Puerto Rican Culture in New York City

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Puerto Rican New York City

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We are starting to spread out across the United States; especially in Orlando, Florida; but New York is still the world’s largest Puerto Rican city.

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Puerto Rican Art

El Museo del Barrio; in “El Barrio” East Harlem; is New York’s Puerto Rican and Latin American art museum. 🇵🇷

Taller Boricua in “El Barrio” East Harlem, is a gallery and artist’s workshop in the Julio de Burgos Cultural Arts Center. It has developed some famous artists. tallerboricua.org 🇵🇷

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Puerto Rican Books

Alejandro Tapia y Rivera (1826-1882) is considered the father of Puerto Rican literature.

Caridad de la Luz “La Bruja” is an Emmy-winning poet, actor, and Executive Director of the Nuyorican Poets Café. @labrujanyc

Eugenio María de Hostos (1839-1903) was a great teacher and activist. He built schools all over the Caribbean and advocated for women’s education. He refused to return to Puerto Rico until it is free. He is buried in Santo Domingo. When we visited his tomb, we cried.

Julia de Burgos (1914-1953) was a great Puerto Rican poet and early feminist in a machista culture. She died in New York City and is buried in Puerto Rico. “Río Grande de Loíza.”

Luis Negrón wrote “Mundo Cruel” and runs a bookstore in Santurce.

Mayra Santos-Febres is one of Puerto Rico’s most famous contemporary authors. She is a great Afro-Puerto Rican advocate. Through her “Ofrendas de la luz” installation at La Placita in Santurce, she taught us to read signs of the African Diaspora which are everywhere once you learn to read them. There is a parallel universe in the African Diaspora. @mayra.santosfebres

Miguel Algarin (1941-2020) was one of the founders of the Nuyorican Poets Café.

Nuyorican Poets Cafe is a spoken word cultural center in “Loisaida,” the East Village, Manhattan. 🇵🇷

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Puerto Rican Colleges

Education is getting expensive, but can really change your life.

• Boricua College 🇵🇷
• Brooklyn College ~ Puerto Rican and Latin Studies.
• Hostos College (CUNY) 🇵🇷
• Hunter College ~ Center for Puerto Rican Studies 🇵🇷
• Lehman College ~ Latin American, Latino and Puerto Rican studies.

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Puerto Rican Comedy

• Joel Perez is a New York Puerto Rican comic. 🇵🇷🗽

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Puerto Rican Cultural Centers

CCCADI, Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute presents African Diaspora culture. 🇵🇷

Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center houses many Puerto Rican theatre groups. 🇵🇷

Comité Noviembre does a lot of advocacy for Puerto Rican culture.

Julia de Burgos Performance and Arts Center is a community cultural center in “El Barrio” East Harlem. jdbpac.org 🇵🇷

Toñita’s Caribbean Social Club is NYC’s last Puerto Rican social club. @tonitasny 🇵🇷

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Puerto Rican Dance

Ballet Hispánico is a contemporary dance company that has grown into America’s largest Latinx cultural organization, and one of America’s cultural treasures. 🇨🇺 🇲🇽 🇵🇷 🇻🇪

BombaYo is one of New York’s leading bomba dance companies.

Bombazo Dance Company is one of NYC’s leading bomba dance companies. bombazodanceco.com 🇵🇷

Danza Fiesta is one of NYC’s leading Puerto Rican folkloric dance companies. 🇵🇷

Los Pleneros de la 21 is one of NYC’s leading bomba & plena music and dance companies. 🇵🇷

Nélida Tirado is a Puerto Rican flamenco dancer who performs at the highest levels with the Spaniards.

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Puerto Rican Festivals

National Puerto Rican Day Parade is one of America’s biggest cultural celebrations. 🇵🇷

New York Puerto Rico Week is the second week of June. 🇵🇷

Puerto Rican Heritage Month is November. 🇵🇷

Three Kings Day, on January 6, is the Puerto Rican side of Christmas.

Three Kings Day Parade is an “El Barrio” holiday tradition.

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Puerto Rican Food

A lot of New York Puerto Rican food is street food, just like at chinchorros in Puerto Rico.

188 Bakery Cuchifritos; a Puerto Rican/Dominican restaurant in Fordham Heights, The Bronx; made the New York Times 2024 top 100 restaurant list.

