Puerto Rican Culture in New York City

Puerto Rican New York City

Puerto Ricans were drawn to New York City during the “Great Migration” of the 1950s. Governor Marin’s “Operation Bootstrap” changed the island from a sugar economy to light industry, and displaced mountain Jíbaros from land they lived on for generations. At the same time, New York City had jobs. This push-pull caused the Great Migration.

New York City’s Puerto Rican neighborhoods include:

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

Today after three generations, New York Puerto Ricans 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.

Puerto Rican Art in NYC

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 🇵🇷

Puerto Rican Books in NYC

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

Letras Boricuas Fellows by the Mellon Foundation in New York and the Flamboyan Foundation in San Juan recognize talented Puerto Rican authors in October. 🇵🇷

Puerto Rican Colleges in NYC

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.

Puerto Rican Community Centers in NYC

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 🇵🇷

Puerto Rican Dance in NYC

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

Boca Tuya is a rising star contemporary dance company, led by award-winning Puerto Rican choreographer Omar Román de Jesús. 🇵🇷

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 New York City’s leading Puerto Rican folkloric dance and theater companies. 🇵🇷

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

Nélida Tirado Flamenco Arte 718 dances and teaches traditional flamenco. 🇪🇸 🇵🇷

Puerto Rican Festivals in NYC

152nd Street Cultural Festival is a May street fair in Longwood, The Bronx that kicks off the National Puerto Rican Day Parade celebration. 🇵🇷

Las Fiestas de Cruz commemorates the great earthquake that struck Puerto Rico on May 3, 1787. Los Pleneros de la 21 celebrate it. 🇵🇷

Loisaida Festival is a community street fair and parade in “Loisaida,” Alphabet City in Manhattan’s East Village over Memorial Day Weekend. 🇵🇷

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

Puerto Rican Food in NYC

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 🇵🇷

Puerto Rican Film in NYC

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

Puerto Rican Music in NYC

These are places to hear great Puerto Rican music:

• Bronx Music Heritage Center in Crotona Park East, The Bronx, is a community performing arts center that presents the diverse cultures of The Bronx. It’s run by Puerto Ricans. 🇵🇷
• Gonzalez y Gonzalez is a Mexican restaurant and salsa dance club with live music for dancing on weekends. 🇵🇷
• 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 Parades in NYC

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. 🇵🇷

Puerto Rican Politicians in NYC

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

Puerto Rican Spoken Word in NYC

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

Puerto Rican Street Fairs in NYC

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. 🇵🇷

Puerto Rican Theatre in NYC

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. 🇵🇷

Puerto Rican Artists

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

Andy Montañez is a Puerto Rican salsa legend from Tras Talleres which is now the art and nightlife district Calle Cerra. 🇵🇷

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 I visited his tomb, I cried. 🇵🇷

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

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, San Juan, she taught us to read signs of the African Diaspora which are everywhere once you learn to read them. It’s a parallel universe. @mayra.santosfebres 🇵🇷

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

Plena Libre is one of the world’s leading plena groups. They also play some bomba and música Jíbara. 🇵🇷

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. 🇵🇷

Rauw Alejandro is a Puerto Rican reggaeton, Latin trap, and pop singer, who is softening and stretching reggaeton and trap with his R&B and pop sensibilities 🇵🇷

Willie Colón is a New York Puerto Rican salsa legend. 🇵🇷

Puerto Rican Culture

Traditional Puerto Rican Culture includes música jíbara, bomba, plena, salsa, reggaeton, and Latin trap. There’s also mural art, spoken word, and theatre.

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 “Kíko” 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

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 “Kíko” 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.”

Salsa

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

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.

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico really is the island of enchantment. It is a cultural heavyweight. Puerto Rican salsa, reggaeton, and Latin trap are core global youth music.

“Boricua” is the Indigenous Taíno name for 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!

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

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

The Island

People think of Puerto Rico as beaches, but the heart of Puerto Rican culture lives in the mountains. Jayuya was the Taíno heartland.

San Juan is the capital and Puerto Rico’s biggest city by far. Ponce, the second city in the south, used to be vibrant, but is fairly quiet now. Still a lot of culture comes from there.

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.

National Holidays in Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico has its own holidays, and some Puerto Ricans celebrate American holidays. Combined, there were so many days off that they had to be condensed.

• New Year’s Day, January 1. 🇵🇷 🇺🇸
• Three Kings Day on January 6 is really important to Puerto Ricans. It’s the traditional Puerto Rican Christmas gift-giving day. When the U.S. government forced Puerto Rico to teach school using schoolbooks in English, people wondered who was the fat guy with a white beard in a red suit. It’s one of our favorite days in Puerto Rico because families are out in the parks watching their kids enjoy the presents the Tres Reyes left for them. 🇵🇷 🇮🇹
• 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 Roots, (Pirates Day) 🇵🇷
• Veterans Day. 🇺🇸
• Discovery of Puerto Rico Day is December 19 when Columbus reached Puerto Rico near Aguadilla. Few people celebrate this because Columbus was an evil man who unleashed great evil on the world. He tried to get the Spanish to enslave the Taíno. Anyway, the Taíno, Carib, and the calabasa squash discovered Puerto Rico long before Columbus did. 🇵🇷
• Thanksgiving Day is the American family celebration. 🇺🇸
• Christmas Eve, Noche Buena, is December 24. 🇮🇹
• Christmas Day is December 25. 🇵🇷 🇺🇸 🇮🇹

Festivals in Puerto Rico

The Catholic Feast of Our Lady of Providence, patron saint of Puerto Rico, is celebrated on November 19. It is the traditional start of Puerto Rico’s Christmas and Holidays season ~ the world’s longest. Although today because of American influence, Puerto Rico’s Christmas and Holiday Season really gets going right after the American celebration of Thanksgiving, a week or so later.