The Puerto Rican Day Parade is New York City's largest parade celebrating the pride and culture of our community. However, for many of us who live in Latino neighborhoods, as we head home to continue celebrating with our families, friends, and neighbors, by waving flags, blowing whistles and just being together sharing our pride on our blocks with our people, we are awaited and confronted by an oppressive and cruel police presence mandated to falsely arrest and charge people with a wide range of "quality of life" violations in the attempt to dehumanize, demonize, and criminalize our expressions of unity and strength.

Every year in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, scores of people are arrested, falsely charged and put through the system, in violation of our rights to freely assemble and celebrate our culture. Every year those charges get dropped, and the Puerto Rican community is again robbed of their dignity and safety as a people, where law enforcement agents are ordered to view celebration as disturbances and assembly as loitering.