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Leopoldo F. Fleming: The Boricua Who Played For Mama Africa and Nina Simone
From the mid-1960s onward, one South African artist captured the imagination of international audiences. Her name was Zenzile Miriam Makeba (1932-2008). Miriam arrived in the United States at the beginning of the decade, after the South African Apartheid government prohibited her return to the country as retaliation for her criticism of the institutionalized racism in South Africa. The well-known...
In Memoriam: Bartolo Álvarez, Founder of Casa Latina
Of the people who had the opportunity to make Puerto Rican popular music in New York widely known and readily available to the public, very few did so in a way as encompassing and devoutly as Bartolo Álvarez. As a musician, orchestra director, record seller and distributor he was without a doubt one of its greatest promoters. In 1928 this Yaucano arrived at the old community of El Barrio to...
Q&A Adrian Viajero Roman on 'CitiCien': 100 Artists, 100 Years of the Jones Act
In early March, Defend PR, a multimedia arts collective, inaugurated a new traveling art exhibition called CitiCien at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center in New York City, to bring awareness and explore themes related to the 100th anniversary of the passing of the Jones Act of 1917. One hundred Puerto Rican artists contributed artwork to the exhibit, each in their own way...
Puerto Rico & The United States: Historical Perspectives Through Conceptual Art
This month in New York City, two exhibits of conceptual art explore themes related to the current and historical relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico. Pablo Delano’s The Museum of the Old Colony is currently on display at the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at NYU. R ide or Die: An Exhibition of Newly Commissioned Work by Miguel Luciano is being hosted by the BRIC House...
Fantasía Caribeña: una comparsa de la Isla Nena para la Gran Manzana
Fantasía Caribeña is a dance troupe from Vieques, Puerto Rico founded in 2009 by Marisa Santiago. In 2015, they marched in the National Puerto Rican Day Parade. Below is a short history of the group and photos of their trip to New York City. En el año 2015, por primera vez el grupo Fantasía Caribeña participó en la Parada Puertorriqueña en Nueva York. Desde entonces, esta comparsa constituida por...
The Abuela Stories Project, Q&A with Peggy Robles-Alvarado
Last month, poet, writer, and educator Peggy Robles-Alvarado celebrated the launch of The Abuela Stories Project with an event held at the Bronx Museum. Three years in the making, the book brought together a group of women who write passionately to explore and expand on the notion of what it means to be an Abuela. As mentioned by Peggy during the launching of the book, “this was no easy work,...
Live In Concert: The Legendary Eddie Palmieri Turns 80
Eddie Palmieri is going to live to be 100 years old. Then he will retire for a decade before making his triumphant comeback at the age of 112, the same number of the street in El Barrio where he was born in 1936. At least that’s what El Maestro said during a concert at the 92nd Street Y to celebrate his 80th birthday. The audience at the Theresa L. Kaufmann Concert Hall stood up as Palmieri...
Essential Boricua Reading List for the 2016 Holiday Season
For the third year in a row, Centro brings you a list of Puerto Rican books just in time for the holiday season. So if you're still looking for gift ideas (and you've already check out Centro's online store ), then you're in luck. We’ve selected over 35 titles, in English and Spanish, and divided them into sections such as literary fiction, non-fiction, academia, poetry, sports, and more. This is...
The Multicultural Endeavor of Luis Mojica Torres
Luis Mojica Torres, from Ponce, had many dreams and hopes in the late eighties of New York City. At that moment, many live music venues were closing their doors to performing musicians. After six years of music training at City College, it seemed that teaching was his only chance at having a steady income. Without even imagining how life would turn out as a music teacher at a school in the Bronx...
Heritage, Feminism, & Folk: An Interview With Alynda Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff
Hurray for the Riff Raff’s Alynda Lee Segarra considers herself a feminist from an early age, having noticed, even then, the violence and oppression that women face in society: “I always felt the need to fight against it and rebel against it ever since I was a little girl." Yet that didn’t mean she could readily identify with the feminist label. There was a latency period in which she understood...

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