Puerto Ricans United Gala Recognizes Boricua Troops

Top: Kelvia Flores with her stepfather, Benjamin DeJesus, who she recognized Thursday as her dad. Bottom: Several veterans with HAVOCT. Gabriel Botero, Jr., who gave the keynote, is in the red suit at the center. Lucy Gellman Photos.

Kelvia Flores glided across the floor, her gown shimmering beneath the ballroom’s lights. In every step, she carried the legacy of her mother, the late Awilda Vega, and the thousands of Boricua culture bearers who had come before her. Around her, over 400 pairs of hands began to clap in not-quite-unison, honoring her service to Connecticut youth, to her fellow Puerto Ricans, and to her country. A tiny Puerto Rican flag winked back from every table.

Wrapped in the blue of la bandera Puertorriqueña, Flores joined hundreds of Connecticut residents and fellow Puerto Ricans Thursday night, as Puerto Ricans United, Inc. (PRU) honored military veterans in arts and culture, public safety, and nonprofit service at its eighth annual awards gala. 

Held at Anthony's Ocean View, the night became a chance to both celebrate veterans and recognize the sacrifice, often not reciprocated, that Puerto Ricans have made on behalf of what is now recognized as the United States. It comes just a few weeks before PRU’s annual Puerto Rican Festival on the New Haven Green, which in past years has brought in upwards of 10,000 people for a day-long celebration. This year, the festival is scheduled for August 10. 

Top: PRU Board President Joe Rodriguez. Bottom: Attendees raise a glass to veterans and to fallen soldiers who did not make it home.

“Tonight we celebrate the pioneers who came before us and the champions among us,” said PRU Board President Joe Rodriguez, acknowledging a painful history of discrimination that has followed Puerto Ricans through every U.S. armed conflict since the first World War. “The Boricua story is an American story and the American story is a Boricua story.”   

Awardees included Flores, who runs Viva Dance & Fitness Center for the Arts in West Haven, New Haven Fire Investigator Fernando Ramirez, the Hispanic American Veterans of Connecticut (HAVOCT) and small business champion and PRU Board Member Frank Alvarado. All have a military history: Flores is a Senior Religious Affairs Non-Combat Officer with the Connecticut National Guard, Ramirez spent years in the 280th Signal Battalion of the Connecticut Army National Guard, and Alvarado served in the U.S. Army and Connecticut Air National Guard for several decades.

“We recognize the scars of not only the battlefield,” but of those that Puerto Ricans returning from combat have faced on U.S. soil for over a century, Rodriguez said. 

But more than their service to the U.S.—which remained a centerpiece of the evening—was an emphasis on the work they have done to make Connecticut more livable for people and families (including nearly 300,000 Puerto Ricans) who call it home. During a cocktail hour before the awards, Flores buzzed between friends and family members, the long train of her dress swishing over the patio. As the sun began its long descent over the Long Island Sound, streaking the sky with pink, she recalled her journey to Viva, with stops to honor and serve fellow and fallen military members along the way.

Top: Flores (center) with Miss Puerto Rico of Greater New Haven Alanna Herbert and Miss Junior Puerto Rico of Greater New Haven Lysella Pujols. Bottom: Ramirez, who was recognized for his service.

Born in Caguas, Puerto Rico, Flores came to Bridgeport with her family when she was five, immersing herself in arts and culture through her mom, Bridgeport arts advocate and educator Awilda Vega. From the time Flores could walk, Vega was teaching her bomba y plena, forms of dance native to the island that double as resistance. Outside of her home, Flores also took up praise dance and later, salsa and bachata. 

By the time she was eight, she was the intermission entertainment at beauty pageants that her mom ran, much like the revived Miss Puerto Rico of Greater New Haven pageants that she assists with today. As a teenager, she found a creative home at Bridgeport’s South End, a community center named after the neighborhood in which it was nestled.  Between her mom and her time at South End, she started to recognize dance and movement as a kind of healing.   

“They really helped the younger generation find their voice,” she said. “I knew at age 15 that I needed to create a safe space for teens,” just like the one that was created for her. 

At the same time, the world was changing around her. When Flores was a teenager, she watched the effects of September 11 on her dad, Cruz Flores, who served in the U.S. Army and the National Guard. After the attacks on the World Trade Center and invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, she saw him fall into a depression that she couldn’t wrap her head around. 

"I noticed a big change in him, and I wanted to know what happened,” she said.

Top: Celestino Cordova, New Haven's own Borinqueneer, rises to receive recognition. Bottom: The evening included a "Missing Man Table," set for the soldiers who do not come home.

