Q&A with Billy Ocasio
Billy Ocasio is a lifelong resident of Humboldt Park who currently serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture.
As the former 26th Ward Alderman, he played a crucial role in developing the Paseo Boricua – a cultural corridor in Humboldt Park that celebrates Puerto Rican culture.
The Paseo Boricua is marked by two steel Puerto Rican flags, each 55 feet tall and 56 feet wide, which Ocasio also championed.
This symbol of Puerto Rican identity in Chicago celebrates its 30th anniversary on January 6.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Why was a monument like this needed at the time?
The Puerto Rican community had been in Humboldt Park for at least twenty years. Although there were many statues in the neighborhood, none spoke to the community, so they raised the money to put up a Pedro Albizu Campos statue.
Two days before we tried to put up the statue, the city of Chicago said we could not because it didn’t have the required materials for winter in the city. So we returned to the community and said, “Look, we need to build another statue.”
So we built another statue based on all of their requirements and specifications. Two weeks before it was to be installed, the city returned and said, “No, you guys cannot put this thing up.”
What was the community’s response?
We held a community summit at Clemente High School on a Saturday. It was from eight o’clock in the morning to nine o’clock at night, and over a thousand people attended. The mayor of Chicago sent the commissioners of every department to meet with us.
We spent the whole day breaking up the community into different parts – some to deal with housing, some to deal with education, some to deal with business. We devised a plan for the next ten years, but we also knew they would not give us the statue.
How are the flags linked to the creation of El Paseo Boricua?
We had an election coming up, and the city of Chicago likes to win all 50 wards. They were losing my ward that year, so they came back and said we needed to talk. “Billy, we can’t give you that statue. Tell us what you want,” they said. That’s when the idea of a Puerto Rican business strip came about.
I remembered that I had gone to La Villita and seen their big monument. I said I wanted something like that for the Puerto Rican business strip, so the city hired the DeStefano partners, and I added a Puerto Rican architect to advise them.
They showed us ten different designs, and the flags were one of them. They said they had noticed that the flag was always there – everywhere they went, everyone they talked to. And so I picked the flags.
We made the flags out of steel so we could dedicate them to all of our parents who came to work at the steel mills and pipeline factories, the only jobs available to them then.
What changes did the flags bring to the neighborhood?
The flags became very effective, as did everything else we did around them. We introduced housing, business, and education. That year, we worked with the Department of Planning to offer incentives for businesses opening on Division Street. So, it’s an anniversary for many things, not just the flags.
Why were the flags unveiled specifically during Día de Reyes?
Día de Reyes is really interesting because a lot of places celebrate it. The only difference, I would say, is that the Puerto Rican’s Three Kings ride on paso fino horses, and the king in the middle is Melchor, the leader, and an Afro-Boricua.
We do many things around the three kings to revive it and ensure people don’t forget about it.
How do you think the Flag’s legacy stands after 30 years?
Before the flags, you saw all of these students walking to Clemente High School, and there was no sense of Puerto Rican pride. Although Clemente High School was named after Roberto Clemente [a Puerto Rican baseball player and social activist], almost none of them knew who he was. Hardly anybody knew the humanitarian efforts he had made.
I think the flags revived a sense of pride in people, especially our young people – now, they want to learn more.
Now you got them learning about Clemente, Pedro Albizu Campos, and the Young Lords. Even now, people are getting more immersed in our Puerto Rican culture because of the flags.
Puerto Rico has three different political parties, but once you see the flags, it doesn’t matter.
The flags bring people together; that’s the significance of the flags.
