Here's a terrific 4:00 minute history of the rise of Latino political power in New York by Marlene Peralta for HITNTelevision.
"Latinos started having a political presence in New York dating back to the late 1800s. In the 1930s East Harlem became El Barrio, and the main hub for Puerto Ricans, a community that rapidly became politically active, leadership that later spread to other local Hispanic groups."BTW: NY's 1st elected Latino was Oscar Garcia Rivera, a native of Puerto Rico who won a seat in the NYS Assembly in 1937 as a Republican. Garcia Rivera was a Social Democrat by philosophy and a strong proponent of labor unions. It was he who drafted NYS' Unemployment Insurance Law and paved the way for minimum wage, right to organize and child labor laws.