Hurrying to serve her customers, Doña Adela Benítez couldn't believe what was happening in her neighborhood, the Lower East Side: “It's been several weeks since I started looking for a Puerto Rican cook, and I can't find anybody. I can't hire anyone else because my food will lose its flavor.”

That situation has forced the owner of the restaurant Casa Adela to return to the kitchen, never mind that she'd been thinking about retiring to her native country. “I can't now, because I don’t have anyone to help me out.”

The obvious question is: “Where have all the Puerto Ricans gone?” Have they just vanished from New York? The answer is no. Many Puerto Ricans have simply moved to suburban areas in New York and surrounding states.

An investigation carried out by the Center for Puerto Rican Studies found that in the past decade the Puerto Rican population in New York City has declined. In 1990, the number of Puerto Ricans in the city reached 896,800 or 12.2 percent of the New York population, but by 2000 it had dropped to 789,200, or 9.9 percent.

According to the investigations carried out by Dr. Andrés Torres, who collaborates with the Center at Hunter College, 19 percent of the Puerto Ricans who decided to leave New York were over 55 years old, and looking for a place to retire.

“This group is composed of people who came to the city several decades ago and now are looking to the place where they were born to live out their retirement years. These are people who speak Spanish and have a very minimal education,” Torres explained.

Another group which has left the Big Apple is made up of highly educated young couples looking for better places to bring up their children. This group comprises about 50 percent of those who have left.

A third group of Puerto Ricans who have abandoned the Big Apple are those who are looking for new work opportunities. They are young people with advanced educations, a perfect command of English and mostly single.

A fourth group is now starting to leave the Big Apple because of the rising cost of housing. “Here we're talking about individuals or families who are obliged to leave because of the high cost of rent,” added Torres. “They're people without too much schooling, with low incomes and with not a great command of English.”

Of the Puerto Ricans who have left New York, Torres continued, 26 percent have decided to take up residence in nearby suburbs; 20 percent have chosen Florida, while 19 percent have preferred Puerto Rico or New England (eight percent). Seventeen percent of this population preferred to move to other states, while 6 percent chose Pennsylvania.

With regard to those who have moved to other cities near New York, job opportunities and lower rents have been the factors pushing this group out. Gilbert Marzan, a professor of sociology at Bronx Community College, points out that those Puerto Ricans with lower levels of education and training are finding jobs in the service sector in those regions.

He added that the cities of Allentown, PA, New Haven, CT, and Springfield, MA, have seen the largest influxes of Puerto Ricans. In New York State, Long Island, Orange County and Middletown are among other counties that have registered an increase in their populations of people of Puerto Rican origin.

Ricardo Montano, who is Puerto Rican and one of 18 legislators in Suffolk County, said that racism is aimed at Hispanic groups on Long Island. “At present the police and government offices lack Hispanic representation, so we have to bring pressure to get a greater equality of rights into existence,” he stated.

Luis Valenzuela, director of the Long Island Immigrant Alliance, figures that there are close to 300,000 Puerto Ricans living in Nassau and Suffolk Counties.

He characterized the number of Hispanic elected officials as insufficient. “In Suffolk, we've got one Puerto Rican male legislator and one Dominican woman. We have a State Assembly member, but we lack any further representation,” he pointed out.

This has led to the launching of an educational campaign in Long Island, and to pressing fire and police departments to further diversify their hiring practices. “Let's hope that one day we'll be able to see more fire fighters and government officials of Hispanic origin,” he concluded.