The City of Waterbury kicked off a weekend of Puerto Rican festivities to one of their largest Hispanic communities as part of Hispanic heritage month.
The celebration began on Friday at Waterbury’s City Hall with the Mayor for a Day ceremony followed by the raising of the Puerto Rican flag.
Waterbury Mayor Paul Pernerewski Jr. was present at the event along with other city and state officials.
“The Puerto Rican community has been here and it’s been such an important part of this city and its development whether it’s in commerce or in our government,” Pernerewski said.
This year, the person selected by the Hispanic Coalition of Greater Waterbury Inc. was Jacqueline Matos, a retired educator and multilingual staff developer for the city of Waterbury.
“They called me up and said, ‘do you agree to be mayor for the day?’ and I was like, very happy and very excited to …