Guerillero Cultural

Foto by Leonardo Laboy, July 9, 2016. Puerto Rico is a small island with a small population compared to the rest of the world. Puerto Rico is not even a "country" in the legal sense of the word yet it has its own flag that is the pride and joy of its owners. The red, white and blue flag of Puerto Rico has a long and controversial history. It was created in New York City in 1895 by a group of Puerto Ricans that were part of the Cuban Revolutionary Committee. The purpose of this committee was to liberate Cuba and Puerto Rico from Spanish colonial rule. Among the Puerto Ricans was a young man named Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, the acclaimed historian of the African-American community in the US. Read more about the flag in wikipedia. Jump to 2016. Puerto Rico's government proclaims that it is in a debt crisis. It owes a record and mind-boggling $73 Billion dollars to Wall Street institutions. This is a sum it recognizes that it cannot pay. This deadly financial crisis is ...

The iconic image of Puerto Rican nationalist leader Don Pedro Albizu Campos (1891-1965) has proven to be very popular not just on tee shirts but on print, artwork, films, books, etc. So where does it come from? The picture was taken in 1936 in San Juan during a rally by the Nationalist Party. Don Pedro Albizu Campos was the president of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico from 1930 to 1965. He graduated from Harvard with a law degree, after having begun his undergraduate studies at the University of Vermont and transferring to Harvard University. His leadership of the Nationalist Party was known for its uncompromising stance for the independence of the archipelago comprised of Puerto Rico, Vieques, Culebra and other smaller islands surrounding the coasts of Puerto Rico. On April 16, 1936, the Nationalists were gathered in the Plaza De Armas in San Juan to commemorate the birth of Jose de Diego. After the American invasion, de Diego combined a brilliant literary career in poetry w...

On Thursday, July 7, 2011, Puerto Rico lost one of the giants in its history. Dr. Ricardo Alegria passed away from cardiac failure. He was without doubt one of those individuals that defines a nation. His accomplishments were magnificent to say the least. I had the honor to have met and talked with Don Ricardo on a couple of occasions. He impressed me from the first time that i heard about him and his tenure as the director of the Institute for Puerto Rican Culture (ICP) for 18 years beginning in 1955. I came to become acquainted with Puerto Rican culture on my own here in the US. I have been living here since 1966, when my family moved here and I was 10 years old. I was bitten by the Puerto Rico culture bug in the early 1970's and by then Dr. Alegria had left the ICP and it was then that I learned about the Taino Native American and the African heritage of our people. It was then that I also became politically conscious and joined the movement to liberate Puerto Rico from t...

Apparently the world has not come to an end. But earthshaking changes are coming. We may not know what those changes are but we want to be ready. And this is one of the motivations for the event on Thursday, May 26: 2012: The beginning of a new era, Taíno spirituality and you . This is an event that's been in my mind since last year. That's when my friend José Muñoz and i started collaborating on several Taíno workshops that brought to the community some of the basic foundations of Taíno culture, the foundations that allow us to identify as Taíno and to actually go out and let the world know that the Taíno are still here. The Taíno, as many Native people, have a special affinity with nature and things that are not of this world. The Native people of this hemisphere developed knowledge conocimiento that we can only imagine. The Maya for one developed a calendar that is very particular and takes into account certain events that only a very advanced civilization could know...

Arts & Crafts at Taller Boricua's Salsa Wednesday Taller Boricua - 1680 Lexington Avenue, NYC. tel: 212.831.4333 email: contact@tallerboricua.org www.tallerboricua.org. Directions: #6 Lexington Avenue train to 103rd St. More information on Arts & Crafts send an email to: info@cemiunderground.com Union Settlement Association's 19th Annual Ethnic Festival - Celebrating the Cultures of the World Saturday, May 21, 2011, 11am to 6pm. East 104th Street between 3rd Avenue and 2nd Avenue, NYC. Vendors call 212-828-6052 to reserve a spot! You can also check their website: www.unionsettlement.org Loisaida Festival - Sunday, May 29, 2011, from 11am to 5pm in Avenue C, Manhattan, between 6th and 12th Streets. More info and vendor application at their website: www.loisaidainc.org