Only the people can save the people: The fight to rescue the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture

By Lola Rosario | Edited by Patricia Guadalupe

This summer, the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (ICP in Spanish) turned 70. Amid celebrations across the island, a looming cloud threatens the iconic institution’s future as a piece of legislation in the island’s Senate seeks to dismantle it.

Back in January, Puerto Rico Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz sponsored legislation to transfer ICP’s roles to the Department of Economic and Business Development (DDEC).

Though the bill recognizes the institute’s essential role to “preserve and promote Puerto Rican culture,” it criticizes what it calls the redundancy in critical function areas such as construction permits that “generate delays and negatively impact Puerto Rico’s infrastructure development,” adding that the ICP’s structure