New York Latin Culture Magazine™

World-class Indigenous, European, African, Asian & Oceanian Culture since 2012

You are here: Home / Travel / Caribbean / Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico really is the island of enchantment. Famous for its beaches, the mountain heartland is even more beautiful. Puerto Rico is so many things you never imagined.

Puerto Rico News

Puerto Rico celebrates the world’s longest holiday season from mid-November to mid-January. 2021-22 is special because the government is promoting cultural tourism, and Old San Juan celebrates its 500th Anniversary.

All these references to Alegría channel the “joy” of being Puerto Rican and acknowledge Ricardo Alegría (1921-2011), the first anthropologist to study Puerto Rican culture. He cared before anyone else did.

Puerto Rican Heritage Month ~ Comparsa Talentos Nacional Puertorriqueña (Keith Widyolar/New York Latin Culture Magazine)
Puerto Rican Heritage Month ~ Comparsa Talentos Nacional Puertorriqueña (Keith Widyolar/New York Latin Culture Magazine)

El Laberinto del Coco Héctor Barez plays Big Band Bomba Fusion at El Boricua in Rio Piedras on Thu, Nov 18 at 8pm. No cover. 🇵🇷

El Laberinto del Coco Héctor Barez plays Big Band Bomba Fusion at Rumba Puertorrican Flavors & Bistro Bar in Río Grande on Sat, Nov 27, 2021 at 9pm (6pm doors). No cover. 🇵🇷

Ongoing

MONDAYS

La Terraza de Bonanza in Santurce usually has Bomba, Plena or Rumba at 7:30pm. @laterrazadebonanza

Pasito a Pasito Waterfront in La Perla, Old San Juan usually has Bomba at 8pm. @pasitopasitolp

TUESDAYS

Pasito a Pasito Waterfront in La Perla, Old San Juan usually has Reggae DJs at 8pm. @pasitopasitolp

THURSDAYS

Esquina Watusi is a street bar in Tras Talleres, Santurce with an artsy crowd. The Plena hasn’t come back, but Thursdays are still the best night. @esquinawatusi

El Boricua in Rio Piedras is popular with the UPR college crowd on Thursday nights. @elboricuariopiedras

Coming Soon

The ¡Alegría! 500 Years of Music concert tributes the diverse musical influences that make Puerto Rico so special, at the Centro de Bellas Artes Luis A Ferré in Santurce, on Sun, Nov 14 at 7pm. tcpr.com

The Feast of Our Lady of Providence, patron saint of Puerto Rico launches Puerto Rico’s Christmas season on Fri, Nov 19.

Campechada 2021 Ricardo Alegría is a festival of Puerto Rican artisanal crafts and performing arts at Cuartel de Ballajá in Old San Juan, Fri-Sun, Nov 19-21, from 11am – 6pm. FREE discoverpuertorico.com

Puerto Ricans are a warm and diverse people. Culture is centered around eating and drinking, drumming, singing and dancing with family and friends, on the beach and in the mountains.

African Diaspora traditions are very alive. They survived at home for 500 years in secret, but are now part of who we are as Puerto Ricans.

We complain a lot about being colonized (justifiably), but young Puerto Ricans have risen above any question of race, religion, nationality, gender, or social class. We are simply Puerto Rican.

Travel is easy because the island has been part of the United States for over a hundred years and is just 4 hours from New York City. Spanish is the day-to-day language. Many young people speak English, but don’t assume it.

In November 2021, Puerto Rico leads the United States in flattening the COVID curve. Puerto Rican social life is mostly outdoors and social cohesion is stronger than on the mainland. ¡Boricua orgulloso! 🇵🇷

The island is a natural paradise that reveals itself little by little, the longer you stay.

Many places retain their Indigenous Taíno names. You’ve probably been taught that we are long dead, but we are still here. Like everywhere else, the First Nations just intermarried. Taíno social structures remain part of Puerto Rican life today.

Social life is all about eating and drinking with family and friends at chinchorros, the roadside bars on the beaches and in the mountains, just as life has been since before the pirates came. There are even famous chinchorro routes through the mountains and beaches.

Previously in Puerto Rico

La Filosofía Bantú y la Bomba Puertorriqueña is a discussion of Kokobalé, the Afro Puerto Rican martial art. It’s at Taller Tamuyé in Rio Piedras on Wed, Oct 27 at 7pm, $5; and at Estudio 353 in Mayagüez on Fri, Oct 29 at 7pm. $10. Instagram

Puerto Rico Features

For our Padrino Borinquen, the great Nuyorican surrealist photographer Adál Maldonado (1948-2020) who proved that Puerto Ricans were first on the moon. Yes, really.

