A week after a plebiscite in which an overwhelming 97 percent of Puerto Rico voters chose statehood, the island is no closer to changing its political status, much less becoming the 51st state. Islanders and the sizable Florida diaspora were atwitter about the vote. Then an embarrassing 23 percent of […]
It has been the best of times and the worst of times for Proyecto Somos Orlando, launched in the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub shooting to provide mental health services to LatinX LGBTQ survivors and families. Despite community demand and successful fundraising efforts – Somos Orlando has raised over $230,000 […]
José Martínez misses his Pulse friends. The Pulse shooting a year ago extinguished many lives and many friendships – including about a dozen people in Martínez’s circle of friends to be exact, acquaintances and best buddies who routinely met at the club for Latin night. But the night of June 11, 2016, was […]
But for a cigarette, José Martínez might not be here today, nearly one year after the shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub The worse mass shooting in U.S. history left 49 people dead and dozens of others injured. Because it had been Latin night at Pulse, many of the victims and […]
Oscar López Rivera waved a Puerto Rican flag and gestured thumbs-up as he participated in Sunday’s 60th Annual National Puerto Rican Day Parade down New York’s Fifth Avenue in what seemed an anticlimactic appearance of the ex-felon and alleged terrorist. Surrounded by a small army of protectors, López did not […]
Orlando’s religious community said “presente” after the 2016 Pulse tragedy that left 49 people dead in the worse mass shooting in U.S. history. Many churches, especially pastors from Orlando’s largest Latino congregations such as El Calvario and Fuente de Agua Viva, attended and prayed at Pulse vigils, a pleasant surprise […]
Orlando’s Confederate statue, known as “Johnny Reb,” will be moved to a new home watching over the dead in Greenwood Cemetery, in the Confederate section appropriately enough. There is no timetable for moving the statue, which has been stationed at Lake Eola for about 100 years. Ironically, Johnny Reb is in poor […]
The giant Latino company Goya Foods has left some in the Puerto Rican community stewing after it pulled its 59-year sponsorship of New York City’s National Puerto Rican Day Parade, apparently over the parade’s honoring of Oscar López Rivera, officially freed today after serving 35 yeas in federal prison for alleged ties […]