Casa Adela is a small diner in the East Village that serves Puerto Rican comida criolla (home food). web 🇵🇷

Lechonera La Piraña is a trailer known for the best Puerto Rican lechon (roast pork) in NYC. He made the New York Times 2024 top 100 restaurant list. It’s at East 152nd St and Wales Ave in the South Bronx. nytimes.com 🇵🇷

Que Chevere is a Puerto Rican fast food place in the Essex Market Manhattan’s Lower East Side. quechevereles.com 🇵🇷

Sofrito is an upscale Puerto Rican restaurant in Riverbank State Park along the Hudson River in West Harlem. sofritony.com 🇵🇷

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Puerto Rican Film

The International Puerto Rican Heritage Film Festival is New York’s Puerto Rican film festival. 🇵🇷

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Puerto Rican Music

There are many New York Puerto Rican musicians.

Bronx Music Heritage Center in Melrose, The Bronx, is a community performing arts center that celebrates the many cultures of The Bronx. 🇵🇷

Hostos Center; at Hostos College in Mott Haven, The Bronx; is one of the top Latin culture presenters in the Northeast. 🇵🇷

Lehman Center at Lehman College presents many top Latin artists. 🇵🇷

Puerto Rican composer Rafaél Hernández wrote hundreds of popular Latin American songs, in the Cuban canción, bolero, and guaracha styles, including “Lamento Borincano.” It’s what we would now call Latin pop. His musical sister Victoria ran her brother’s business from a music store in The Bronx called Casa Hernandez. It is still there as Casa Amadeo. In those days, Latinas, and especially Afro-Latinas did not run businesses in New York. She was a true pioneer, and it’s now the oldest continually operated music store in New York City. They used to call her “La Madrina” (the Godmother). Boricua fuerte, fuerte, hacha y machete.

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Puerto Rican Parades

The El Museo Three Kings Day Parade celebrates Three Kings Day in “El Barrio” East Harlem in January. 🇵🇷

National Puerto Rican Day Parade, in June, is America’s biggest cultural celebration. 🇵🇷

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Puerto Rican Politicians

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the U.S Representative from New York’s 14th Congressional District. She is young, but very smart and a fierce Caribbean woman. AOC is one of America’s most famous politicians. @aoc

Jenniffer González Colón is the Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico in the U.S. Congress. We are allowed to observe, but not allowed to vote. @jenniffergonzalezcolon

Nydia Velázquez is a U.S. Representative from New York’s 7th Congressional District. @rep_velazquez

Sonia Sotomayor is a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. supremecourt.gov

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Puerto Rican Spoken Word

The Nuyorican Poets Café in “Loisaida,” the East Village, is New York’s Historic House of Slam Poetry. 🇵🇷

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Puerto Rican Street Fairs

116th St Festival is the Northeast’s biggest street fair. 🇵🇷

152nd St Festival kicks-off the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in Longwood, The Bronx in May. 🇵🇷

Afribembé Festival is the CCCADI, Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute’s August street fair.🇵🇷

Loisaida Festival is an East Village/Lower East Side community festival in May. 🇵🇷

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Puerto Rican Theatre

New York Puerto Rican theatre traditions reach back to Teatro Puerto Rico from 1948 -1994.

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton” is the Broadway hit of our generation. 🇵🇷

Pregones/PRTT is a bilingual performing arts troupe that produces at Pregones Theater in Concourse, The Bronx; and Puerto Rican Traveling Theater in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan. 🇵🇷

Teatro LATEA (Latin American Theater Experiment Associates) is a Latino performing arts company in the Lower East Side. 🇵🇷

Teatro SEA is a Latino theatre for young audiences known for its puppetry in the Lower East Side. 🇵🇷

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Puerto Rico

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Puerto Rico really is the island of enchantment. We lived in Borikén for four years and always felt safe and welcome, even though we ran in Puerto Rico’s wildest places.

We call ourselves by our Taíno names, “Boricua” the people of the island of Borikén.

The Taíno tribe was absorbed, but lives on in our blood, in place names, and in the communal nature of island life. We are still here!

The island really is the last colony with no vote in Federal elections.

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Bomba

This is the batey (sacred dance circle) of Los Hermanos Ayala, one of the first families of bomba Puertorriqueña. Their house is in Loíza Aldea, the Puerto Rican town with the strongest Afro-Puerto Rican culture. It’s the cultural heart of bomba.

