Red Hook Rumba is a song on Chembo Corniel Quintet's 2023 album, Artistas, Músicos y Poetas. Featuring vocals, in English and Spanish, by Felipe Luciano, the song tells the story of the middle passage and the African influence on the Puerto Ricans, how they bring that to New York and how Red Hook (and Williamsburg) are the first Puerto Rican areas of NYC -  because the ships came here.

New York City’s Puerto Rican community starts in Red Hook because ships of the Porto Rico Steamship Line sailed regularly between Puerto Rico and Red Hook's Atlantic Basin, begining in the late 1910s. One of them SS CAROLINA is memorialized in song. Jesus Colon, who becomes a significant activist, arrives as a stowaway on the SS CAROLINA when he is 16 years old.

When the first Puerto Ricans arrive here, they are foreigners, coming from a Spanish colony.

In 1898, Spain cedes the island to the US.  In 1917, the U.S. Congress passed the Jones–Shafroth Act, granting Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship.  After establishing a strong community in the Red Hook area, Puerto Ricans spread out around the city, especially to El Barrio or Spanish Harlem. 

There is a strong Puerto Rican community centered around Columbia Street north of Hamilton Avenue that maintains a sense of that history well into the 1970s. Some of their members are strong voices resisting a 1970s plan to build a containerport along Columbia Street. 

Today, there are still many Puerto Rican families in Red Hook who have been here for generations.

We learned about this song from Joe Collado who posted it in the private Facebook group "Red Hook Brookly, Curb, Trader, Barter etc.

Search Red Hook WaterStories for more on the Puerto Ricans