Bronx Mural Illustrates Puerto Rican Resiliency After Hurricane Maria

This mural in The Bronx at an auto shop shows the resiliency of the Puerto Rican community after Hurricane Maria/ Image Credit David Gonzalez/The New York Times

A mural in a Bronx auto body shop created by The Royal Kingbee and Per One of the FX Crew echoes the famous “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima” but with utility workers raising an electric pole with a Puerto Rican flag attached to it in a landscape devastated by Hurricane Maria.

First reported by David Gonzalez in The New York Times, the mural in Mike Vargas’s auto body shop is a reminder to the crisis going on impacting not just the 3.5 million residents on the island of Puerto Rico but to the thousands of displaced refugees here on the mainland, including his mother and aunt.

It is a reminder that despite these 3.5 million United States citizens being abandoned by the United States government and the Trump administration, despite all the hardships they are facing, they will rise once again by their own means as they have always done.

Read the full story: Battered and Tattered, Puerto Rico’s Flag Still Waves



Ed García Conde

Ed García Conde is a life-long Bronxite who spends his time documenting the people, places, and things that make the borough a special place in the hopes of dispelling the negative stereotypes associated with The Bronx. His writings are often cited by mainstream media and is often consulted for his expertise on the borough's rich history.