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Islands Little El Salvador

By Bart Jones | Staff Writer

May 23, 2001

The Puerto Ricans' hegemony of Long Island's Hispanic community, which dates to the 1940s, is ending.

Puerto Ricans have gone from making up nearly half the Hispanic population two decades ago to about one-quarter today, according to census figures released yesterday.

"They've lost their real dominance in the Hispanic community, said Roy Fedelem of the Long Island Regional Planning Board.

In one sign of the times, Brentwood's Puerto Rican Day Parade, to be held next month, is now called the Puerto Rican and Hispanic Day Parade.

Jose Martin Bonilla can see the changes right outside the restaurant he runs on Suffolk Avenue in Brentwood, home to the state's largest Hispanic community after New York City and Yonkers.

When Bonilla fled military-backed "death squads in El Salvador in 1974 and eventually landed in Brentwood, the Hispanic community there was overwhelmingly Puerto Rican.

Today, when he looks at who owns and works at the restaurants, delis and bakeries that surround his "Aguila Campera (Country Eagle) restaurant, he can barely find a Puerto Rican.

The vast majority are Salvadorans, Colombians or Dominicans.

These groups, especially Salvadorans, have fled civil wars, natural disasters and poverty back home, and now are challenging Puerto Ricans as Long Island's largest Hispanic group. Many are coming straight to Nassau and Suffolk, rather than living first in a city the way immigrants traditionally have done.

"Long Island is one of five centers of Salvadoran culture in the United States, said Patrick Young of the Hempstead-based Central American Refugee Center. The others are Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Houston.

Hempstead, for instance, "is becoming a Little El Salvador in a way that no area of Long Island has ever really become a Little Puerto Rico, Young said.

The Latino population in general on Long Island is booming, with a 71 percent increase in the past decade making it the region's fastest growing minority group. A total of 282,693 Hispanics now live in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

Hispanics now make up 10.3 percent of Long Island's population, up from 6.3 percent in 1990 and 3.9 percent in 1980.

But some Hispanic groups are growing a lot faster than others.

The Puerto Rican population grew by 21 percent in the past decade, reaching 74,796. Mexicans leaped by 143 percent, to a total of 13,528. Cubans inched up by 10 percent, to 7,664.

In pure quantity, by far the largest increase among Hispanics was in a fourth category the Census Bureau calls "other. That grew by 105 percent, increasing from 91,103 people a decade ago to 186,705 in 2000.

The Census Bureau has not yet broken down that category by nationality. Those numbers should be available next year.

But immigration experts said the largest groups in the "other category are Dominicans, Colombians, Ecuadorians, Peruvians, Hondurans, Guatemalans and, above all, Salvadorans.

The increase of people from those countries "was huge, Fedelem said. Young, who said the census missed many minorities, estimated that 100,000 Salvadorans live on Long Island.

Fedelem said it was not clear if Salvadorans will surpass Puerto Ricans as Long Island's main Hispanic group when more figures are released next year. Even if they don't, they should be close, he said.

Puerto Ricans now make up about 27 percent of Long Island's Hispanic population. The "other countries account for nearly 66 percent. Mexicans make up 4.8 percent; Cubans 2.7 percent.

Some of the increase in Puerto Ricans may be people who are moving from New York City, where the Puerto Rican population has declined, Fedelem said.

Long Island's growing Hispanic population is centered in communities such as Brentwood, Hempstead, Freeport, Central Islip and North Bay Shore. But increasingly, Hispanics are trickling into many communities throughout Long Island where they had little presence before. Some are moving as their economic status improves.

In Bayport, for instance, 340 of 8,662 residents are Hispanic, according to the 2000 Census. The Bayport Laundromat "is packed with Hispanics on Saturdays, though some may come from nearby Patchogue, said an attendant who asked not to be identified.

In other indicators, the census found that Hispanics are growing fastest on the East End, with a blistering 293 percent increase in Southampton Town and a 259 increase in East Hampton Town. Still, the number of Hispanics in those areas remains relatively low.

Some critics say the growing numbers of Hispanics and other minorities present a challenge to Long Island to meld into a new kind of community as the face of the region changes. Minorities now make up 23 percent of the Island's 2.75 million residents, up from 16 percent in 1990.

Recent battles in Farmingville over an influx of Mexican immigrants is a troubling model of how Long Island may adjust to the demographic changes, Young said.

But for Bonilla, 51, the challenge of a new community was an easy alternative to remaining in his homeland. He said he decided to leave El Salvador 27 years ago after he was hauled into the National Guard barracks one night around midnight and warned that he would be killed if he kept campaigning for a particular presidential candidate.

"I was afraid I was going to die, Bonilla said. He left his home village and 18 months later came to the United States.

Now the father of six said he is at peace in America. "I'm very happy because my family is getting ahead, he said.