'This agency is here for you:' El Centro hosts Puerto Rican muralist

LORAIN — Bright red stripes, an aqua blue triangle and a crisp white star took shape on the side of a South Lorain social service agency on Saturday. Puerto Rican artist Hector Collazo Hernandez, joined by local volunteers, painted a Puerto Rican flag mural on the side of El Centro de Servicios Sociales' Pearl Avenue building on Saturday. It is the artist's fifth mural outside Puerto Rico and the first in Ohio as part of his ongoing "78 Pueblos y Una Bandera" or "78 towns, one flag," movement. Covered in paint from the more than 80 murals completed since 2016, Collazo Hernandez sat in El Centro's lobby on Saturday afternoon to take a brief break from climbing ladders and balancing in a lift to create the larger-than-life mural. Jose Colon, of Cleveland, translated for Collazo Hernandez from Spanish as the Ponce, Puerto Rico, native spoke about his ongoing project. Collazo Hernandez started the project after his brother, Alex, died by suicide in 2014. In the midst of his own grief, the artist began visiting all 78 major cities across the islands. "Visiting all those towns, getting rich on Puerto Rico's culture, those wounds that came with the passing of his brother started healing," Colon translated. And with that healing, Collazo Hernandez's love for his country and its culture grew. Soon, he began painting the flag murals in cities and amassed a following on social media that brought visitors to less-traveled parts of the territory. El Centro board member Marilyn Alejandro-Rodriguez has followed Collazo Hernandez's work for some time, knew his story and saw an opportunity to engage the community by bringing him to Lorain. Alejandro-Rodriguez said every time she has traveled to Puerto Rico since Collazo Hernandez started his project, she has tried to visit another one of the 78 murals dotting its cities. "If you go on social media and you follow Hector, you see where he's painting these flags — they're painted in strategic places that typically … people would look at it and say maybe that's not the most visually appealing building," she said, noting he creates a thing of beauty from often overlooked areas. The beauty created by Collazo Hernandez out of his own grief and loss has brought together communities across Puerto Rico and now in Lorain, she said. El Centro Executive Director Victor Leandry said he hoped the mural would help the community further identify with the organization and the building itself — a bright welcome sign on the side of the brick facade. After hours of painting on Saturday, Leandry helped Collazo Hernandez finish the white star at the center of the flag just below El Centro's sign. A crowd gathered along East 28th Street, cheering and singing "Preciosa," an unofficial Puerto Rican anthem. For Leandry, the mural recognizes the Puerto Rican workers first recruited to the National Tube Company steel mill across the street in 1947 — and every contribution the community has made to South Lorain since. "I'm very conscious that it's a Puerto Rican flag, but this organization is proud to serve everybody," Leandry said. "... That flag represents that we're proud to be here, but we're proud to be here as part of our community and we help everybody — our center is open to everybody, whether you're Latino or not, whether you are Puerto Rican or not. This agency is here for you." Collazo Hernandez never expected the project to grow as it has, bringing him to the mainland U.S. and South America to paint murals in strongholds of the Puerto Rican diaspora — including Lorain. "He believes that's kind of one of the beauties of this project," Colon translated. "When you put your heart into a project, you don't know where it's going to end — it's just going to grow and you continue pouring your heart into it and it gets to places you didn't (think of)." The mural project coincided with El Centro's annual block party, a staple in South Lorain since 2011. A car show lined Pearl Avenue, stretching from East 28th Street to nearly East 31st Street and about 40 vendors filled the nonprofit's parking lot. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.