El Compeon . . . of the Parade?
Note: As we wait to hear the results of the investigation by the NYS Attorney General of the National Puerto Rican Day Parade and its financial relationship t the shady Galos Corporation, the publisher of El Diario-La Prensa,which should be shedding light on this situation for the Puerto Rican community, has decided to not only ignore the problem but change the subject. In a June 18th statement published in the paper in English and Spanisn, Rossana Rosado gives the impression that those who have criticized the Parade for allowing the Puerto Rican flag to be printed on Coors Light beer cans were calling for the end of the Parade or that it has outlived its purpose. In all of the commentary on the MillerCoors controversy, rather than calling for an end to the Parade, all I heard was a call for the Puerto Rican community to take it back as a community institution. If Rosado based her conclusion on reader comments to a New York Timesarticle, well, consider the source and understand that most of them were not even Puerto Rican. So why give them any credence?
Rosado, who explains her long relationship with the Parade and even seems to claim to be the person who started its "commercialization," knows full well the long history of complaints against the Parade organization. Although I do not know this as a fact, perhaps this is why this was the first year her father attended the Parade! In any case, it is interesting that she made no reference to the State Attorney General's investigation of the Parade but sought instead to belittle its critics. As Rosado invokes the image of the Puerto Rican family as she uncritically defends the Parade, aren't the many critics of the Parade also members of this family?
Instead of using the pages of El Diarioto discuss ways to improve the Parade, Rosado decided instead to promote a status quo that is increasingly being questioned in the Puerto Rican community. We are proud of the Parade as an important community event that shows the continuing strong Puerto Rican presence in this city. But that should not keep us from being critical of our own when necessary. Rosado should know better than to paper over our problems at a time when the Puerto Rican community finds itself at a crossroads in so many ways.
El Diario-La Prensarefers to itself as "el campeon de los Hispanos." As it celebrates its centennial, one wonders who exactly it is they are championing these days.
---Angelo Falcón
CONTENTS
* "Like a big family, the parade has its virtues and defects" By Rossana Rosado, El Diario-La Prensa (June 13, 2013)
* "As Puerto Rican Parade Grows, So Do Complaints" By Winnie Hu, New York Times (June 7, 2013)
Like a big family, the parade has its virtues and defects
By Rossana Rosado / Publisher & CEO of El Diario
El Diario-La Prensa (June 13, 2013)
When I worked as a producer at WPIX Channel 11 in the late 80's, we were known as the parade station. We had the Columbus Day Parade and the St. Patrick's Day Parade but I decided we needed the Puerto Rican parade. There was no money in it because there weren't any companies interested in advertising during the broadcast of the NY Puerto Rican parade in 1991, but it was the right step toward celebrating diversity.
So in order to make this happen, WPIX absorbed the production costs. Selling ad space for the broadcast was a challenge, so when I hear folks complain about the commercialization of the parade, it always makes me remember training salespeople in pitching this market. Way before the census would confirm our growth potential, we were selling its buying power and economic impact, without losing our essence.
Parade committees are not easy to work with when you're producing a television event meant to boost ratings. These are civic organizations where most people are volunteers. Their main concern, as it should be, is a smooth glide up Fifth Avenue with no police activity, no rain and many happy flag wavers.
Ethnic parades are as New York as the Empire State Building, so I was troubled by a recent New York Times piece where a reporter sort of scooped up all the dirt on this parade - incidents going back to 2000 and 1978 into one piece asking whether the parade had outlived its purpose. The spark for the story was protest over the use of the Puerto Rican flag on a can on beer. But many of the comments on the Times piece reflected shame to utter disgust with the parade. I was annoyed, if not surprised, by the exchange in the comments.
To be clear and transparent, El Diario has always supported and done business with the Puerto Rican Parade, including facilitating the participation of our clients - advertisers - as sponsors of our floats. I cannot defend this or any parade committee against unwise decisions or public relations faux pas and what have become yearly controversies: For example, the St. Patricks Day Parade excludes gays.
