CHICAGO — A celebration got underway in Humboldt Park on Saturday as a section of the neighborhood was renamed.

The area formerly known as ‘Puerto Rico Town’ will now be known as Barrio Borikén, to better reflect the people of the community.

Among the celebrations was a Taíno Areyto, a visual, colorful ceremonial dance of the Taíno, the Indigenous people of Puerto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti/Dominican Republic, and the Bahamas.

“So what we are trying to do is immerse people into the Indigenous side of the Puerto Rican, the Taíno Indians who were part of the Puerto Rican culture,” Billy Ocasio, Executive Director of the National Puerto Rican Museum, said.

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Organizers said it’s a first-of-its-kind performance in Chicago.

“We are trying to celebrate the different parts of the Puerto Rican person,” Ocasio said. “There’s the Spaniard side, there’s the Afro side of us and then there’s the Indigenous side of us a side, not many people know about.”

Saturday’s performance ended with the renaming of the Humboldt Park neighborhood’s “Puerto Rico Town.”

“Borikén is the ancient name of Puerto Rico,” Jose Lopez, Executive Director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, said.

State leaders say the renaming of this stretch of the neighborhood was important and has been in the works for a while.

“Division Street became known as the heart of the Puerto Rican community. Which we in the community call it Paseo Boricua, and so Puerto Rico Town was the official name and now we want to make sure to give it a name that had more cultural and linguistic flavor so Barrio Borikén it was,” State Representative Lilian Jimenez, of the Illinois 4th House District, said.

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The celebration continued with a blessing of new affordable housing in the neighborhood.

“It will provide 64 affordable housing units for a community that’s facing the threats of gentrification,” Lopez said.

Organizers say the name will take time for people to get used to, but it a change that honors the people that made this community.

“It’s going to take a little bit but i think people will be very happy with the name change,” Lopez said.

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