Artist Aims To Honor Revolutionary Puerto Rican Women With Paseo Boricua Portraits

"Caption:Humboldt Park actor, storyteller, producer and comedian Melissa DuPrey is working with local leaders to produce 20 portraits honoring Puerto Rican women in Humboldt Park. Photo credit: Provided via BlockClubChicago.org

Excerpt from blockclubchicago.org

HUMBOLDT PARK — Artist and activist Melissa DuPrey is on a mission to increase visibility for Puerto Rican women past and present in Humboldt Park. The Humboldt Park native, who is an actor and comic, is working with local leaders and cultural institutions to put up 20 portraits with accompanying plaques near the neighborhood’s signature steel flags. The featured women revolutionized the arts, culture and politics, among other areas, and were integral to the diaspora community in Chicago. “My project seeks to span the spectrum of identity and … many areas of either culture, education, revolution, politics, even Santeria and religion that we are able to live,” DuPrey said. “One of these profiles might also be one of the first Black women to touch a bomba drum — it’s not just about revolution; it’s about revolutionizing the thing.” Lolita Lebron, Julia de Burgos, Ana Roque de DuPrey, Mariana Bracetti, Blanca Canales, Luisa Capetillo and Mayra Santos-Febres are some of the iconic Puerto Rican women DuPrey hopes to feature. They are not as well known as Puerto Rican men who have been highlighted in the community, she said. “Canales was a huge revolutionary, and we don’t know much about her,” DuPrey said. “So when we talk about Puerto Rican history, which is such a small portion of our Latin history in general, women often get left out.” DuPrey is partnering with nonprofit arts agency 3Arts to fundraise for the project, called Las Flores del Paseo Boricua, or The Flowers of Paseo Boricua. It met its initial fundraising goal in just 48 hours, so now she has a stretch goal of $10,000. DuPrey hopes to raise a little over $1,000 more before Thursday night to hit that goal, she said. The project also received $2,000 from 3Arts and $6,000 from the city’s cultural affairs department. "