Puerto Rico has more than its share of talented artists. Puerto Ricans dominate today’s music industry. Adál said Puerto Rico became a cultural superpower because the colonizers denied Puerto Ricans the basic human right of self-determination.

Puerto Rican Culture

Chinchorrear

A chinchorro is a surf shack or mountain shack restaurant bar. To “chinchorrear” is to go from one chinchorro to the next all day long into the night.

Bomba

Bomba is an African Diaspora drum, song and dance tradition that has become an element of contemporary Puerto Rican identity.

Plena

Plena is a hand drum music tradition that still operates as the local news.

Escuela de Bomba y Plena Rafael Cepeda Atiles; in Villa Palmeras, Santurce; is the community school of the first family of Bomba. You can take lessons there. Facebook @esc.rafaelcepeda

Ballet Hermanos Ayala is the folkloric ballet of the second family of Bomba. Their Ayala batey (sacred circle) in Loíza Aldea is a center of Bomba culture. The family patriarch created the coconut version of the Vejigante carnival mask. @losayalasdeloiza

Revista Étnica is a magazine by and for our cultural superpower: the women of the African Diaspora. @revistaetnica

Proyecto Kokobalé teaches the Afro-Puerto Rican martial art with machete and sticks that is part of Bomba Puertorriqueña. Brazilian Capoeira, Haitian Tire Machet, and Cuban Juego de Mani are similar traditions. @proyecto_kokobale

El Concilio Taíno Guatu-Ma-cu A Borikén is a Pueblo Taíno in Bayamón that is recovering our Taíno traditions. conciliotainopr.org

Adál Maldonado is one of the great Puerto Rican photographers, a natural surrealist who was part of the Nuyorican movement of the 1960s and 70s (the Latin Harlem Renaissance). He is our Padrino Borinquen. #AdalLives newyorklatinculture.com

Modesto Lacen is one of Puerto Rico’s most famous actors (“Celia” and “Esclava Blanca”). He can live anywhere in the world, but is raising his family in his hometown, Loíza Aldea. @modesto_lacen

Mayra Santos Febres is one of Puerto Rico’s most famous living writers and Executive Director of La Festival de la Palabra, Puerto Rico’s literary festival. Her latest book is “Antes que llegue la luz.” In this story, she is becoming the Cervantes of Puerto Rico. @mayra.santosfebres

El Laberinto de Coco Héctor Barez is a hot Bomba fusion project. So many influences, so Boricua. Coco was Calle 13’s original percussionist. @ellaberintodelcoco

Mar Cruz is a Bomba dancer, fashion designer and advocate for Afro-Puerto Rican culture including Kokobalé, the Afro-Puerto Rican martial art. She used to be the Bomba teacher of the children of Loíza! @sebailabomba

Amauro Febres is a Bomba drummer and organizer with a strong following of young people. He organizes Bombazos in La Perla and Piñones. @amaurofebres

Salsa

Salsa is Caribbean dance music from New York City. It is 1950s Cuban Son that evolved in NYC’s Puerto Rican communities in the 1960s and…

Continue Reading Salsa

Reggaeton

Reggaeton is today’s global youth music. It is evolving from dembow riddim Afro-Caribbean roots into all kinds of fusions. Reggaeton NYC Latin music DJ Pereira…

Continue Reading Reggaeton

Salsa is Cuban dance music of the 1950s developed by many Caribbean peoples, but it’s mostly Puerto Rican. It has Puerto Rican bomba and plena in it mixed with New York jazz.

Reggaeton is Jamaican-Panamanian-New Yorker, but Puerto Ricans made it global. Latin trap is the next sound after reggaeton.

Puerto Rico has the world’s longest Christmas holiday traditions. The Parranda is Christmas caroling Puerto Rican style. We celebrate from Puerto Rico Discovery Day (why do we still celebrate that?) on November 19 through Thanksgiving, Christmas, Three Kings, Las Octavitas until the Las Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastían (San Sebastián Street Festival) ends in mid-January.

