{"id":40509,"date":"2025-09-08T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T17:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=40509"},"modified":"2025-09-16T09:17:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T16:17:51","slug":"phillys-puerto-rican-day-parade-embodies-strength-of-the-mainlands-second-largest-boricua-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/phillys-puerto-rican-day-parade-embodies-strength-of-the-mainlands-second-largest-boricua-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Philly\u2019s Puerto Rican Day Parade embodies strength of the mainland\u2019s second-largest Boricua community"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

H\u00e9ctor M. Varela Rios<\/a>, Villanova University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Picture this: Puerto Rican flags, referred to as \u201cla monoestrellada\u201d \u2013 the \u201cone-starred\u201d \u2013 everywhere you look. The smell of alcapurrias \u2013 if you can find them! \u2013 and other savory fritters wafting through the air. The rhythms of salsa or Bad Bunny\u2019s trap reggaet\u00f3n<\/a> blasting out of speakers. Almost everybody speaking some version of \u201cespa\u00f1ingl\u00e9s,\u201d or Spanglish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philadelphia<\/a>\u2019s annual Puerto Rican Day Parade<\/a> is chaotic, loud and hard not to love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025, Boricuas from across the city will converge on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to celebrate their heritage and traditions with music, dance, floats, food and general revelry. Boricuas is how Puerto Ricans often refer to themselves, as the island was called Borik\u00e9n by the Indigenous Ta\u00ednos before the Spaniards arrived in 1493.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am Puerto Rican, island-born and raised. I currently live in Philadelphia and teach theology and Latin American studies<\/a> at Villanova University. I call myself a \u201cdiasporican\u201d in contrast to what I would call \u201cislandricans,\u201d or Puerto Ricans who live on the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me and many other diasporicans, being Puerto Rican embodies mixed feelings, or ambivalence, about identity and history. For example, I am both Boricua and Latino, de all\u00e1 y de aqu\u00ed. I grew up colonized yet now live in the colonizing country. I think in two languages. I eat arroz, habichuelas y carne guisada and also hamburgers. I like Guns N\u2019 Roses and Calle 13<\/a>. I perform my Puerto-Ricanness in myriad ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Puerto Rican identity is complicated<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Parades are public demonstrations of community identity<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Puerto Rican Day Parade, symbols and traditions are used to communicate what being Puerto Rican is and means, be it islander or diasporic, historical or contemporary, and traditional or alternative. But these symbols and traditions are open to interpretation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waving la monoestrellada can mean pride in Puerto Rican culture and history. Or value and respect for the island as a U.S. territory. Or even a call for independence from the U.S. Meanwhile, parade dancers perform Indigenous, Spanish and Afro Caribbean dances for what is ostensibly a singular ethnicity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being Puerto Rican means different things to different people while being strictly policed by those same people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, Boricuas are often bilingual, yet their proficiency in Spanish and English can be used to measure just how Puerto Rican they are. On the one hand, Spanish is the most common language spoken at home for islandricans, yet English is more prevalent among diasporicans. On the other hand, speaking Spanish with a gringo accent could mark you as an outsider on the island, while not speaking English at all could be seen as backward in the diaspora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s complicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The power of \u2018arraigo\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Cultural anthropologist Yarimar Bonilla captured this ambivalence<\/a> in her July 20, 2025, op-ed in the Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo D\u00eda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bonilla discusses Bad Bunny\u2019s 30-date concert residency in Puerto Rico. Bad Bunny chose the island for his shows, adjusted dates and pricing to favor islandricans, and art-directed the concert to highlight Puerto Rican history and culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[The concert] is not simply an unprecedented artistic achievement; it is also a political statement,\u201d Bonilla writes. \u201cArraigo (rootedness) is not what binds [Puerto Ricans], but what empowers us.\u201d Another version of the op-ed<\/a> was published in English in The New York Times on Aug. 3, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Bonilla, Bad Bunny\u2019s concert series can be interpreted as \u201ca gesture of love\u201d \u2013 love for Puerto Rico, no matter where you are, and for all Puerto Ricans, no matter how they are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Man
Bad Bunny performs during the opening night of his No Me Quiero Ir De Aqui (I Don\u2019t Want to Leave Here) residency in San Juan. Kevin Mazur via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Empowerment in spite of mixed feelings<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Puerto Ricans have been a vibrant presence in Philadelphia for more than a century<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to U.S. Census Bureau data, a little over half of all Latinos in the city<\/a> are Puerto Rican. Indeed, Philly is home to the second-largest Puerto Rican community<\/a> outside Puerto Rico, after New York City. Philly diasporicans certainly are a proud local bastion of Latin identity, and the parade is an outpouring of civic love via flags, music, dance and food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, diasporican arraigo also demonstrates precarity. Just look at poverty, violence and health and housing inequities<\/a> that have long afflicted Fairhill and West Kensington, two adjacent and heavily Puerto Rican neighborhoods in North Philadelphia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a world marked by migration and disparate allegiances to empire, identity must also embrace uncertainty. Islandrican becomes diasporican<\/a>, vice versa and back again. Cultural traditions shift<\/a>, and the relationship to political power doesn\u2019t stay still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Historically, the U.S.\u2019s treatment of Puerto Ricans both on the island and in the diaspora has fluctuated. On the one hand, it has been significantly helpful, as when island economic conditions improved through U.S. intervention<\/a> after World War II, although those improvements came at a significant cost to local farming<\/a>. On the other hand, it has been outright abusive, as when researchers unethically tested birth control pills<\/a> on the island in the 1950s, or when the federal government undertook a slow and mismanaged response<\/a> after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico<\/a> in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The parade, then, demonstrates a rootedness that is complex and plural, entangled with shifting identities and complicated histories. It is a gesture of a love that straddles comfort and grief. Is not love like that always, with mixed feelings?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a recent diasporican, I am still working through how to best express my love for my community and the city. I am a proud Boricua, arraigado (rooted) in the island and in Philly. And you will find me among the throngs attending the 2025 parade, wearing my one-starred beret, eating an alcapurria and dancing salsa quite awfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

H\u00e9ctor M. Varela Rios<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Theology, Villanova University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

H\u00e9ctor M. Varela Rios, Villanova University Picture this: Puerto Rican flags, referred to as \u201cla monoestrellada\u201d \u2013 the \u201cone-starred\u201d \u2013 everywhere you look. The smell of alcapurrias \u2013 if you can find them! \u2013 and other savory fritters wafting through the air. The rhythms of salsa or Bad Bunny\u2019s trap reggaet\u00f3n blasting out of speakers. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":40510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,279,7,10,40,36,38],"tags":[16862,16864,5892,412,885,891,886,860,14506,16863,4222,1686],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40509"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40509"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40621,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40509\/revisions\/40621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}