In her North Philadelphia rowhouse, Norma Torres looks thoughtfully at her 18-month-old daughter, cradled in her arms and sucking milk from a bottle.
This child, she hopes, will be the one to someday finish high school. The one who will find the American dream.
It is the same dream that Torres' parents wished for her 27 years ago when they left Puerto Rico for Philadelphia.
"(My parents) said they had so many plans for me, going to school, to
college, getting a good job, et cetera, et cetera," said Torres, a dark-eyed woman with smooth olive skin and short brown hair.
"And look what happened."
At 14, Torres got pregnant. She dropped out of school, moved in with the baby's father and spent much of the next 13 years depending on public assistance.
Today, Torres, 32, is a single, working mother, raising four children alone. Only her pride and desire for privacy keep her off food stamps and Medicaid, for which she qualifies.
Torres' story is a familiar one among the 2.3 million Puerto Ricans in the mainland United States.
Although they began moving to the mainland in large numbers after World War II and have had four decades to find the American dream, Puerto Ricans are the poorest of any major ethnic group - and they are becoming poorer.
Explanations vary as to why their experience has been different from that of the countless immigrants who have come to the United States. But there is no doubt that it has been different.
Census Bureau estimates from 1986 draw a disturbing portrait of Puerto
Ricans in the mainland:
* A larger proportion of Puerto Ricans live in poverty than do blacks, whites or other Hispanic groups. Among Puerto Ricans, 43 percent have incomes under the poverty line, compared with 31 percent of blacks and 11 percent of whites.
* About 46 percent of Puerto Rican families are headed by single women, compared with 42 percent for blacks and 13 percent for whites.
* Nationally, 55 percent of Puerto Ricans 25 and older have not completed high school. That compares with 38 percent of blacks and 24 percent among whites.
Locally, the news is just as bleak.
A study of Puerto Ricans in Philadelphia, conducted by researchers at Temple University, found that half of the families have incomes under the poverty line.
And of the children, a startling 60 percent live in poverty. This compares with 44 percent of black Philadelphia children, 37 percent of other Hispanic children and 14 percent of white children.
