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boricuacommunitycenter, 15 Sylvan St, Rutherford, NJ (2026)

10/13/2026

🇵🇷📚🏆FILM PANEL HIGHLIGHT: Children’s Author, Publisher, and Boricua Literary Arts Award recipient Samantha Garcia-Sherpa speaks about the books we needed as children.

“My mission is to bridge what I think is a critical gap in children’s literature. I recall being a Puerto Rican child growing up in Brooklyn, New York, and having zero books to choose from about my ancestry.”

🌞We continue sharing highlights from the 2nd Annual Boricua Film Festival with gratitude for Samantha García-Sherpa, children’s author and CEO of Nuyorican Books, who joined us as both a community partner and film panelist.

🏆Samantha Garcia-Sherpa was recognized with the Boricua Literary Arts Award for expanding the reach of Boricua literature and creating space for our stories to be written, shared, and passed forward.

🤝🏼García-Sherpa’s work speaks directly to the reason our representation is important for children who deserve to see themselves reflected in the books they grow up reading.

🇵🇷 Nuyorican Books nuyoricanbooks is a Puerto Rican woman-owned publishing house based in Brooklyn, New York, dedicated to creating stories that center our children, families, ancestry, and culture.

📚 With “I Am Boricua,” Samantha gives children a story of identity and belonging through “Flor,” a young Puerto Rican growing up in Brooklyn. “ABCs for Baby Boricuas” introduces our youngest readers to language and culture from the very beginning. “ABCs for Baby Boricuas: Pueblos” carries that learning across Puerto Rico by connecting letters with our towns, landmarks, and sense of place.

📌Coming Dec. 1st, “Intentona de Yauco” brings children into the 1897 moment when the Puerto Rican flag was first unfurled on the island, while “La Borinqueña: Himno de la Isla” introduces them to our anthem through music, history, and sound.

💫Together, these new books expand our representation through stories our children can hold in their hands and see themselves reflected in.

This , support Boricua stories year-round. Follow , share Samantha’s work, and help put our stories in the hands of the next generation.

#2026

10/05/2026

🎭🎫🇵🇷 Incredible night for Puerto Rican theater at Teatro LATEA! We had the pleasure of catching up with the incredibly funny Sofia Negrón Sofia Negrón, who opened the second night of Dominant Animals and had the audience laughing before an incredibly powerful performance.
💫Dominant Animals the Play Dominant Animals was excellent, but what happens on that stage goes well beyond the synopsis. Intergenerational trauma, mental health, sexuality and healing are explored through characters and relationships that give voice to subjects too often left unspoken in our families and society. The relationship between father and son was especially powerful, and the caliber of the performances brought tremendous depth to these characters and their stories.
🎉 Congratulations to the entire cast, writer Cris Eli Blak, director Adrienne Acevedo Lovette, Executive Producer Eddie Martinez Eddie Martinez and everyone at VOE Coqui Productions for bringing this important Puerto Rican story to the stage. And much love to Sofia for opening the night with laughter! 🇵🇷❤️

10/01/2026

🇵🇷🇵🇪🎬 Join us at 12PM on Thursday, October 8th. We are proud to partner with Passaic County Community College PCCC for a screening of Twin Tongues / Lenguas gemelas, an short documentary directed by Dr. Iliana Pagán-Teitelbaum, a Puerto Rican filmmaker, writer, educator, and professor. The film explores language and identity through a Puerto Rican and Peruvian family and the relationship between Spanish and English.
📲Swipe through to watch the trailer.🎬

The day also includes PCCC’s Hispanic/Latino Heritage Festival, featuring live music, dance and visual art performances, food trucks, and more. Cimarrones will share Bomba y Plena with youth and college students as an educational and cultural experience rooted in Puerto Rican music, history, and tradition.

👭🏻Twin Tongues Student Screening | 12:00 PM
Hamilton Club
32 Church St., 2nd Floor, Paterson, New Jersey

🎊Hispanic Heritage Festival | 12:00–4:00 PM
PCCC Cultural Wellness Courtyard
170 Van Houten St., Paterson, New Jersey

💫We are deeply grateful to Passaic County Community College and the Folklife Center of Northern New Jersey for welcoming our students and making this experience possible. Thank you also to Dr. Iliana Pagán-Teitelbaum and Cimarrones for sharing their art and knowledge, and to the educators and students who understand the importance of making space for Puerto Rican stories, language, history, and culture.

🇵🇷Puerto Rican stories, language, music, and culture belong in our classrooms and in our communities.

🎬 Watch the trailer for Twin Tongues / Lenguas gemelas. The film opens an important conversation about language, family, identity, and what it means to grow up between Spanish and English. We’re excited to share this story with youth and college students on October 8th.

🎬Mira el tráiler de Twin Tongues / Lenguas gemelas. La película abre una importante conversación sobre el idioma, la familia, la identidad y lo que significa crecer entre el español y el inglés. Nos emociona compartir esta historia con jóvenes y estudiantes universitarios el 8th de Octubre.

