Puerto Rican Festival 2021

The first Puerto Rican Barrios began to form in the late 1940s

However, tension with the ever-present problem of over-policing existed. After the Rochester Race Riot of 1964 which marked years of police violence and systemic oppression plaguing black southern communities in Central Rochester, the Puerto Rican community continued to face it as well in 1969, when police beat and arrested 17 Puerto Ricans just outside the International Plaza. The Ibero-American Action League, a social action organization first devoted to helping Puerto Ricans with disabilities receive educational services but later housing as well, led a protest down the avenue less than a year later, and just after, the first-ever Peurto Rican Festival happened in Brown Square Park. Despite moving around inner Rochester, to predominantly non-Puerto Rican neighborhoods, the festival came back to the International Market this year. Its return signaled a change in the city was willing to acknowledge the community and showed both its immense diversity and unity. Made in coordination with the Father Tracy Advocacy Center, an organization devoted to harm reduction and creating a safe space for opioid users and the homeless along the Avenue.