Bandera Fever
New York/EDLP – Banderas will be all over New York this weekend, but will they be the “right” banderas?
Informal groups like Bandera Fever on Facebook promote the use of the Puerto Rican flag without any caricatures or gimmicks.
In recent years, with the surge in production of flags that have coquis or Betty Boop characters, Puerto Rican parade committees have also called on Boricuas to reject that imagery on the flag.
Bandera Fever posts, “A nation’s flag represents the moral character and history of its people” and provides some background on the origins of the Puerto Rican flag:
The original Puerto Rican flag was created for the Grito de Lares uprising against Spain in 1868. It was designed by Dr. Ramón Emeterio Belances and sewn by Mariana Bracetti.
In New York in 1895, the Puerto Rican section of the Cuban Revolutionary Party emerged. It was here that it was decided to adopt a new flag to replace the one that had been raised in Lares, Puerto Rico. The new flag reflected the Cuban banner of insurrection by inverting the colors.
