The red, white and blue of the Puerto Rican flag on bandanas, shirts and beaded necklaces. Whirling dancers in sequined outfits. A sonic barrage of merengue, salsa and reggaeton.
Ox-driven wagons from Mayaguez among the colorful floats. Most of all, hundreds of thousands of roaring celebrants.
Crowds lined both sides of Fifth Avenue on Sunday for the National Puerto Rican Day parade, though one high-profile Puerto Rican was noticeably absent — Sonia Sotomayor, the New York-born federal appeals judge who is the first Latina nominated to the US Supreme Court.
Parade-goers said that her nomination had become a symbol of pride for many Latinos.
“I think it’s a good opportunity to expose us, to show that, not just Puerto Ricans, but Latinos, can be on top,” said Paige Mykoo, 16, Miss Puerto Rico of Brevard County, Florida, as she prepared to walk in the parade, which began under overcast skies about 11am at West 44th Street.
The Puerto Rican parade evolved in the early 1950s as a pan-Latino affair but later became more focused on celebrating Puerto Rican heritage. There are about 789,000 Puerto Ricans in the city, making them the largest Latino group in New York City. There were 2.3 million Hispanics in 2007 in the city, US Census Bureau data showed.
In recent years, the parade has attracted a wide spectrum of Latinos from various ethnic backgrounds.
A contingent of nearly 2,000 people from Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, where some of Sotomayor’s relatives live, was also expected to participate in the parade. Though it wasn’t immediately clear exactly how many did come, dozens apparently showed up, sporting T-shirts with the name of the city.
Rafael Crespo, 69, who is originally from Mayaguez, on the western coast of the island, said he was doubly proud that Sotomayor is a Puerto Rican and had a direct connection to the city.
“It’s marvelous,” he said, adding that Sotomayor was a “bit liberal” for him. “But it’s an honor to have her as a good candidate for the Supreme Court.”
Sotomayor, a federal appeals court judge, was raised in a Bronx project and educated in the Ivy League. US President Barack Obama has urged the Senate to vote on confirming Sotomayor before it takes a break in August. Republicans say they need more time to review her nearly 17-year record on the federal bench.
The parade reflected the influence and achievements of Puerto Ricans and Latinos in the city. Politicians again strode up Fifth Avenue, among them New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York Governor David Paterson and New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine.
New York Roman Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan greeted the crowds from a red carpet in front of St Patrick’s Cathedral, where he posed for photographs with politicians such as New York State Senate Malcolm Smith.
Stars of television, film and music were greeted with cries of adoration. Besides dozens of musicians and bands, the famous included Bernie Williams, Jose Feliciano and Grupo Mania.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS