Steely Dan - The Royal Scam Lyrics Meaning

This song is about the wave of Puerto Ricans (Saint John = San Juan) who immigrated to NYC to escape poverty on their own island because they've heard all the stories about the streets here figuratively being paved with gold. When they get here, they find it it's not trivial to prosper, and have to settle for sleeping in small, overcrowded tenements with two dozen of their countrymen. Their presence sets them at odds with the dominant, established minority, the blacks, who consider the low-rent portions of the city to be their exclusive territory. They also find themselves to be ill-suited for the northern climate, and too vulnerable to the attractions of drug addiction. They write the family back home to tell them how well everything is going for them, describing either a phony job or a dead-end welfare job. In this manner, America scams the immigrant into immigrating, and the immigrant scams the folks back home with stories of success.