The West Indies are more important to the United States immigration policy than would be expected from their size, because of their close proximity to American ports of entry.
Cuba has always received its immigrants pre-dominantly from Spain, and the imported Negro element, numbering about 800,000 of its three millions of population, is not increasing in importance. The island is considered less white than Puerto Rico, but more than a quarter of a million of the inhabitants are Spanish-born, these comprising nearly three-quarters of all the foreigners.
As in many other Latin-American countries, the Chinese have taken a strong hold, beginning nearly a century ago, and are intermarrying with the Whites.
Cuba does not represent a desirable or needed source of immigration to the United States, and should be put under a proper quota.
Puerto Rico has a population of nearly a million and a half. The fact that this dense population cannot make a living under the present and backward conditions on the island, and that it is continually exercising its right of entry to the United States, is one of the most serious features of the present immigration policy.
The Negro and Mulatto element makes up a majority of the population but is relatively losing ground—partly from high death rates and partly by absorption in the mass. The Indian stock is extinct. Immigration from abroad has been negligible for a long time.
As the island is a territory, the inhabitants are citizens of the United States and cannot be prevented from coming freely into the mainland. The number of Puerto Ricans in New York City was at one time estimated as high as 100,000. If economic conditions are attractive there is nothing to prevent half a million of them from migrating to the continent and adding their traits to the much-overloaded "melting pot."