There are many very famous bomba singers and drummers in this video. It’s great to see how the children get it. This is for real.

• Don Rafael Cepeda Atiles (1910-1996) was the patriarch of bomba.
• La Familia Cepeda de Santurce is considered Puerto Rico’s first family of bomba. 🇵🇷
• La Familia Ayala de Loíza is a wonderful stage bomba dance company in Loíza Aldea, the Puerto Rican town with the strongest Afro-Puerto Rican culture. 🇵🇷
• Mar Cruz is an incredible dancer in Carolina, Puerto Rico. She is a beautiful dancer and actor. She used to teach bomba to the children of Loíza Aldea. When she channels a saint, especially Oyá, she becomes the saint. Oyá is the Yoruba equivalent of Atabey, the supreme god of the Taíno. 🇵🇷

Editor “Kiko” Keith is a bomba student of former Calle 13 percussionist Héctor “Coco” Barez and his El Laberinto del Coco project. Coco is taking bomba back out into the world in hip hop, jazz, and rock fusions. @ellaberintodelcoco

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Plena

This video is a bit old fashioned, but it captures the spirit of the plena. It was produced with the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña which is still a very important guardian of Puerto Rican culture. Puerto Rico isn’t like this anymore. It really changed in the 1950s.

We love the section at 8:30 which is the famous old plena “Tintorera del Mar.”

Tintorera del mar
Tintorera del mar
Tintorera del mar
Que se ha comido un americano”

Classic plena “Tintorera del mar.”

A tintorera is a female tiger shark. The verse says that the tiger shark ate the American. That’s basically what happened to us.

Editor “Kiko” Keith is a plena student of Emanuel Santana. @emanuelsantanarivera

Soy comida del mar
Pa’ que you soy americano”

Keith’s version of “Tintorera del mar.”

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Salsa

This video captures so much of the character of the island today. “I love my town. I love my people.” 🇵🇷

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La Perla

La Perla is a small barrio outside the walls of Old San Juan. It can be intense, but is a very real and beautiful Puerto Rican neighborhood. Respect.

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Loco Pero Feliz

Pirulo is representative of some of what’s happening now in Puerto Rico. It’s not quite salsa, but a little more timba. The music lives and grows.

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Holidays in Puerto Rico

Because we celebrate both Puerto Rican and American holidays, we have had to condense them a little.

• New Year’s Day, January 1
• Three Kings Day is January 6.
• Martin Luther King Jr Day
• Day of the Illustrious Puerto Ricans is the 3rd Monday in February.
• American Citizenship Day is March 2.
• Emancipation Day is March 22.
• Good Friday (varies)
• José de Diego Day is April 17
• Memorial Day is the last Monday in May
• U.S. Independence Day, July 4
• Don Luis Muñoz Rivera Day is July 17.
• Puerto Rican Constitution Day is July 25.
• Dr. José Celso Barbosa Day is July 27.
• Labor Day
• Day of the Races, (Pirates Day)
• Veterans Day
• Discovery of Puerto Rico Day is December 19. Few people celebrate this because Columbus was an evil man who unleashed great evil on the world. The Taíno, Carib, and the calabasa squash discovered Puerto Rico long before him.
• Thanksgiving Day
• Christmas Eve, December 24
• Christmas Day, December 25

Puerto Rican Culture in New York City is a mix of Indigenous Taíno and Carib, Spanish colonizer, African Diaspora, and for better and worse, the Americans.

We almost got free, and then the Americans came. We’ve been Americans for over a hundred years, but now have this strange codependent love~hate relationship.

Traditional Puerto Rican culture includes: bomba, plena, and música jíbara. We have good merengue too.

Contemporary Puerto Rican culture includes: mural art, spoken word, theatre, Latin jazz, salsa, reggaeton, and latin trap. We have the world’s longest Christmas celebration.

Through reggaeton, Puerto Rico dominates global youth culture.

We are one of the communities that defines New York City. We are all over, but mostly in:

• “El Barrio” East Harlem
• “Loisaida” East Village/Lower East Side
• The Bronx
• Bushwick, Brooklyn

Thanks for sponsoring Puerto Rican culture:

• Ballet Hispánico 🇨🇺 🇲🇽 🇵🇷 🇻🇪
• Carnegie Hall
• CCCADI, Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute 🇵🇷
• Hostos Center 🇵🇷
• Lehman Center
• New York City Center

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