Viva Cultura Saturday trolley celebrates Puerto Rican heritage in the Bronx

June 4, 3:54 AMNY Latino Community ExaminerClarisel Gonzalez

"Viva Cultura" in the Bronx. This Saturday, you can live a day full of culture and the arts Puerto Rican-style for free. You can ride the Culture Trolley and explore some of the hottest destinations in the South Bronx from noon to 6 p.m.

“The hope is to create a tradition of celebrating Puerto Rican heritage in the Bronx through the arts,” says the Bronx Council on the Arts’ Leenda Bonilla who is of Puerto Rican heritage and grew up in the Bronx. Saturday’s trolley theme is a celebration of the thriving Puerto Rican community in this borough, which is commonly referred to in Spanish as el condado de la salsa (the borough of salsa music).

"I knew that June is a significant month for our community,” she says, referring especially to New York City’s upcoming National Puerto Rican Day Parade, one of the largest cultural parades in the country and one of the largest public displays of Puerto Rican pride.

“I proposed a themed tour titled ‘Viva Cultura’ because I feel there is a need to facilitate more cultural platforms to have cross generational interaction and continue the cultural history of our heritage that has had long ties in the Bronx,” she says. “The Bronx Council on the Arts has had a history with the preservation of the casitas (little houses) that remain in the Bronx and collaborated in an exhibition with the Smithsonian in Washington back in the 80’s. We need to continue those types of ties that links history, culture and community.”

Among the highlights for this month’s tour, she says, is the introduction of BCA’s music series titled “BX Indie” where three artists and their groups will play a hybrid of nuestra musica: Norka Nadal – Bambula, Obanilu Allende y Pura Plena, and Matthew Gonzalez y Cumbalaya will perform at the Rincon Criollo casita throughout the afternoon. Also, the tour will visit the LDR studio whose current show Five Points will exhibit works of five Puerto Rican artists whose work reflect the culture and history of Puerto Rico. The trolley will also stop by the National Puerto Rican Day Parade’s 152^nd Street Cultural Festival between Union and Jackson Avenue. And, Bomba Yo will perform inside the trolley, which Bonilla says, “is always fun.”

Culture Trolley Saturdays, launched in March, is a new program hosted by the Bronx Council on the Arts that aims to share with the public the opportunity to spend a day visiting artists and cultural institutions in the Bronx. Different themes are featured.

This month’s "Viva Cultura," Bonilla says, provides a chance for people to visit parts of the Bronx that have a rich cultural history with the arts and the Puerto Rican community past and present. This event is co-produced and sponsored by Wally Edgecombe and the Hostos Center for the Arts.

For Bonilla, exploring and celebrating her Puerto Rican heritage is also personal.

“One of my earliest memories (I was three years old) was being on plane with my mom, dad, sister and two brothers heading to Puerto Rico to visit my relatives,” she says. “My youth was spent traveling on the air bus (also known as American Airlines) for 3.5 hours landing in San Juan, then getting into a car and driving for another 2.5 hours until we hit the South where my mom’s hometown Yauco is.”

She remembers her family would stay there for two or three weeks and then head to her father’s hometown of Cabo Rojo.

“I didn’t think much of traveling of course as I thought everyone else did the same,” she says, adding that her visits were consistent until she was 14.

Still, she says those visits were an important foundation. She saw early on that not every Puerto Rican has the opportunity to visit the island the way she did.

In fact, that experience helped form her “duality of being a mainland Nuyorican and an islander.”

“My identity issues did not really occur until I was in college and then out in the corporate world,” she says.

After going back to school where she focused on photography and printmaking and then pursuing a masters program at Pratt for Arts & Cultural management, she realized her deep interest in arts advocacy and social policies that impact communities.

“My thesis came about from the realization of my identity and understanding that I am considered Puerto Rican here and ‘gringa’ (white American girl) on the island and the fact that I did not know anything about the history of Puerto Rico...Granted, I knew about customs and traditions from staying with my family in PR, but on the mainland most of the information about culture or history is given via marketing and an Euro-centric perspective, and I feel the time has come to change that by insisting on Puerto Rican history within the context of American history on all grade levels.”

Bonilla hopes “the trolley allows people an opportunity to visit really unique and culturally rich enclaves without the fuss of transportation and gives the community an opportunity to really connect with all that the Bronx has to offer culturally and artistically.”  

For more information on the Saturday trolley, visit www.bronxarts.org.