Bronx Borough and Hostos Presidents to Honor Legacy
Of Evelina Antonetty and Announce Centennial Celebration
Wreath Laying Scheduled for Sept. 28 at Evelina Antonetty Playground, Bronx, NY
Bronx, NY, September 23 – A delegation of Bronx community leaders, headed by Hostos Community College President Daisy Cocco De Fillipis, will lay a wreath at Dr. Evelina Antonetty Playground to honor the park’s namesake and announce plans for a September 2022
Evelina 100, New York City and Puerto Rico symposium celebrating Dr. Evelina Antonetty, one of the most important figures of the Puerto Rican diaspora in the United States. During the decades between 1960 to 1980, she dedicated her life to advocating on behalf of the South Bronx and beyond. The
wreath-laying is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Tuesday, September 28 at Dr. Evelina Antonetty Playground, located on the Grand Concourse between E 146 St. and E 149 St. in the Bronx.
The
Evelina 100 Planning Committee Chair, Dr. Nydia Edgecombe will announce the plans for the September 2022 Evelina 100 celebration at the wreath-laying ceremony, and invites community members, scholars, leaders, to reach out to her.
The
Evelina 100 Planning Committee will be scheduling commemorative music and arts events and academic presentations related to Antonetty’s legacy at various venues in New York City and Puerto Rico.
For further information to get in touch with the Evelina 100 Planning Committee and on-going efforts, visit the
Evelina 100 Facebook and Instagram pages or www.evelina100.com. Information will also be updated via Twitter and through the Evelina 100 partners, Hostos Community College and Center for Puerto Rican Studies.
Dr. Antonetty was born on September 19, 1922, in Salinas, Puerto Rico and arrived in East Harlem in the fall of 1933. She began her community activism at the age of 12, helping her neighbors in El Barrio to secure food during the years of the Great Depression. She excelled in school, advocating for improvement of the educational system during the early 1940s.
In the Bronx, during the sixties and seventies, Evelina became a consummate community activist, leading the fight for bilingual education for Puerto Rican parents and children. In the process, she founded the nationally renowned United Bronx Parents, Inc. in 1965. Her legacy includes the establishment of a long list of food, housing, health, and youth programs. Later, the agency targeted community needs in the areas of drug and high school dropout prevention through programs that exist to this day.
In a community “that lacked everything,” Dr. Antonetty became a symbol of power for Puerto Ricans and other residents of the South Bronx, teaching them to confront those forces preventing them from becoming full and productive members of society.
For further information and inquiries, contact Dr. Nydia Edgecombe at 917-691-7887 or via email at nydiaedge@gmail.com.
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