do have a higher number of Dominicans who clas-sify themselves as self-employed, but when you compare Dominicans with the average of New York City, we have a lower percentage and a lower rate of people in self-employed businesses."

With Dominicans as the new kids on the block, much has been written about the supposed "tensions between Dominicans and Puerto Ricans." A closer study reveals collaboration between the groups, especially in politics. Of the 24 Latino elected officials in the city council, state legislature, and congressional delegations, 22 are Puerto Rican and 2 are Dominican. "[The Dominicans] were elected with the help and the support of the Puerto Rican community: from voting, getting the propaganda out, finding out about the people who have money . . . this is something we didn't know about, unless we worked with somebody [like the Puerto Ricans] who have been here for a long time." Hernandez says.

Being in New York facilitates cooperation between ethnic groups, and it also forces those same groups to rethink their self-perceptions, especially with regard to cultural identity and race. Falcon says, "In the research we've done, we found that for the most part, Latinos tend to not use the terms 'Hispanic' or 'Latino' - those kind of umbrella terms. They usually identify with their countries of origin, so you're Puerto Rican, you're Dominican, and the 'Hispanic' stuff just doesn't fly." For Dominicans, Hernandez notes, "You're going to have two perspectives: the perspective of the young Dominicans who were born in the U.S., and the Dominicans who came here as adults, who sort of look at this thing cautiously. In the case of young Dominicans born here, the majority of them will tell you they are black. No question about it."

"People come here from Latin America and the Caribbean to get jobs. Overwhelmingly, we are talking about poor communities---folks that are coming here to get a job, do well, and that economic motivation is the primary one." 

Each neighborhood has a favorite gathering place. In the Bronx, Jimmy's Bronx Cafe is a symbol of the urban renewal that occurred in that much-maligned borough, according to manager Phillip Montana. "The area that we are in was neglected for decades," Montana relates. "Jimmy's Bronx Cafe came to the neighborhood and kind of single-handedly revitalized it. We took over a building that was an institution here in the Bronx for about 40 years. . . . We also provide employment for over 100 employees from the immediate area." The "immediate area" includes a pan-Hispanic clientele: "We're right on the border between a huge Puerto Rican community and a huge Dominican community, so we cater to both of those neighborhoods, but we also get a lot of South and Central American folks coming through here as well as non-Hispanic people. Our clientele is generally families with steady, median, to upper incomes."

On the Lower East Side, the once predominantly Puerto Rican enclave known as Loisaida also contains a pan-Hispanic culture, says Sery Colon, owner of Agüeybaná Bookstore. "The neighborhood now is a mixture of different people. I've seen a lot of Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Colombians, Cubans . . . a big, big mixture of different people," Colon explains. The Lower East Side is also home to the world-renowned, 25-year-old Nuyorican Poets Cafe - a space where poetry, drama, and music are presented with a cutting edge and which is an important cultural landmark for a new generation of Hispanic artists. Today the cafe hosts some of the city's most promising rappers. According to the cafe's founder, Miguel Algarín, "We have a rap program created by Lois Griffith that is unequaled in the city. . . . The strength of their content makes the evenings exciting."

Like other neglected areas in New York City during the seventies, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe's barrio emerged from the lower East Side's urban ruins. "We're in the heart of it," Algarín relates. "We started out on Sixth Street between A and B avenues, and then we graduated to Third Street. In 1974 this was like a bombed-out area. Nowadays, to get a studio [apartment] in this neighborhood, you have to be talking about spending $800 to $900."

While Dominicans, Cubans, and Puerto Ricans have been the more-well-known Hispanic ethnic groups in the city, there are other less-prominent groups. Falcone notes, "A lot of people were not very conscious of the relatively large number of Hondurans in the city until [a few] years ago. There was a fire in a social club in the Bronx. That was a real tragedy because 87 people died, and it turned out that the vast majority of those people were Hondurans. That was the first time that [people became aware that] there was a Honduran population in the city." 

