Many Puerto Rican New Yorkers are marching — away from the Puerto Rican Day Parade this year.
“I’m as Puerto Rican as it gets, but I can’t support the parade this year,” said Angi Silva, 50, who spoke to The Post Saturday at a Bronx street festival that is affiliated with the parade. “We should be focusing on helping our island, not honoring a criminal.”
Jaida Selvenajnole, 71, will not attend because officials are honoring convicted terrorist Oscar Lopez Rivera.
“He went to jail for a reason,” he said. “It’s such a beautiful parade and look what’s happening to it because of him. I will not be going.”
Lopez Rivera, 74, was a leader of FALN, which unleashed a campaign of terror in the mainland US in the 1970s and 1980s in support of making the commonwealth independent. One of the group’s bombings killed four people at Manhattan’s Fraunces Tavern in 1975.
In 1981, Lopez Rivera was convicted for conspiracy to overthrow the government, robbery, and transportation of explosives and sentenced to 55 years in prison. He served 35 years before President Obama commuted his sentence in January.
Lopez Rivera was freed on May 17 and parade organizers named him a “National Freedom Hero.”
But half a dozen elected officials, including Gov. Cuomo, said they won’t march, and nearly all major sponsors have pulled out of the June 11 event.
Mayor de Blasio, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. are still going.
Bronx residents say they should reconsider.
Lopez Rivera is “a criminal,” said Zoraida Vega, 51.
“He was in jail for 35 years. Why are we honoring him?” she said. “The mayor shouldn’t be going. It doesn’t look right.”
Luis Miranda — a Mark-Viverito adviser and the father of “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda — blamed the controversy on “Trump/right-winger Latinos.”
“Let’s push back!” he tweeted Saturday.