New York

Goya Foods Pulls Sponsorship of NYC's Puerto Rican Day Parade After 60 Years

The New Jersey-based Goya Foods had sponsored the parade every year since the first parade in 1958

What to Know

  • Goya had sponsored the parade every year for its 60-year existence; it calls the move to pull sponsorship a business decision
  • Remaining sponsors for the parade include AT&T, Coca Cola and the New York Yankees
  • The parade will honor Oscar Lopez, who was freed Wednesday after 36 years in federal custody; Obama commuted his sentence in January

Goya Foods has decided not to sponsor New York City's annual Puerto Rican Day parade, calling the move a business decision. 

The New Jersey-based Goya Foods had sponsored the parade every year for its 60-year existence, including the first parade in 1958.

Parade organizers say they're disappointed in the decision, which they say will jeopardize the 100 college scholarships the parade provides to students. 

Remaining sponsors for the parade include AT&T, Coca Cola and the New York Yankees. 

The June 11 parade will honor Puerto Rican nationalist Oscar Lopez Rivera. He was a member of the ultranationalist group Armed Forces of National Liberation, or FALN, that claimed responsibility for more than 100 bombings across New York, Chicago, Washington and Puerto Rico in the 1970s and early 1980s. 

Lopez was freed from federal custody Wednesday after 36 years. Former President Obama commuted his sentence in January. 

Parade organizers say they do not condone violence.

(Disclosure: NBC 4 New York and Telemundo 47 have been sponsors of the Puerto Rican Day parade.)

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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