In our first crowdfunding project ever tried, AL DÍA wants to shed light on why Puerto Ricans continue leaving the island for the continental U.S. But we need your help, dear friends in the local Puerto Rican community.

100 years after the first pioneers came, when the residents of the “Isla del Encanto” were declared U.S. citizens by an Act of the U.S. Congress, in 1917, young men and women continue to pour into mainly three U.S. Cities where full enclaves of Puerto Ricans live in the United States:

New York, Philadelphia and Orlando, in that order.

Philadelphia, up to this day, continues to be the second largest settlements of Puerto Ricans in the United States, but few people know why.

It is calculated that well over 3 million live today in the 50 States, many more than there are Puerto Ricans left in the island, where only 2.5 roughly live today.

The numbers keep on dwindling down as a result of traumas that run deep in the history of the Caribbean island.

The realities today are not different from 100 years ago.

The only thing that changes is the faces and the professions of those who now come— not peasants anymore, but bilingual professionals.

100 or 50 years ago, they were the peasants and modest blue collar workers who were invited by us to come to the Philadelphia region to work in the agricultural fields of New Jersey, or work as maids, in the case of women, in the houses of the wealthy.

The parents of important leaders of the Puerto Rican leaders, like Nelson Diaz and Pedro Ramos — like it was the case of others— came from modest beginnings, which make the accomplishments of these two professionals named above even more meritorious.

We need now their monetary help to finish up our project, exclusively supported by a crowdsourcing effort led by a courageous Temple University’s Journalism graduate.

Not only Nelson’s and Pedro’s, but also Alba’s, María’s or Luis’, Nydia’s, Nilda’s, Jennifer’s— all of them friends and followers of AL DÍA in the Puerto Rican community.

We are doing this for you and we will be very grateful to count on your financial support.

We will keep posted. Gracias mil!