Puerto Rican Day Parade Brings Eclectic Tapestry of Culture
The parade, which took place on Sunday June 9, drew thousands of people
The 67th National Puerto Rican Day Parade took place on June 9, featuring a long procession of performers, cultural groups, and plenty of red, white, and blue Puerto Rican flags. Salsa music blasted across several blocks, providing an exuberant atmosphere for the tens of thousands of attendees that stretched from 44th to 79th Street.
Organizers said the parade was held to celebrate the culture and history of over 3 million people living in the island of Puerto Rico, the nearly 600,000 Puerto Rican Americans living in New York City, and around 5.5 million others living across the rest of the United States.
80-degree sunlight shone on marchers showcasing the overlapping Hispanic, West African, and Caribbean facets of Puerto Rican culture. Performers presenting traditional dances like the merengue and plena, sometimes wielding batons, swirled by in brightly-colored skirts, representatives from civic organizations like educational network Centro walked by or rolled on buses down the avenue, and fighters wielding heavy cutlasses evocative of the Age of Sail battled one another to the beat of barrel drums. Watchers along Fifth Avenue also participated, by cheering and dancing joyously.
The National Puerto Rican Day Parade Orchestra played a modern bomba, a musical and dance style that emerged from enslaved Africans in Puerto Rican sugar plantations, composed by Grammy-winning musician Papo Vazquez and expressed by trumpets, saxophones, a cuatro (lute), drums of all kinds, and singing voices.
Political leaders also took the opportunity to get some face time, including Mayor Eric Adams, who sat with a panel of ABC reporters covering the event, Senator Chuck Schumer, carrying his ubiquitous loudspeaker, and Governor Kathy Hochul, waving her own Puerto Rican flag and gushing about how much she loves Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican community in New York.
This year’s theme was “Boricua de Corazón,” which translates as “in my heart.” Leading the colorful parade were grand marshal Tito Nieves, an acclaimed salsa singer, and padrino (godfather) Ramon Rodriquez, an actor who stars as the title character in the ABC series Will Trent.
“We have carefully curated a diverse and distinguished roster of honorees, each one a shining example of the excellence Puerto Ricans have contributed across numerous professions; from music, art, theater, film, and television to sports, science, literature, politics, and journalism,” Lillian Rodríguez Lopez, NPRDP Board Chair, said. “We extend a warm invitation to everyone to join us on NYC’s Fifth Avenue as we celebrate these outstanding individuals and our collective pride in our heritage and culture under our 2024 theme, Boricua de Corazón.”
The parade marks the highlight of a two-week celebration of Puerto Rican culture, which also included a cultural festival on 152nd Street, a St. Patrick’s Day Mass, and annual scholarship gala, which awards 100 scholarships of $200 in value each to exceptional students of Puerto Rican descent. The organizers also honored several Puerto Rican Americans, including New York Yankees newcomer Marcus Stroman, DJ Frankie Cutlass, actor Daviz Zayas, LGBTQ+ civil rights activist Victoria Cruz, among others.