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With the 31st Loisaida Festival just a week away, we are pleased to announce our 2018
VIVA Loisaida! Award honorees:
Damaris Reyes, Executive Director, GOLES, Inc.
Aixa O. Torres, President, Alfred E. Smith Houses Residents Council
The Rivera Fargas Family (Casa Adela)
Dr. Manuel Moran, Founder & Artistic Director, SEA, Inc.
This year's Loisaida Festival aims to connect local community based and led efforts in Loisaida's recovery and resurgence post-Sandy, to the many grassroots and emergent leader efforts that have taken hold in Puerto Rico that have brought hope to communities and empowered local residents to unite and act on their own behalf.
"Bridging Resurgence: From Sandy to Maria," the 2018 Loisaida Festival theme, is also an urgent reminder of the continuing struggle of those still recovering from Hurricane Maria's devastation of the Island. The Loisaida Center remains committed to the Island's recovery as an affirmation of our neighborhood's Puerto Rican heritage.
We are proud to acknowledge the leadership and commitment to our Lower East Side \ community exhibited over and over again by our Awardees. Congratulations!
Please join us at the Main Stage of the Loisaida Festival at 2pm on Sunday, May 27th as we formally recognize each Awardee.
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DAMARIS REYES
Executive Director
of Good Old Lower East Side, Inc.
(GOLES)
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Damaris Reyes is a lifelong resident of New York City's Lower East Side and has been with GOLES since 2000. She has used community organizing as a way to address affordable housing and other social justice issues both locally and nationally for nearly 20 years. Damaris is the chair and co-founder of LES Ready, a recovery and disaster network, and was a member of the NY Rising committee, created by the Governor's office to develop resiliency initiatives.
Reyes currently sits on the Center for Neighborhood Leadership advisory board, the National Center for Law and Economic Justice board, and the Southside United HDFC - Los Sures. She is also a member of the Community Board #3 and sits on the Public Housing, Land Use, Zoning & Housing committee, and the Waterfront Task-force, charged with the East Side and Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency Project, which to date has been awarded more than $700 million to design flood protections along the East River.
An able public speaker on issues of public housing and resiliency, her work has taken her internationally to learn about flood protection strategies and to share best practices in community engagement, resiliency, and disaster-preparedness. She has received numerous honors for her work, including the 2006 New York Women's Foundation's Neighborhood Leadership Award and the 2009 Jane Jacobs Medal from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Municipal Arts Society.
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Luis and Abigail are the son and daughter of Adela Fargas, beloved community icon, owner of the Puerto Rican restaurant Casa Adela, herself a 2014 VIVA Loisaida Award Recipient. Luis and Abigail have managed Casa Adela for over 20 years with the help and support of their family. Both have vowed to continue Adela's legacy for generations to come by upholding her traditions and love for her culture and the people of Loisaida, and by keeping Casa Adela open for business to continue to share her amazing mastery of Puerto Rican cuisine and exhibit her culinary prowess. They receive this year's VIVA Loisaida Award on behalf of the entire Rivera-Fargas family, and in honor of their matriarch, and Loisaida icon, the late Adela Fargas.
For those that may not know, Adela Fargas was born on March 19
th
, 1936 in Carolina, Puerto Rico to Juan Fargas Cruz, a carpenter and a painter, and Dominga Benitez Fragoso, a homemaker. She grew up in Cantera, and graduate from high school in San Juan, where she was an accomplished athlete.
Adela later moved to Santurce, where she started a home-based
frianbreras
(packed lunch) business, which she prepared for the workers of a local factory. When the factory moved offshore, Adela left the island and moved to the Lower East Side in the late 1960s. She started working in restaurants, but soon opened El Capri, on Avenue C, just two doors south from where Casa Adela is today.
Years later, in 1976, Casa Adela at its current location was launched. The restaurant soon became a home to the Puerto Rican diaspora, and all looking for
comida autóctona
. It became a place for people from all walks of life to meet. Politicians, artists, salsa and plena musicians, and community members frequented the beloved Casa Adela.
Adela was an anchor and symbol of resiliency along with her two children and family, in the Lower East Side community. Her spirit passed on January 15, 2018, at age 81.
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Dr. MANUEL MORAN
Founder and Artistic Director of the Society for the Educational Arts, Inc
.
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Manuel Antonio Morán was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and has worked as an actor, singer, writer, composer, puppeteer, film & theater director and producer in his country, Puerto Rico, Latin America, Europe and the United States. He is the founder and Artistic Director of SEA, Society of the Educational Arts, Inc., with offices in Puerto Rico, Florida and New York City. SEA is the first Puerto Rican organization dedicated to the Arts-in-Education. Its objective is to offer a real entertainment alternative, with cultural value and educational quality, for kids, youth and adults through bilingual educational programs, workshops, seminars, theater and other cultural artistic expressions.
