Desde la Provincia a la Gran Manzana: Ecuadorians in NYC

Walking through New York City, it doesn’t take long before one hears a variety of languages, smells the various spices wafting from the food carts, and sees the diverse faces that make NYC the cultural capital of the world. Since even before the days of Ellis Island, New York has welcomed immigrants from every corner of the world. This website specifically follows the narrative of Ecuadorian immigrants in New York City from the time of their departure to their settlement. Today, about a half million people of Ecuadorian origin live in the United States. Of that number, more than 50% reside within the New York metropolitan area. Through the lenses of history, economics, demographics, gender, means of immigration, and educational attainment, this website aims to showcase how people of Ecuadorian origin fit into the framework of NYC.

Population

Although Ecuador is a small Latin American country consisting of only 15.7 million people as of 2011, it provides one of the largest groups of Latin American immigrants to the United States (Jokisch, 2014). Within New York City itself, Ecuadorians are disproportionately represented in such a high number compared to the rest of the United States. While the general United States, as of 2011, accounted for 435,476 foreign-born Ecuadorians, New York City alone, as of 2011, had 31.6% of them living within it (Lobo & Salvo, 2011: 16-17). This large number of foreign born Ecuadorians that live in New York City amounts to 137,791 individuals (Jokisch, 2014). As of 2011, at 6%, Ecuadorians rank sixth in the size of foreign-born population in New York City (U.S Census Bureau, 2011). Additionally, 58% of U.S.-bound Ecuadorian migrants settle within the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area (Jokisch, 2014).

Means of Entry

Of the roughly 10,700 Ecuadorians who were granted legal permanent residency annually between the years 2000-2013, 80% were authorized due to the “family sponsored preference” and “immediate relatives of U.S citizens” categories. When it comes to the unauthorized immigrant population size from 2005-2010 within the United States, a derivation, by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), showed that up to 180,000 unauthorized Ecuadorians resided in the United States as of 2010. As a consequence of stricter immigration policies in the United States following the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act in 1996 (Migration Policy Institute, 2013: 5-6), the process by which thousands of Ecuadorians have entered the U.S. undocumented became severely costlier in relation to not only money, but also the risk of apprehension or even death (Bertoli, Moraga, & Ortega, 2010: 20).

Gender Ratios

An analysis of the domestic-born population shows that Ecuadorian men in New York outnumber women, but by not too large of a margin. According to the US Census Bureau, in 2011, the Ecuadorian sex ratio was about 118 men for every 100 women. This contrasts with New York’s overall sex ratio of about 93.76 males per 100 females (Butler, 2014). This is due to the fact that it was typically foreign-born Ecuadorian men moving to New York to establish themselves first, but later on being joined by their spouses and children, which eventually lowers the gap in ratio.

The U.S. had previously gone through a period of time where it was using a quotas system to manage its immigration load. The Act of 1965, however, allowed the immigrants coming in to be chosen based on their familial connections in the U.S. and their occupational skills. This is why females did not find it too difficult to later join their male counterparts in New York, as they were capitalizing on family reunification processes. Overall, when it comes to integration, in the long-term sense, it is better to have a close sex ratio, as that can typically imply a higher presence of family units. Family units then produce multiple generations that slowly have assimilated more, as evidenced through the lens of the life expectancies of language in the United States (Rambaut et. al, 2006).

Poverty

According to a 2011 PewResearch Center analysis, about 18% of Ecuadorians live in poverty. This is more than the rate for the general U.S. population (16%), but less than that for the Hispanic-American population (26%). In New York, more specifically, the percentage of Ecuadorians living in poverty is higher at 20.7%, but it is on par with both the overall native-born poverty rate in New York (21.3%) and the foreign-born one of 19.8% (Lobo & Salvo, 2013: 104). Being located in New York seems to result in a higher than national rate of poverty among other groups as well, which may be due to the high cost of living in New York coupled with the prevalence of low wage work.

According to Lobo & Salvo (2013), Ecuadorians had a median household income of $46,126 in 2011, a value lower than the overall median for native-born New Yorkers, but higher than that of foreign-born New Yorkers (p. 104). Poverty can hinder a group’s integration, as it can act as a barrier that prevents the attainment of things such as education, a firmer grasp of the English language, and higher paying jobs. Again, finding stability in the American system can often directly tie to socioeconomic status.

Educational Attainment

About 58.6% of Ecuadorian in New York (25 years and over) were at least high school graduates. In comparison, 86.6% of native-born and 72.2% of foreign-born New Yorkers hold that status. The group’s lower educational attainment percentage may be explained by how the main mindset of leaving Ecuador was to escape economic complications and find better work in the United States, not necessarily to obtain higher education.

A correlation may also be drawn between English proficiency and educational attainment. English-speaking countries bring in people with a lingual advantage, something that is quite beneficial both in the realm of school and work. Migrants from countries with majority Spanish-speakers, then, sometimes come to the United States with more of a disadvantage.

Educational attainment is also related to the networks Ecuadorians and other communities already have built upon settlement. These established communities, otherwise known as enclaves, can either hinder or uplift different groups of immigrants (Sullivan, 2012). Many Latin American immigrants settle in enclaves that are homogenous in their socioeconomic status and resources (American Psychological Association, 2012: 34). Typically, socioeconomic diversity in a community is advantageous. For instance, parents with lower levels of education would have access to resources and people that can help navigate their children through the educational system. Having a high educational attainment is clearly becoming more and more integral to opening doors for higher-paying jobs and allowing a group to climb up the socioeconomic ladder.

More than half of the 600,000 Ecuadorians recorded in the U.S. 2000 census reside in the New York City metropolitan area. About one-third of Ecuadorians living in metropolitan New York reside in Queens, particularly in the neighborhoods of Corona and Jackson Heights (All Peoples Initiative, 2009). By 2010, according to Statista, the largest Ecuadorian-American population group in the U.S. resided in Queens County, with 98,512 people of Ecuadorian origin. As mentioned, the established trade networks such as those of the Panama hat industry and the banana industry that eventually were converted into migration networks by pioneer migrants from Azuay and Cañar are responsible for the highly-concentrated populations of Ecuadorians in metropolitan New York, specifically in Corona and Jackson Heights. Essentially, the migration networks allow those in Ecuador and abroad to remain connected. Job opportunities between Ecuador and the U.S. are communicated along with letters and audios that link Ecuadorian villages with those migrant communities in the United States (Jokisch & Pribilsky, 2002: 79). The courier service Delgado Travel, which has several branches in metropolitan New York and even more in south-central Ecuador, allows Ecuadorian immigrants to send remittances back to their families and to stay connected to Ecuador through newspaper and radio.

Today, Ecuadorians account for a considerable number of immigrants in New York City. Primarily driven by poor economic circumstances, Ecuadorian migrants moved to the United States with the hope of bettering their situation. Moreover, had it not been for the trade networks that connected Ecuador to New York (namely, the Panama hat trade and banana trade), Ecuadorians would not have as large a presence in New York as they do today. Once these connections were created, those who became U.S. citizens were able to sponsor immediate relatives as well as establish communities where newer Ecuadorian immigrants would be able to join. While Ecuadorians as a whole are a relatively newer immigrant group in New York City, they are slowly establishing themselves as a group that is here to stay.

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Header Photo: Pinterest
Background Music: “Zapateado Ecuatoriano” | Composed by Maestro Carlos Bonilla Chávez | Interpreted by Fabián Carrera
‘Welcome!’ Photo: PinMart
‘Ecuadorian Americans Documentary’ Video: Ebru TV