PCCC’s Hispanic/Latino Heritage Festiv

10/01/2026

🍿🇵🇷🇵🇪🎬Join us at 12PM on Thursday, October 8th We are proud to partner with Passaic County Community College PCCC for a screening of Twin Tongues / Lenguas gemelas, an short documentary directed by Dr. Iliana Pagán-Teitelbaum, a Puerto Rican filmmaker, writer, educator, and professor. The film explores language and identity through a Puerto Rican and Peruvian family and the relationship between Spanish and English.
📲Swipe through to watch the trailer.🎬

The day also includes PCCC’s Hispanic/Latino Heritage Festival, featuring live music, dance and visual art performances, food trucks, and more. Cimarrones will share Bomba y Plena with youth and college students as an educational and cultural experience rooted in Puerto Rican music, history, and tradition.

👭🏻Twin Tongues Student Screening | 12:00 PM
Hamilton Club
32 Church St., 2nd Floor, Paterson, New Jersey

🎊Hispanic Heritage Festival | 12:00–4:00 PM
PCCC Cultural Wellness Courtyard
170 Van Houten St., Paterson, New Jersey

💫We are deeply grateful to Passaic County Community College and the Folklife Center of Northern New Jersey for welcoming our students and making this experience possible. Thank you also to Dr. Iliana Pagán-Teitelbaum and Cimarrones for sharing their art and knowledge, and to the educators and students who understand the importance of making space for Puerto Rican stories, language, history, and culture.

🇵🇷Puerto Rican stories, language, music, and culture belong in our classrooms and in our communities.

🎬 Watch the trailer for Twin Tongues / Lenguas gemelas. The film opens an important conversation about language, family, identity, and what it means to grow up between Spanish and English. We’re excited to share this story with youth and college students on October 8th.

🎬Mira el tráiler de Twin Tongues / Lenguas gemelas. La película abre una importante conversación sobre el idioma, la familia, la identidad y lo que significa crecer entre el español y el inglés. Nos emociona compartir esta historia con jóvenes y estudiantes universitarios el 8th de Octubre.

The day also includes PCCC’s Hispanic/Latino Heritage Festival, featuring live music, dance and visual art de

09/01/2026

🚰🇵🇷Puerto Rico’s water crisis is not temporary for the communities living through it. Some have endured more than 150 days without reliable water service, while more than 180,000 customers are now facing rotating 48-hour outages as drought, water system failures, and electrical outages deepen the crisis.

💧 Proyecto Agua del Aire en Puerto Rico is a developing community response using Atmospheric Water Generators that capture moisture from the air and convert it into filtered drinking water for on-site relief during water shortages.

We are exploring an initial pilot of five community sites, each with an Atmospheric Water Generator and planned solar and battery backup.

We are now seeking community partners, potential host sites, sponsors, donors, renewable energy partners, transportation support, and technical expertise to help develop the project.

🇵🇷 Interested in participating?
Swipe and scan the QR code to sign up.

Boricua Community Building Center
boricuacommunitycenter.org

08/06/2026

🇵🇷🚱💧The Water Games in Puerto Rico — Across Puerto Rico, banners hang from homes and apartment buildings with a demand that should never need to be written: “EXIGIMOS AGUA.” We demand water.

For months, Puerto Ricans have been forced into a cruel contest for one of life’s most basic necessities. Residents wait for water trucks that may never arrive, stay awake hoping the faucet runs and divide what little remains between drinking, cooking, bathing and sanitation. Those who can afford water storage tanks, pumps, bottled water and private deliveries can buy temporary protection, though there is no guarantee.

The crisis did not begin with the latest drought or rationing announcement. Communities were already enduring prolonged and unpredictable outages. In June, a rupture in the 72-inch Superaqueduct pipeline disrupted service across multiple municipalities and forced the National Guard to distribute drinking water.

Drought may have intensified the emergency, but it did not create deteriorating pipelines, service disruptions or years of government neglect. It exposed decades of neglect that left the water system vulnerable.

In Santurce, one resident said interruptions began as early as February.

“They never give you a chance to prepare. They turn it off randomly. Then when it comes on for one hour, it’s at 3 a.m. … so you can’t get sleep trying to catch water.”

Even promised relief becomes another gamble: “On the newspaper and TV, they act like there are water trucks. Then you go to the site and there is no water truck.”

“Last year it was electric games,” the resident said. “This year, it’s water games, and it started before the rain stopped.”

Water is a human right. Forcing people to organize their lives around the next drop is not. Puerto Ricans are demanding dependable emergency distribution, urgent repairs and access to clean water.

Until then, welcome to The Water Games in Puerto Rico, where the faucet may run for an hour in the middle of the night, the promised water truck may never arrive and survival increasingly depends on money, location and luck.

