A familiar celebration brought a summer Sunday to life on Aug. 1 at Yolanda Garcia Park, as Nos Quedamos hosted its annual “We Are Melrose” event, with live music, dance performances, and opportunities for attendees to connect with local agencies and organizations.
The festival was created to honor the park’s namesake, a legendary affordable housing advocate who co-founded Nos Quedamos. Garcia’s advocacy helped push New York City government to create multiple blocks of affordable housing in Melrose in the 1990s, during an era when derelict lots were commonplace.
“It’s an event where the community comes together,” said Nos Quedamos’ youth organizer Elijah Rodriguez of the festival. “We try to educate everyone on environmental justice. We bring different types of non-profit organizations and other companies to show what they could do [for the community].”
Representatives from the city’s Health & Hospitals agency and insurance giant State Farm attended the festival to provide information for the public at the festival, while the Hip Hop Food Truck kept bellies filled.
A local resident working security at the event said his own tough upbringing led him to want to give back.
“My motivation comes out of things I saw when I was a child,”said Manuel Rodriguez. “There was a lot of burnt lots, burnt buildings. I saw the denigration, I saw the moral decline of my community.”
“It gave me a sense that I have to somehow put something in my community that would make it a little better and Nos Quedamos is about that.”
Artists Hip Hop Jibarito, the New York-based Cobra Marching Band and Bronx-based artist Deej East were among the performers who helped bring that Bronx feeling to the afternoon. Deej East said non-Bronxites don’t always grasp how tight Bronx communities are.
“I wish they would know how diverse [we are] and how much we come together,” she said. “It’s events like these that bring a lot of people together and [show] how much we love each other as a community.”
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