Fourteen years ago, she joined the Connecticut National Guard as a chaplain’s assistant to assist fellow soldiers, particularly those who were struggling with loss, depression and their own mental health. She is now the senior religious affairs non-combat officer with the Connecticut Army National Guard, through which she assists with military funeral honors, mental health interventions, and suicide prevention. 

“I enlisted to be able to serve soldiers—it was a priority in my life,” she remembered, looking over a banquet hall decorated in blue, white and red napkins and tablecloths. “I grew up at a time when serving was culturally considered an honor. For us, it’s a tribute to those who have come before.”

Meanwhile, she held fast to the dream of opening a space where young people could express themselves through the arts. She opened Viva on West Haven’s Capt. Thomas Boulevard nine and a half years ago, in a chilly Connecticut January that didn’t keep dancers from heating up the floors inside. In the years since, she has built a weekly roster of classes that range from bomba to Middle Eastern belly dance, with multiple teachers and an annual summer camp dedicated to female empowerment through dance. 

“Art is the voice of the people,” she said to cheers and applause Thursday. “Art is how culture is preserved, and it’s a tool for culture to thrive through generations. This award is a reminder of the words of a good friend, who once told me … that as a leader within our community, we have a responsibility to our younger generation to teach them our culture. To reach them through art.” 

“It’s our time as adults to step up, and pass down our music, our dance, our culture to our youth,” she continued. “Otherwise, can we really blame them for not holding up to our legacy and our identity as people?”

Alvarado: “In order to succeed, you have to mentor."

Flores was not the only one to stress the importance of passing culture and tradition on to the next generation. When he took the podium as the evening’s invited speaker, Gabriel Botero, Jr. recognized the weight of advocating for veterans, a responsibility he takes on as a senior advisor in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and a veteran of the Connecticut Army National Guard. 

So did Ramirez, who Waterbury residents still remember for his eagerness to provide free ice cream to neighborhood children during his 22-year tenure with the Waterbury Fire Department. When he came to New Haven a decade ago, that legacy of service persisted, including in his work as a fire investigator, fire public assembly inspector, and president of the New Haven Hispanic Firefighters Association.    

“The more I give, the more I receive,” he said. He added that “fire service has been a blessing, but brought some trauma into my heart.”

Taking the mic as four generations of family gathered before him, Alvarado also reflected on the value of service and mentorship in his career, which has spanned the U.S. Army and Connecticut Air National Guard to the Connecticut Spanish Merchants Association to the U.S. Small Business Administration. He shouted out several of the people who have been role models in his own life, including Lt. Col. Lesbia Nieves, who made history when she became the first Latina to serve as Lieutenant Colonel in the Connecticut Army National Guard 

“In order to succeed, you have to mentor,” he said resolutely. “You have to give back.”

“He’s what we call a silent doer,” Rodriguez said as he presented him with the organization’s President’s Award. “He’s constantly presente. It’s an honor to recognize one of our own.”  

Top: Musicians from Orquesta Afinke get the dance floor going. Bottom: Former Miss Puerto Rico of Greater New Haven (and Flores' niece) Miriam Magalis Cruz keep the dance floor sizzling late into the evening.

It was fitting, too, that PRU board members also took time to recognize New Haven’s own Celestino Cordova, who in 1951 fought in the 65th Infantry Regiment known as the Borinqueneers in the Korean War. Cordova, who moved from Puerto Rico to Oklahoma to New Haven and has lived a life of civic engagement in the Elm City, is now 94 years old. 

Or as co-emcee Edwin Melendez said as Cordova raised his fist, “Can I get a wepa?”

As the night flowed into salsa from Orquesta Afinke, attendees rushed onto the dance floor, wasting no time as they moved to the ooooh-aaah of musicians. Just moments before, New Haven Public Schools Community Care Coordinator Jose Camacho had taken a moment to look over the crowd, admiring PRU’s growth on the eve of its August festival. 

After decades in New Haven, to which he moved from San Juan at 15, he’s glad to see it. He can still remember when Fiestas de Loíza en Connecticut en Honor al Apostol Santiago (FLECHAS) drew a few hundred people to the Hill, and later to Long Wharf. Now, he expects thousands to come out to the festival. 

Camacho, meanwhile, has also lived that life of service that so many praised Thursday: he followed in the footsteps of his mother, retired educator and principal Miriam Camacho, to welcome students who have arrived in New Haven from other countries, often with very little English and no set roadmap to the city they suddenly call home. Outside of the public schools, he works to keep Puerto Rican culture alive for his sons, who are now young adults growing up in New Haven.  

“You know, we really try to maintain our culture,” he said.