Jíbaro Soy, 1981 (South Bronx)

Carlos Ortíz

While there is not much information on this black and white photograph by Carlos Ortiz, this Jibaro Soy mural by an unknown artist is a reflection of the long established Puerto Rican community in the South Bronx.

La Plaza Cultural Mural, 1977 (Lower East Side / Loisaida)

Alfredo “Freddy” Hernández

Alfredo “Freddy” Hernandez, La Plaza Cultural Mural, 1977, 1985, 30’ x 41’8” The mural overlooked La Plaza Cultural Community Garden. The mural was tarred over by the building’s landlord and replaced by the collective mural by Artmakers Inc.

La Lucha Continúa, 1985 (Lower East Side / Loisaida)

Artmakers Collective

“In La Lucha’s upper right corner, two muralists work on a rig painting the faces of the African woman and Chinese and Puerto Rican men originally portrayed in Freddy’s mural; they represented recent immigrant groups to the neighborhood” who were originally portrayed on Freddy Martinez mural on the same wall (Artmakers Inc).

[Roberto Clemente Center mural], ca. 1996 (Loisaida)

Antonio García (Chico)

Located on the front wall of a Loisaida community health center, this mural’s images follow a tapestry style narration of consecutive historical events in a chronological order that spans from pre-Colombian Taíno life in the island of Borikén to modern-day Puerto Rican life in NYC. In the mural, the jíbaro is situated within his rural landscape holding a machete.

Dos Alas, [1999] 2012 (El Barrio)

Vagabond Beaumont

Cuba y Puerto Rico son
de un pájaro las dos alas,
reciben flores o balas
sobre el mismo corazón…

The above verses are a fragment of the poem “A Cuba” (ca. 1893) by revolutionary Puerto Rican poet Lola Rodríguez de Tió. The poet was banished from Puerto Rico by the Spanish colonial government, due to her political activity on 1889 and lived in exile in the sister island of Cuba where she wrote the poem and to whom she dedicated it. The Dos Alas mural, painted by visual artist and musician Vagabond Beaumont, one of the co-founders and members of the Nuyorican hardcore punk band RicanStruction,  has been a landmark of El Barrio for over two decades. In intermixes both countries flags, national colors and other national icons (such as the jíbaro) and El Che and Pedro Albizu campos standing side-by-side, a blend that visually resemiotizes the poem’s lyrics, that invoke the similarities and solidarities between both nations across time.

Hip Hop Jibarito, 2021 (Bushwick)

OBE

This mural contains a combination of semiotic elements that position the jibarito as a hybrid de aquí y de allá. Indexical markers of Puerto Rican ethnic and cultural identity on the mural include the Taíno pictographs of the sun and the coqui frogs, with the predominant one being the pava hat painted in broad strokes of red, white and blue, with a few yellow as if to not forget the original material’s color. The text “Hip Hop Jibarito” graffitied with the red, white and blue colors reclaims Puerto Rican’s participation in the hip hop movement, at the same time that it indexes puertorriqueñeidad. The mural alludes to the cultural productions that Puerto Ricans in New York co-constructed with other ethnic and racial groups at the same time that it invokes the idea of an autochthonous puertorriqueñeidad as symbolized by the figure of the “jíbaro”. One stylistic element that stands out is the predominant use of the Puerto Rican flag colors, particularly in elements other than the flag itself, which is depicted in its black and white version of the 2019 2019 mobilizations against the government. The display of the Puerto Rican flag and its colors index national and cultural solidarity, perhaps even anti-colonialist politics. At the same time, by donning accessories with the flag colors (tank top, pava) the Hip Hop Jibarito speaks to the transnational experiences of Puerto Ricans and symbolize a bridge between Puerto Rican and US identities