After “years of dreaming,” Cleveland’s Puerto Rican residents will finally see themselves represented in the Cleveland Cultural Gardens.
The OK to build a Puerto Rican garden came in June after a new nonprofit, the Cleveland Puerto Rican Heritage Coalition, presented its vision to the Cleveland Cultural Gardens Federation.
Bringing that vision to life could take anywhere from three to five years, said Leticia Maldonado and Gerardo Colón Jr., two of the coalition’s founders. They anticipate needing around $680,000, which they’ll have to raise.
The Puerto Rican cultural garden is one of 13 new gardens in development, a significant expansion to the 38 gardens already established, said Cultural Gardens Executive Director Thomas Turkaly.
Maldonado said she still can’t quite find the right words to express what getting approval for the garden means to her.
“I come from a family of community advocates,” she said. “My mother was very active in the Puerto Rican community, very proud of our heritage. She’s no longer with us, so for me, it was a surreal moment. Like, oh, my mom would be so proud to see this come to flourish.”
A garden for education
The Puerto Rican cultural garden is still in early planning phases, but the coalition has selected its location. It will be near the north end of the gardens, on East 88th Street across from Rockefeller Greenhouse, an area the city recently cleared out.
Maldonado and Colón want to lean on Cleveland’s broader Puerto Rican community to help shape the garden itself. One of their priorities is education. They want the garden to teach visitors about Puerto Rican history as well as the contributions and legacies of significant Puerto Rican figures in Cleveland.
“We’re proud to help the past move into the future,” Colón said. “It’s also a space for the little ones to see the past and then be part of something from the ground up.”
The Cleveland Puerto Rican Heritage Coalition is still a new organization, founded at the beginning of this year. Maldonado, Colón and its board members are focused on getting their name out. To that end, the organization is hosting a soft opening at its garden site during One World Day on Aug. 30.
The coalition is also recruiting volunteers and partnering with Cleveland’s prominent Latin American organizations to get more voices on the final garden design. Once the design is finalized, it will go to the city’s Landmarks Commission and then to Cleveland City Council for final approval.
‘Own the issue’
The process has reminded Colón of CentroVilla25, a hub for Latin American entrepreneurs in Clark-Fulton. He remembers the meetings his father, once the Hispanic Liaison for the City of Cleveland, brought him to as a child, where leaders talked over how best to address their community’s need for a central hub. That was something like 40 years ago.
He looks toward the way Jenice Contreras, president of the Northeast Ohio Hispanic Center for Economic Development, picked up the torch, championing the project through fundraising hurdles and major renovations to its grand opening last year.
“To see a process go from zero to 100, from beginning to end, it’s inspiring,” Colón said. “It took for somebody to take the ball and run with it and own the issue for the project to move forward.”
‘Not for one person’
Cleveland’s Latin American communities have roots not far from Cleveland Cultural Gardens. In the mid-20th century, Puerto Ricans congregated in Hough and St. Clair-Superior after Our Lady of Fatima became the first church in the city to offer Mass in Spanish.
Maldonado spent part of her youth nearby, too, and after her parents passed away, she moved back into the house she had lived in as a teen. She often walks her dog through the Cleveland Cultural Gardens.
She would ask herself: “Why don’t we have any representation?”
She had reached out to Colón to talk about her idea for a garden several times over the last few years. Earlier this year, the timing was right for both of them to act on those conversations, Maldonado said.
She announced the news of the garden’s approval during a Puerto Rican flag raising ceremony in the Cleveland Hall rotunda last week.
“This is for the community,” she said while the crowd cheered. “It is not for one person.”