But it is not up to mainstream journalists, or critics, or even activists with great intentions to decide whether the parade has outlived its purpose. It is not for any of us to decide that all those people lining Fifth Avenue last Sunday no longer deserve a celebration -as flawed as it may by perceived to be by some.
My 76-year-old father went to his first parade this year, in honor of El Diario's 100th anniversary. And for over 20 years, I have been going to the Puerto Rican Parade in different roles: reporter, producer, city official, and supporter and most important as family. But mostly, I've attended as a proud Nuyorican. This event allows me to celebrate my heritage with my beloved city and I can choose to be there or to watch it on TV.
The thing about pride is that it crosses class lines, race lines and age lines. On Fifth Avenue, the day of the parade - we are one people. The parade is a family affair and whether nostalgic or romantic, the pride is real, the flag is ours, and the parade - with all its characters, and our people with all of their idiosyncrasies, the sometimes eccentric fashion, the loudness, the ones who drink too much, and the ones who paint flags on their faces - they are all family.
As Puerto Rican Parade Grows, So Do Complaints
The Puerto Rican Day Parade has grown into a star-studded televised extravaganza in the heart of Manhattan, with 80,000 marchers from around the country and Puerto Rico.
By Winnie Hu
New York Times (June 7, 2013)
In the 1950s, before they became a prominent part of New York City's tapestry, Puerto Ricans often found themselves unwelcome as they tried to carve out a place for themselves: sometimes beaten by their neighbors, given the lowest-paying jobs and even at times disenfranchised from voting by English-only literacy tests.
So, in 1958, Puerto Rican leaders decided to hold a modest parade in East Harlem where Puerto Ricans were settling and where they could march arm in arm with pride. Fathers would teach their sons and daughters about their roots by pointing to floats dedicated to Puerto Rican towns known for coffee beans, bananas or sugar cane. Mothers would tap their feet to the African-inspired drum music that brought back memories of growing up on the island.
More than a half-century later, the parade has grown into a star-studded televised extravaganza in the heart of Manhattan, with 80,000 marchers from around the country and Puerto Rico, 2 million spectators and a fleet of corporate sponsors. This year, Chita Rivera will be the grand marshal helping to lead the parade down Fifth Avenue.
But even as the National Puerto Rican Day Parade has become one of the nation's largest and best-known ethnic celebrations, its organizers have come under scrutingy over how they manage the event and what they do with the money it generates, some of which is supposed to finance scholarships for children of Puerto Rican heritage.
More broadly, many Puerto Ricans complain that the parade has become an embarrassing spectacle that encourages bad behavior, gives their culture a bad name and is as much a marketing opportunity for big corporations as it is a celebration of what they have achieved.
"It hurts me in my heart when I see this parade," said Ildefonso Rivera, 57, a carpenter who as a boy used to wait by the curb with his father to watch the floats roll by. "I don't see the floats with our culture. I see the floats for Coors. Today, it's just one big commercial."
Such criticisms came to a head in recent day when elected officials and activists protested a commemorative Coors Light beer can for the parade that included the Puerto Rican flag and a modified version of the parade's logo, saying it insulted Puerto Ricans and sent the wrong message when the theme this year was meant to celebrate health. But though distribution of the offending can was halted, the furor escalated the tensions between many Puerto Rican leaders and elected officials and the parade's organizer, National Puerto Rican Day Parade Inc., a nonprofit organization overseen by a volunteer board of directors.
Despite highly visible sponsorships by MillerCoors, Goya Foods and others, the parade and its related activities, including a gala banquet and a pageant, have operated at a loss every year since at least 2005, according to tax filings. The parade's organization reported that it raised a total of about $460,000 in revenues in 2012, but spent over $620,000 on the parade and related activities, leaving a deficit of about $159,000.
Eric T. Schneiderman, the state's attorney general, who has legal oversight of nonprofit organizations, is investigating the parade's financial dealings, including its relationship with MillerCoors and his office has raised questions about how organizers are protecting the parade's reputation. And elected officials and activists have railed against the parade's leaders for what they call many missteps and a lack of accountability.
