PUERTO RICO
BORIKÉN
BICYCLE
TOUR
2023
SOBRE EL TOUR
ABOUT THE TOUR
This is an ancestral journey through Borikén (also known as Puerto Rico) via bicycle, paying tribute to those who came before, the dynamics of our 21st century identities, and the future generations to come.
In the late Spring of 2023, three state-side-raised Boricuas will bike through the island of Puerto Rico to repair and build a new connection between our ancestral and diasporic identities.
This inaugural bike tour will lay foundations for future descendants to find affinity in diasporic experience and commit to the culture-work of strengthening connection to land, generational healing, and exploration of what it means to be Puerto Rican
OUR THOUGHT PROCESS
QUIENES SOMOS
WHO WE ARE
Growing up in so-called Nebraska, California, and Florida (respectively) we are the 2nd and 3rd generation of children descended from the “Operation Bootstrap” migration from Puerto Rico to the mainland U.S. in the early and mid 20th century. Our language and culture are heavily rooted in U.S. customs with varying degrees of access to even the most concentrated of diasporic communities.
We hope to confront the relationships between displacement, assimilation, and colorism in order to strengthen cultural consciousness as descendants of “Las tres razas de Puerto Rico” (“three races”) the island’s historicized population demographic.
Dwight Brown
Where do I go to connect with my Puerto Rican identity?
My identity is not far behind me in these efforts to move and make magic. My dad, African American, and my mom, Puerto Rican, made home for me in New York and later, for a more substantial part of my life, Lincoln Nebraska. These different aspects of my Afro-Latin roots feel more or less activated in different places. My friends who I’ll be riding with and I asked each other where we go to feel the most in touch with our Boriqua roots. I have a few Puerto Rican friends in the Midwest but the most “at home” this part of my identity feels is my grandmother’s living room in Jamaica Queens. We’re watching some movie less interesting than the things we all have to say to each other while arroz con gandules wafts from the kitchen.
I’m on this trip to connect to this familial place that we spend so much time talking about at human speed.
Selena Feliciano
Where do I go to connect with my Puerto Rican identity?
I've had the privilege of visiting New York almost yearly throughout my upbringing. The smells of tostones, arroz con gandules, and pastries from Sam's Club almost always remind me of my grandmother's home in Queens. To look through the old photo books of my extended family and learn about our current wide geographic spread is to affirm my belonging in this Diaspora and ignite a never-ending sense of curiosity in our shared history.
I spend most of my days dreaming of how to deepen connections to the biosphere on a mass scale. I am a Boricua, Salvadoreña, artist, cyclist, surfer, and eternal optimist. It's an honor to root all of these identities in the foundations set by those who came before; this trip is one small way to connect deeper with them.
Jackie Rivera
Where do I go to connect with my Puerto Rican identity?
Brooklyn, NY is where I find the most accessible connection to my lineage, the place where my mother grew up, where my grandmother migrated to in 1960s Bed-Stuy. The place where Puerto Rican flags are bannered across Bushwick electrical lines, the streets and avenues that smell of local cuchifritos. I connect to the land where the stories I heard my entire life started. Where my father didn't learn to ride a bicycle, but where I guided many bike tours making sure to point out Borinquen Plaza and The Avenue of Puerto Rico.
I am a storyteller, and I bring with me all of my ancestors when I share my voice. This project is an invitation for my ancestors to speak through me, to collaborate with me, not just sit quietly and observe while I perform.
¿POR QUE?
WHY?
Our week-long bicycle tour of Puerto Rico is part of our culture-work in developing a physical relationship to these ancestral lands.
On this trip, we will envision and attend an ancestral homecoming as outsiders to our native lands, accepting the foreign nature of arriving on an island of which we know so little.
We are committed to a decolonial approach to genealogy, ready to accept all that we learn about our ancestors as Puerto Rico grapples with her own shifts in land due to climate chaos and political independence.
....y amamos las bicicletas!
Photo: Selena with her grandparents in Brooklyn, NY on a 2022 bicycle tour stop.
on the native lands of the Lenape.
Photo: Jackie with their Great Uncle, Tío Cesar, walking thru Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico.
Photo: Jackie on the beach in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico.
¿POR QUE BICICLETAS?
WHY BICYCLES?
Atop a bicycle one moves at a speed of tactility - feeling on the body every bump, every gust of wind, every relentless blanket of heat and the pierce of every raindrop.
As avid bikepackers traveling through our ancestral homeland, we fully adopt the enigmatic middle-ground between ‘tourist’ and ‘native’, and embrace cycling as a mode of travel and expression that inspires curiosity, awareness, and spiritual practice.
Photo: Jackie on a bicycle tour in 2018 in Montana;
on the native lands of the Salish, Pend d’Oreille, Kootenai, Blackfeet, Chippewa, Plains Cree, Gros Ventre, Assiniboine. Nakona, Sioux, Dakota, Northern Cheyenne, Crow, Little Shell Chippewa.
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We believe that taking this journey will bring us closer to our ancestral lineage, and set us on a path of healing our relationship with Puerto Rico.
Photo: Dwight at Gravel Worlds in Lincoln, Nebraska.
The native lands of the Otoe, Pawnee, and Sioux.
Made possible with the support of collaborators near and far:
LA RUTA
THE ROUTE
We will dive into the vulnerability that exists in the edge where nature meets the path of the colonizer in the ‘Rich Port’ of the former Spanish empire—and now the so-called ‘Island of Enchantment’ under the current U.S. imperialist commonwealth system.
Our route visits the hometowns of our families in San Juan, Bayamon, and Trujillo Alto. We will also include sites of sacred Taíno petroglyphs and living culture, as well as music and arts enclaves to fully immerse ourselves in the sounds, sights, and spirits of the island. Though we won't be able to visit all of the sites of ancestral significance, we're honored to recognize that this is the first of multiple trips, and just one of many opportunities we have to connect with the island in many forms.
Questions?
Send us a message on Instagram @borikenbicycletour
