La Bonita Bandera: Bronxites Celebrate Puerto Rican Heritage

Parade honorees hoist their flags at the start of the annual parade. Photo courtesy Miriam Quin — Parade honorees hoist their flags at the start of the annual parade.
Photo courtesy Miriam Quin

By Richard Bucey

Grand Concourse was a sea of red, white, blue and a single star as tens of thousands of Bronxites filled the streets for the 27th annual Bronx Puerto Rican Day Parade. The parade spanned from East 192nd Street all the way to Van Cortlandt Avenue. Over a 150 community, political, educational and cultural groups marched in this celebration of Puerto Rican heritage and multiculturalism.

Bronx Puerto Ricans showed their pride by donning sashes, dresses and T-shirts featuring their signature flag from their native island. After the Jones-Shafran Act of 1917, Puerto Ricans were given de-facto US citizenship. Puerto Rican ethnic enclaves flourished in New York City, where the majority of these migrants settled in the Bronx. Today, Puerto Ricans make up roughly 25 percent of the borough’s population.

Parade Royalty prepare for the big day, as this year’s king and princes of the parade show off their bling. Photo courtesy Miriam Quin — Parade Royalty prepare for the big day, as this year’s king and princes of the parade show off their bling.
Photo courtesy Miriam Quin

Parade-3 — The parade’s crowd packed the wide boulevard known as the Grand Concourse. With a turnout of over 60,000 people, the Puerto Rican Day Parade exceeded expectations. Weather in the low 80s also contributed to a huge turnout. Photo courtesy Miriam Quin

The Foxy Family, a local nonprofit, march up the parade by Fordham. A few of these foxes are representing local non-profit Foxy Family at this year’s parade. Photo courtesy Andre Rivera

The parade was founded in 1987 by Angel Luis Rosado. It’s currently managed by Francisco Gonzalez.

admin

Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.

2 thoughts on “La Bonita Bandera: Bronxites Celebrate Puerto Rican Heritage”

Lorraine Koppell

June 3, 2014 at 5:16 pm

It was a fun parade and Oliver and I were happy to be there. Great to celebrate Puerto Rico where we have vacationed more than 20 times.
maritza Martinez

June 5, 2014 at 2:24 pm

it was one of the proudest moment for me and I was so proud to see my people THE BRONXITE be there to support it. god bless them.

Comments are closed.