Morán is the Vice-President of UNIMA (Union Internacionale de la Marionnette), the oldest international theater organization in the world, with chapters in 96 countries. Currently he is the President of UNIMA's Three Americas Commission. He is the former Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center located in New York City's Lower East Side, a Puerto Rican cultural center, which is where Teatro SEA's headquarters is located. There he led a multi-million dollar renovation project of a 98,000 square foot building with four theaters, three galleries, more than 40 art studios, 13 non-profit cultural organizations, and more than 60 visual artists.
Dr. Morán was responsible for establishing the professional Latino Children's Theater in New York City, after 18 years of abandonment. In 1999 he inaugurated
Teatro SEA @ Los Kabayitos Puppet & Children's Theatre
(now
Teatro SEA
). The theater is the only Latino Bilingual Theater for kids in New York City and possibly in the United States. In 2011 the theater was expanded and moved to a new and renewed hall, where an annual season of 18 shows for audiences of all ages is offered. For the last 12 years he has produced an annual Puerto Rican arts, music, dance, poetry, theater and film festival, BORIMIX, Puerto Rico Fest (www.borimix. com). He also created 'Teatro SEA's Technical Training Program' offering free theater technical education to emerging theater artists and minorities. The SEA projects reach more than 100,000 people annually.
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President of the Alfred E. Smith Houses Resident Council
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Aixa Torres was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, to Domingo Arturo Torres and America Figueras. She moved with her parents and sisters to New York City in 1955, where she attended public schools. Ms. Torres graduated from the City University of New York and Lincoln University. Among her many achievements, Ms. Torres, a public housing resident and President of the Alfred E. Smith Houses Resident Council since 2010, was instrumental in working with elected leaders to push the New York City Housing Authority to fully repair old, faulty gas pipes at Smith Houses that sometimes forced residents to go without cooking gas for weeks or months at a time. Under this leadership and partnership, Smith Houses residents could safely use their ovens and stoves without fear of looming gas outages.
Ms. Torres' leadership has also been put to the test by multiple natural disasters. Her efforts resulted in the successful evacuation of hundreds of Smith residents ahead of Hurricane Irene, and her advocacy during Hurricane Sandy demonstrated that an organized community can overcome the worst of disasters.
After decades of community work, serving on advisory councils and public school parent associations, and advocating for children and families, Ms. Torres retired in 2014 from the Department of Education where she served as the Lower East Side's Family Advocate. In August 2004, while at the Department of Education and working in Region 9 Aixa developed a Summer High School graduation option along with Principal Santiago Taveras, for students who could not walk (graduate) in June. Summer High School graduation was replicated and is now done by every borough ensuring that students can continue to their college education without interruption.
Ms. Torres married the late George Carmona, Jr. in 1971, and had two children, George III and Liza Noemi. For more than 50 years, she has resided on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where she lives with her daughter and grandchildren, Mia and Elijah.
LOISAIDA, INC. CONGRATULATES ALL OF OUR AMAZING
VIVA LOISAIDA AWARDEES!
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JOIN THE LOISAIDA FESTIVAL COMMUNITY PARADE!
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From May 14th through May 25 Loisaida is delighted to once again host an amazing team of professional artists, puppeteers and street performers, from around the country that will descend upon the Loisaida neighborhood to work with local residents to create beautiful artwork to showcase at the 31st Annual Loisaida Festival Carnival Parade on May 27th.
The artists will use recyclable materials or what is "at hand," and whatever can be salvaged from NYC curbsides. Adam Ende, Daniel Polnau, Daniela Fabrizi and Marta Maria Dann are the lead artists dedicated to the mission of transforming the detritus of our lives and society into beautiful works. The materials used by the artists will include cardboard boxes, scraps of wood and fabric, used latex paint, foam, broken bicycle inner tubes old cd's, paper mâché, and whatever other surplus garbage can be found to inspire creativity.
By using locally sourced, free, cheap and available materials, by working with the local residents, and by focusing on our theme to celebrate the unique local cultural legacy that honors the neighborhood's own heroes--the artists, activists, and gardeners who shaped it with the goal to inspire and empower the local community and young people, as they discover that they are powerful artists in their own right.
These creations will debut in the 2018 Loisaida Festival Parade but it requires the passion and participation of our Loisaida community. We rely on the community, not only to be there as an eager audience watching the parade from the sidewalk as it passes, but also as collaborators, partners, and fellow creators and artists!! Join Us!!
Drop in to the Loisaida Center at 710 East 9th Street between
3pm and 8pm Wednesdays through Saturdays!
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Please share this Newsletter and see you at the Loisaida Festival!
The Loisaida Team
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710 E. 9th Street New York, NY 10009
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Copyright © 2018. All Rights Reserved, Loisaida Inc.
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