Dallas City Hall will serve as the backdrop for the first Texas Puerto Rican Day Parade and Festival this Saturday.
Thousands of people from all over the state are expected to attend.
"A lot of it's gonna look like a 4th of July but just in June 7th,” said Vi “Beba” Silva, founder of the cultural nonprofit Bombazo DFW, which is organizing the event.
“The Puerto Rican community is the second largest [Hispanic] community in the state of Texas, and people don't know that,” Silva said.
According to census data compiled by the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York, there are over 250,000 Puerto Ricans living in Texas.
“My job is to find spaces and claim spaces where we belong,” Silva said. So far 5,000 people have signed up online, although registration is not required.
Silva called the community a “new one” that didn’t exist years before. She said various factors have contributed to the growth of the Puerto Rican population in the state, including Hurricane Maria, which devasted the island in 2017.
“The audience that we have right now is an audience that is missing our home and left our home,” she said. “Our kids are being raised and born here, but the diasporas immigrated over here.”
She described the free parade and festival as akin to carnaval in Puerto Rico. It will include music, dancing, food and booths that sell crafts and artesanías.
"We're a ball of fire when it comes to celebration,” Silva said.
Sheyda Borges, a Dallas-based educator and native of Puerto Rico, said she’ll be at the festival waving her Puerto Rican flag and wearing her t-shirt con mucho orgullo — with lots of pride.
“I'm heading over there because just imagine being with my people,” Borges told KERA in Spanish. “That makes me feel like I'm on the island.”
Silva’s dream is for the parade to one day have the same attendance as the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City, which can draw as many as 1 million people to Manhattan.
The Dallas parade and festival goes from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday at Dallas City Hall.
Priscilla Rice is KERA’s communities reporter. Got a tip? Email her at price@kera.org.
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