Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month with a local home museum preserving Puerto Rican culture

BALTIMORE -- WJZ is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, showcasing a museum dedicated to preserving Puerto Rican culture.  

Tola's room on 4212 Sheldon Avenue, Baltimore, MD is a vibrant hub of Puerto Rican heritage, encouraging the community to explore their identity and history through the comfort of a home experience. 

Christina Delgado, the founder of Tola's Room, is an artist and educator who named the museum and culture space after her daughter. 

Delgado blends her personal narrative, historical exploration, and community engagement into the space. 

The room initially emerged as an art therapy project following the death of her father in 2013. However, it has now "evolved into a space to tell the diasporican story of Baltimore...also how Puerto Ricans have migrated from the islands to the United States," Delgado explained. 

The home museum serves as a time capsule of sorts, hosting exhibitions, workshops, and collaborations.  

Annette Ortiz Miranda, a Puerto Rican heritage advocate and conservation scientist, led a two-day vejigante mask-making course at Tola's Room, not only to celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month but to highlight and educate local communities about Puerto Rican culture and tradition.  

"It was a nice way to bring the community together by inspiring each other, by creating these masks, and learning about our traditions," Miranda said. 

Vejigante's are crafted from coconut, Higuera tree, and paper mâché, and transformed into a vibrant, colorful mask, originally used to scare evil spirits and pirates away. 

Miranda's tradition of making the masks with her grandmother is now being passed down and shared with others.  

"You need to dry them, cut them, and then clean the inside...we use them as a dish and call them ditas. We can also use them for cups, utensils, to make maracas, and also the vejigante masks," Miranda explained. 

Delgado and Tola Room's mission is dedicated to empowering others and honoring Puerto Rican culture.  

"My career [over] the last 20 years has been around community, empowering people, [and] helping people to tell their story," Delgado said as she reflected on her walk of life.