The 64th National Puerto Rican Day Parade virtual show is on ABC-7 and livestreams on abc7ny.com on Sunday, June 13, 2021 at 12-2pm. FREE
We’ll miss waving la bandera on Fifth Avenue, but thank the organizers for keeping tradition alive, while keeping New Yorkers safe during the pandemic.
America’s biggest cultural celebration usually has over 75,000 marchers and over 1 million spectators from around the world.
It’s New York City, so it’s big, but the National Puerto Rican Day Parade is a New York version of the Puerto Rican Fiestas Patronales tradition. These patron saint festivals are basically small town carnivals. They are the big yearly event in pueblos all over the island.
64th National Puerto Rican Day Parade 2021
WABC-TV anchors Joe Torres and David Novarro host the show with Sunny Hostin, co-host of “The View.”
This year the Parade celebrates the 500th Anniversary of the founding of San Juan in 1521. It’s the oldest colonial settlement in the United States. Old San Juan’s colonial forts are UNESCO World Heritage sites.
The Parade also celebrates unique elements of Puerto Rican culture including Paso Fino gaited horses and La Danza, a popular Puerto Rican music and dance of the 1800s.
Paso Fino
You see paso fino horses all over Puerto Rico. They are a very comfortable and showy ride. The small horses with a “fine step” are descended from Andalusians, Spanish Barbs from North Africa and Spanish Jennets brought to the Americas by the Spanish colonizers. Paso finos are popular in Colombia, but the Colombian paso finos were originally imported from Puerto Rico. You see a lot of them in Culebra.
We once saw a woman training her paso fino for competition at La Placita, the central market in Santurce, San Juan. It transforms into a popular drinking and dancing spot at night. The rider was training her horse to ignore the crowds. As you can imagine, we are very loud when drinking and dancing. It was something to watch a paso fino parading around La Placita. In Puerto Rico even the horses dance!
La Danza
La Danza was a European ballroom dance popular among the Puerto Rican elite in the late 1800s. It’s similar to the Cuban version, Danzon. The habanera (the way they dance in Havana) added Caribbean flavor which took over and popularized la Danza with the people. The habanera eventually evolved into salsa and tango.
The Puerto Rican national anthem “La Borinquena” is a danza.
2021 Grand Marshals
The 2021 Grand Marshals are the cast of “In the Heights” directed by Jon M. Chu from the Broadway hit musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes. The cast includes Anthony Ramos, Jimmy Smits, Gregory Diaz IV and Lin-Manuel of course.
¡Este es nuestro momento!