We have strong theatre traditions. Chita Rivera, Rita Moreno and Raul Julia are Broadway and film legends. New Yorker Lin-Manuel Miranda (Freestyle Love Supreme, In the Heights) wrote Hamilton which is the Broadway hit of our generation. Raul Julia, Rosie Perez, Benicio del Toro, Gina Rodriguez, Luis Guzmán and Modesto Lacen are just a few of the many amazing Puerto Rican actors.

Puerto Rico Festivals

Puerto Rico’s biggest festival is Las Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastían (The SanSe or San Sebastían Street Fair) in San Juan in mid-January. It ends Puerto Rico’s Christmas season, the world’s longest.

The big carnivals are Carnaval de Ponce (Ponce Carnival) in February and Loíza’s Festival de Santiago Apóstol (St. James Festival) in July.

There are normally several fiestas patronales (patron saint festivals) every weekend of the year somewhere in Puerto Rico. These small town carnivals are beautiful expressions of their local communities. Like big carnivals, the communities get busy a month before and local events in the week before the big party. Salsa and merengue bands play the fiestas patronales. Many of them are world-famous artists.

Regions of Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico’s regions are Metro (San Juan), East, West, North, South and the Central Mountains.

The mountains of Puerto Rico’s Cordillera Central are a beautiful countryside with rainforests and everything that goes with that. They are the cultural heart of Puerto Rico.

One of Puerto Rico’s surprises is how much regional and local variation there is in people, culture, and even language.

Famous Puerto Ricans

Many people travel back and forth between Puerto Rico and New York City, but being island Puerto Rican is very different from being New York Puerto Rican. We cover New York Puerto Ricans on our Puerto Rican NYC page.

Maelo Ruiz

Friday, March 20, 2020
LA BOOM NYC
Woodside, Queens
The Puerto Rican salsa romántica singer is joined by Colombian Vallenato group Binomio de Oro.

Continue Reading Maelo Ruiz

Bad Bunny

Friday, December 6, 2019
PROSPECT HEIGHTS, Brooklyn ~ The Puerto Rican bad boy of Latin trap and reggaeton brings his X100Pre Tour (Para Siempre, Forever) to Barclays Center

Continue Reading Bad Bunny

Puerto Rico Government

The government is supposed to work for the people. Make them work for you.

The Puerto Rican Government is at pr.gov
Governor Pedro R. Pierluisi is on Twitter @fortalezapr and @GovPierluisi
Senate President José Luis Dalmau is on Twitter @JoseLuisDalmau
Speaker of the House of Representatives Rafael “Tatito” Hernández is on Twitter @tatitohdz

Police

Call the police by dialing 911

Compañia de Turismo de Puerto Rico

The Puerto Rico Tourism Company promotes tourism.

  • Tourist information is at discoverpuertorico.com (COVID-19 Quarantine information) and Twitter @discover_PR
  • Business information is at prtourism.com and Twitter @CTPuertoRico

Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP)

The Puerto Rican Culture Institute preserves and promotes Puerto Rico’s rich cultural diversity at icp.pr.gov and on Twitter @icppr

Non-Governmental Organizations

The Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce is a business advocate at camarapr.org and Twitter @Camarapr

Federal Government and U.S. Organizations

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is probably the highest ranking member of the U.S. government with a Puerto Rico Rican heritage. She is a New York Puerto Rican from The Bronx.

As a colony, Puerto Rico lacks voting representation in the U.S. Congress, but these organizations and members of Congress regularly support the interests of Puerto Ricans.

  • Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration (PRFAA) and Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico (House of Representatives) Jenniffer González Colón
  • New York Senator Chuck Schumer
  • New York Representative Nydia Velázquez (NY District 7)
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY District 14)

Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico (FOMBPR or La Junta)

Puerto Rico is working through a functional bankruptcy. The federal law PROMESA created this organization to oversee Puerto Rico’s budget at juntasupervision.pr.gov and Twitter @FOMBPR

FEMA

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA District 2, has been active in Puerto Rico since Hurricane Maria in 2017. fema.gov and Twitter @femaregion2

Caribbean Travel

Sponsored by NYC's Leading Brands

Leading brands sponsor New York Latin Culture Magazine including: Jazz at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, New York City Center, Blue Note Entertainment and The City's own NYC & Company.

The project is led by Keith Widyolar, a marketing and communications consultant who builds brands and businesses through public, media and government relations. He was named a “key Hispanic journalist” and “Hispanic market influencer” by NYC & Company, New York City’s official branding and tourism agency.

The New York Stock Exchange had the team ring its closing bell for Hispanic Heritage Month. We can work for you too!

Sponsor