Puerto Rican ​“Trailblazer” Eulogized

Dedication to service for others, personal resiliency, and don’t forget those family pig roasts on local beaches beginning at 3 a.m. (It takes time to roast a whole pig.)

These were some of the values and memories evoked Friday morning at a solemn burial mass for Celestino Cordova, one of the New Haven Puerto Rican community’s true trailblazers.

Nearly 100 people gathered at the St. Anthony Church on Washington Avenue in the Hill to pay tribute to Cordova, whose flag-draped coffin rested in the nave of of the church beneath brightly colored images of saints and praying angels.

Cordova died on Aug. 28, at the age of 95. 

He was a proud veteran of the Borinqueneers, the highly decorated 65^th Infantry’s Hispanic regiment during the Korean War; the first Puerto Rican to serve on New Haven’s Board of Alders; the city’s first Puerto Rican justice of the peace and notary; a champion of bilingual education; a founder of what has become the Puerto Rican Parade in Connecticut; and he was very active in city Democratic Party politics and many other civic projects.

Read the full obit provided by the family here.

What was perhaps most moving Friday morning were the more personal recollections of family members, such as nephews Felix and Rene Cordova.

“He was a cool uncle,” said Felix Cordova. ​“When I was younger we used to go to the public beaches at three in the morning to dig a pit and roast the whole pig.”

Felix Cordova said the whole family is long-lived, with Celestino’s mother living to age 106. 

“He and his brothers,” continued Felix, a businessman who now, following in the family footsteps, operates a bilingual nonprofit in Memphis, ​“never thought of themselves as old. My dad told his brother [Celestino], ​‘Slow down.’ Celestino said, ​‘I’m not going to slow down until I’m 150.’ And my dad said, ​‘I’ll be there too to remind you!’”

Celestino, it turns out, had just bought a new car last month.

Another nephew, Rene Cordova, is also following in his remarkable uncle’s tradition of service. A retired firefighter, Rene was the founder and first president of the New Haven Hispanic Firefighters Association and termed his uncle a trailblazer.

“In New Haven,” he said, when the Cordovas and the first wave of Puerto Rican emigrants arrived in the early 1950s, ​“everything was new. They spoke a different language.”

“Despite the many talents they brought, many chose to stay in the closet. Celestino fought for them to come out, for justice for the Spanish-speaking community, for [equal] services.”

As the mass concluded, strains of ​“America the Beautiful” filled the high vaults of the church and the young priest said, ​“Let us now take our brother Celestino to his place of rest.”

The coffin was carried down the steep steps of the church and placed in a black hearse as a long cortege of vehicles formed up behind it headed for the All Saints Cemetery in North Haven for Cordova’s burial with military honors.