MIAMI — Mayra Rios didn’t want to leave her native Puerto Rico, but the constant bullying that her autistic son faced at school and the lack of services available to him were the last blows.
“Over there, it’s almost impossible to live,” she said in Spanish at her modest two-bedroom Orlando apartment. “There’s a blow from every side.”
She complained of the 11.5 percent sales tax rate officials recently imposed to alleviate some of the $70 billion debt burden.
As Puerto Rico struggles with an unpayable debt, an unemployment rate over 12 percent, rising violence and a stagnant economy that offers little opportunity to thrive, thousands of its residents are abandoning the island for central Florida, a longtime refuge for Puerto Ricans where low-skill jobs in tourism and related service industries were easy to find.
Now, times have changed, and Puerto Rican community leaders say newcomers like Rios often find settling here difficult.
“It’s a challenge because one has to adapt to everything, to laws, to the way of life, to the language,” said Rios, who said she doesn’t speak English well enough to land a well-paying job.
Puerto Ricans, who are U.S. citizens, have historically migrated to the mainland during harsh economic times. However, in contrast to those who moved to the Northeast during the “Great Migration” of the 1950s, more Puerto Ricans in recent decades are choosing central Florida, according to the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at City University of New York.