New York also has at least 35,000 Panamanians - the majority of whom reside in the mostly West Indian area of Flatbush, Brooklyn, where Fulvia Jordan publishes Que Pasa Panama, a bimonthly community newsletter. "For the past twelve years, Panamanians have been getting together on a yearly basis to celebrate our culture in the Panamanian Friendship Reunion," Jordan says. "This year it was held in New York State July 3 through 6. It's something that Panamanians look forward to. In Brooklyn, we've had the Panamanian Expo-Fair, which is held in the parking lot of the Brooklyn Academy of Music every year on the Sunday closest to August 15, which celebrates the founding of old Panama City."

Of the "hidden" Hispanic groups, the Mexican diaspora is the most surprising. Generally, when one thinks of Mexican immigrants, Texas, the Southwest, California, and Chicago come to mind as home bases. But as Guadalupe García-Vasquez, a National Public Radio commentator, multimedia performance artist, and doctoral candidate at New York University, points out, "Mexicans have been coming here for twenty years from Chicago and Mexico." They come from Puebla, and they don't come by themselves, she says. "When you link one family to another family, you empty a whole town in Mexico. So parts of Puebla - all the young generation, more or less - is here in New York."

Many of the Mexicans work a variety of odd jobs - from selling flowers to working in Manhattan's garment district and in Latino-owned restaurants. Not all live under slave conditions, however, like the several hundred deaf mute Mexican workers discovered by New York police this past summer. Although a number of Mexicans live in El Barrio, they are not centered in a particular place, but their religious and cultural rituals are dispersed throughout the city. "To celebrate Our Lady of Guadalupe in December, Mexicans interconnect with churches and communities," García-Vasquez notes. "They carry the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe into somebody's house, they pray, they sing, they eat, and then they bring it to another borough. So the Mexicans make a pilgrimage to those Mexican communities. You don't see this in public - Americans or anybody else can't see this. Internal cultural politics is kept underground."

The Mexican influence spreads to other groups. "Puerto Ricans have actually been devoted to the Virgin of Guadalupe," García-Vasquez remarks. "There is a church here in Fourteenth Street in Manhattan, Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. The Puerto Ricans are very much devoted to the Virgen of Guadalupe, and the image is appearing all over the place in supermarkets and stuff. When the Mexican population increased in New York, Our Lady of Guadalupe's apparitions increased as well. The Mexicans are transforming the view of culture by way of Our Lady of Guadalupe."

Nowhere in New York is the polyglot Latino community more apparent than in the borough of Queens. A casual stroll down the main streets of Queens will yield an arresting array of Colombian, Argentinean, Ecuadorian, and other Central and South American eateries, barber shops, and record stores. More often than not, you're liable to hear a lad from South America speaking in a Cuban accent or vice versa. Adriana Acauan Tandler, who heads the New Americans Program of the Queens Library - a program that extends library services to non-English speakers - marvels not only at the linguistic fluency and adaptation among Hispanics but also at "the coexistence of Spanish speakers right next to people from Russia and people from India. Over 100 languages are spoken in Queens. Queens is an example of the possibility of coexistence that enriches the lives of everyone."

While Algarín acknowledges New York's mestizaje, he points out the unique political and cultural circumstances of Puerto Ricans. "The Puerto Rican has that special element of being [from a] commonwealth: American by birth, Puerto Rican by heritage and by choice. We are from a nation that has never been free . . . Puerto Rico is the seat of an experiment that's never been done before: The Puerto Ricans have taken the north [American culture] and the Caribbean and blended them into this rich, rich cultural expression."

The result of this refreshing mix of colors and cultures is the birth of a vibrant pan-Hispanic culture that not only makes the Big Apple more appetizing but increases the cultural vitality of the Americas. As Garcia-Vasquez prophesies, "I see great potential of integration here in New York where the three roots - the indigenous, the African, and the Spanish - come together in some sort of Latinidad. I think its very positive that Mexicans are dealing with Cubans and Nuyoricans and dominicanos and are being exposed to a Latinidad that embodies the rhythms of salsa, cumbia, Latin American jazz, and merengue. New York is the center for metaphysics. It can destroy you or really lift you up in many other directions."