"They're treating the parade like their own banana republic," said Gerson Borrero, 62, a columnist for El Diario. "The last thing on their mind is to instill pride. In fact, they have shamed us."
But Madelyn Lugo, chairwoman of the parade since 2006, defended the organization's practices, saying that the criticisms were based on misinformation. As the parade and its activities have grown into a national event, so have expenses, she said. In 2012, expenses included broadcasting costs for the parade ($103,875); insurance ($43,232); sound, music and light ($9,000); and portable toilets ($1,600).
At the same time, Ms. Lugo said, corporate sponsorships have dried up in tough economic times, falling by more than half to a total of $300,000 in 2012, down from $800,000 a decade ago. She said donations by community groups alone would never be enough to cover the parade's expenses, which include many free activities. "We're spending what's necessary to do what we need," she said. "We're giving back to the community."
Ms. Lugo said that even with the deficit, the parade had continued to raise at least $10,000 to $20,000 every year for scholarships from sponsors, including MillerCoors, who make donations directly to students on the parade's behalf, or through the Diversity Foundation, a program started by the parade's business and marketing agent, Carlos Velasquez. This year, the foundation helped Hostos Community College in the Bronx award a total of $11,500 in scholarships to 23 students.
This is not the first time that controversy has marred the parade. In 2000, in one of the event's darkest moments, the procession was followed by a series of attacks on dozens of women in Central Park, in which a roving mob doused them with water, tore off their clothes and groped them. At the same time, some parade supporters have complained that the police have sometimes been overly aggressive in arresting parade-goers and have accused some business owners along the route of racism because they choose to close on the day of the procession.
The parade's finances have also been called into question over the years. It was once controlled by Ramon S. Velez, who grew wealthy running a network of social services in the South Bronx that was repeatedly investigated for poor management and questionable finances and that earned him the title of "poverty pimp" from Edward I. Koch.
In 1986, Robert Abrams, then the state attorney general, investigated allegations of financial irregularities with the parade, and in 1978, a court barred Mr. Velez from serving on the parade's sponsoring committee and handling its finances. Mr. Velez was eventually permitted to return to the parade after claims against him were later dismissed.
Joaquin Del Rio, a journalist who was one of the parade's founders, said that Mr. Velez sought to find ways to profit from the parade that tarnished its spirit. "I am angry because this is not what we created," he said. "We created an organization to promote the positive things of our community and culture. Now everything is business."
Though Mr. Velez died in 2008, he is honored with a banner hanging on the wall of the parade's office in the Bronx, and many of the people he mentored and worked with, including Ms. Lugo, continue to run the parade. Mr. Velasquez, the president of the Galos Corporation, has also been involved with the parade for decades.
Mr. Velasquez has come under criticism because his marketing contract with the parade allows his company to keep 27 percent to 35 percent of the money that he raises for the parade, according to a copy of the contract. In 2012, even as the parade recorded an overall loss, Galos was owed $103,108, according to tax filings. He did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Ms. Lugo said that the board had previously interviewed other marketing companies, who requested a retainer up front or a commission of 50 percent.
Ms. Lugo said she would like to give more scholarship money if the parade's finances improved and added that steps were being taken to reduce expenses. For instance, she said, the organization saved $18,000 this year by opting not to sponsor a reception at Gracie Mansion, and another $10,000 by holding a pageant at Macy's free rather than in a rented space.
Some parade-goers said that the criticisms of the parade were overblown.
Venus Perez, 35, a stay-at-home mother, said that the celebrities and the big floats added glamour to the parade. She added that she bought the controversial Coors Light can as a souvenir because many of her friends and relatives drink that label in Puerto Rico. "I love the parade," she said. "It's always going to be what it is. People need to stop judging it."
But April Andino, 24, a waitress, said that she stopped going to the parade two years ago because she grew bored with the endless corporate displays, and found the crowd too rowdy. "There's no excitement anymore," she said. "And there's a lot of fighting and people getting drunk. Nobody wants to see that."