NJCU held its 39th Annual Puerto Rico Discovery Day Celebration on the lawn of Hepburn Hall and continued in the Multipurpose Room of the Gilligan Student Union Building. The celebration has a special music guest, Segunda Quimbamba, a Jersey City-based percussion, and dance ensemble that performs authentic Bomba and Plena, the drum music of Puerto Rico.

The multipurpose room was embellished with Puerto Rican flags, a projector showing the different cultural food, animals, and landmarks on the island. Classic Puerto Rican appetizers were served and virgin coquito, a traditional beverage consisting of condensed milk, rum, egg yolks, coconut milk, vanilla.

The Council on Hispanic Affairs (CHA) of New Jersey City University announced the recipients of their scholarships two graduate students and two undergraduate students received. All four scholarship recipients were young Latina women who expressed gratitude for their families, the organization, and the university for the scholarship.

The keynote speaker was Christian Alvarez, a marketing student at New Jersey City University’s School of Business. He grew up poor in Puerto Rico with two parents who did not complete school and had to drop out to work. He moved to America and then pushed himself not only to join the American military but to get a higher education and create his own business.