May the odds be ever in your favor.✌🏽

NO WATER IN THE OASIS | When we visited
the Cupey oasis

07/02/2026

🎬🇵🇷🎤FILM PANEL HIGHLIGHT: Inés Mongil Enchandi on Documentary, Legacy, and Puerto Rican Memory

"These stories need to reach our people because they are part of who we are."

In these two clips at the Boricua Film Festival, filmmaker and director Inés Mongil Enchandi joined our panel after presenting two documentary works: Yo Soy Lo**ta Lebrón, a short documentary on the life and legacy of Lo**ta Lebrón that is now being developed into a feature length film, and De Tribus y Máscaras, a short documentary exploring culture, identity, and creative expression as tools to help prevent youth violence in Puerto Rico.

Inés reflected on what inspired her to begin telling Lo**ta Lebrón’s story and why documenting her life and legacy remains important. Her words opened a larger conversation about the reality that independent Puerto Rican documentaries require time, resources, community support, and deep commitment.

Together, her work reminds us that documentary film is more than filmmaking. It is memory, education, cultural preservation, and a commitment to making sure our stories continue to reach the communities that need them.

Boricua Film Festival 2026
Photo credit: Diana Nuñez Guzman

06/17/2026

Greetings! Thank you for donating!

They wait with hope for food, visits, hugs, and words of encouragement: simple gestures that convey to them that they are not alone and that someone cares about them.

LET NO ONE GO TO BED HUNGRY.

May God provide you with health and peace.

Chef Ivan Clemente El Comedor de la Kennedy

06/08/2026

🎬🇵🇷🫂♥️ Thank you for making the 2nd Annual Boricua Film Festival a meaningful experience! After months of planning, changes, challenges, and community effort, we welcomed hundreds of guests to experience a full day of Boricua film, culture, history, performance, and conversation.

What made the day special was not only that the theaters were full, but that our audience showed up with love, curiosity, pride, and support and came through with a stronger sense of belonging and connection to the profound stories being shared.

Thank you to every filmmaker who trusted us with their work, every sponsor and community partner who helped make this possible, every performer and poet who brought spirit to the stage, every artist who added to the experience, every volunteer who helped carry the day, and every guest who came through the doors.

The Boricua Film Festival began from a strong desire to learn and share our stories with care and community. This year reminded us what is possible when people come together to celebrate Boricua culture through education, film, and art with dialogue and solidarity in New Jersey and the diaspora.

"Yo sería borincano aunque naciera en la luna."
—Juan Antonio Corretjer

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Rev. Angel | Boricua Community Building Center of New Jersey

🙏🏽Special thanks to for their
work, flexibility, and cooperation to make this experience unforgettable!

🙏🏽We are incredibly grateful for the collaboration with and for bringing the CORTADITO Shorts to feature!

More pictures and videos in the coming days thanks to our on the ground photographer

ed

kennedy

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de.ponce

06/05/2026

🇵🇷🎬🏆THIS SATURDAY, JUNE 6th THEATER 2 continues with Puerto Rican stories of land, memory, climate, language, migration, identity, and belonging.

THEATER 2

🎬 VECINO
Showing at 2:20 PM

A story about a muralist painting traditional houses at risk of disappearing.

🎬 STEWARDS OF THE LAND / SERÁN LAS DUEÑAS DE LA TIERRA
Showing at 2:27 PM

Stephanie, Ian, and Alfredo struggle to build a life producing food for local communities without land or capital.

🎬 FARMERS OF THE SEA
Showing at 4:10 PM

Set on the island of Vieques, this documentary looks at how climate change is making fishing more difficult.

🎬 CHIMENEA DE MUERTE
Showing at 4:28 PM

Natividad and Alberto share their daily struggle in the face of coal burning.

🎬 LENGUAS GEMELAS / TWIN TONGUES
Showing at 4:42 PM

In an English-dominant world, Puerto Rican-Peruvian twins face the question of learning English without losing their Spanish.

EVENING COMMUNITY SHORTS BLOCK

🎬 SIN FRONTERAS
Showing at 6:00 PM

Young people reveal stories of those being persecuted because of their immigration status.

🎬 CANGREJOS / CONGREJOS
Showing at 6:23 PM

A look at the history of institutional displacement affecting the Black communities of San Mateo de Cangrejos.

🎬 UNA MISMA TIERRA: THE DOMINICAN COMMUNITY IN PUERTO RICO
Showing at 6:39 PM

A community short highlighting Dominican identity, culture, and belonging in Puerto Rico.

🎬 UNA MISMA TIERRA: COMUNIDAD CHINA EN PUERTO RICO
Showing at 6:49 PM

A community short highlighting Chinese identity, culture, and belonging in Puerto Rico.

Join us Saturday, June 6 at the 2nd Annual Boricua Film Festival.
Reserve your seat: www.boricuacommunitycenter.org/boricuafilmfestival

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