Junta for Progressive Action
Photo exhibit celebrates local Latino heritage
Jim Shelton , Register Staff
NEW HAVEN — Manny Rivera builds Latino unity the same way he gathers up snapshots for a photo exhibit.
He asks every group in town to contribute something.
"This is how you create change and come together," says Rivera, director of community cultural development for the Arts Council of Greater New Haven.
"We want to put aside some of the old dividing lines in the Latino community and have a united project," he says.
That’s where the photographs come in. They’re to be part of Nuestra Herencia ("Our Heritage"), an evening of art, poetry, dance and music in honor of Latino Heritage Month on Friday at the Educational Center for the Arts.
Rivera has assembled an impressive list of contributors for the free festival: groups such as Junta for Progressive Action, Hispanos Unidos, Centro San Jose, Casa Otonal, FLECHAS and ASPIRA; representatives from Yale-New Haven Hospital, the Regional Water Authority, the Agency on Aging and La Voz newspaper, as well as local politicians, educators and business owners.
"Many of these organizations have had their own neighborhood events," explains Daniel Diaz of the Regional Water Authority.
"Now, you’re finding a diverse cross-section of people within those groups. You have social classes now, and so we want to create a bridge to reach our community through the arts," Diaz says.
In the past century, the local Latino community has evolved from a predominately Puerto Rican population to include immigrants from Mexico, Cuba, Peru and other Latin American countries. Occupationally, the group has achieved success in all professions.
"When I came here in 1958, there were just a few families here," notes Celestino Cordova of the Agency on Aging. "Imagine being in a place where your people have no key positions in the local institutions.
"We had to go through all of these problems to get to this point," he says. "I’m impressed by what so many people did."
Visitors to Nuestra Herencia will see some of those people represented in the historical photo exhibit that opens the event.
For example, there is the late Gumersindo "Gumpy" DelRio, who was a political patriarch for the Latino community in New Haven for decades until his death in 1986.
A photo from the 1960s shows Pura Delgado, founder of Latino Youth Development in New Haven, while a 1993 photo features the late state Rep. John Martinez, back when he was executive director of the Grant Street Partnership in the city.
"It shows how far we’ve come in representing our community," Diaz says, surveying some of the photos.
"And I love this picture," he adds, pointing out a late-1950s photograph of a family celebrating Christmas around a Christmas tree.
"Historically, that was one of the largest periods of Puerto Rican movement into New Haven," Diaz says. "It shows what we’re all about. We celebrate Three Kings Day, but we also teach our kids that it’s OK to learn about the other cultures. Look at that little Charlie Brown tree in the background."
Ideally, Rivera wants to make Nuestra Herencia and the photo exhibit an annual event.
"A lot of people don’t know these stories," Rivera says.