Mayor of Colombia’s salsa city to be part of PR Day Parade & adjacent activities

Cali Mayor Alejandro Eder

By THE STAR STAFF

The Puerto Rican delegation traveling to New York City for Puerto Rican Week activities confirmed on Sunday the participation of the mayor of Cali, Colombia, Alejandro Eder, who will travel to participate in the 69th Annual National Puerto Rican Day Parade scheduled for Sunday, June 14, on Fifth Avenue in New York.

The Cali mayor will travel at the invitation of Ponce Mayor Marlese Sifre Rodríguez, and will be accompanied by Leydi Yojanna Higidio Henao, the city’s secretary of culture, and Felipe Salcedo Vacca, manager of the Calie Events, Fairs and Shows Corp.

“Ponce is honored by our contractual relationship with the city of Cali, Colombia, where the Salsa music genre is truly impressive,” Sifre Rodríguez said. “So much so that together with our colleague, the mayor of Arecibo, Carlos ‘Tito’ Ramírez Irizarry, we have signed an agreement to join the ‘American Salsa Trail’ project, initiated by the dynamic Mayor Alejandro Eder. Along with this agreement comes our commitment to create a movement throughout the Americas and the world to formally petition UNESCO to declare Salsa music a ‘World Heritage Site.’”

The Ponce mayor added that besides marching in the parade, Eder has also been invited to several events scheduled during Puerto Rican Week and “will deliver a keynote address on the topic of the ‘American Salsa Trail’ and the cultural integration project as a prelude to a possible multinational candidacy before UNESCO.”