María Antonia Cay, better known as Toñita, is the owner of one of New York City’s last Puerto Rican social clubs. In the 1950s, after World War II nearly one million Puerto Ricans arrived in New York City, fleeing poverty, hunger, and lack of jobs on the island. However, when they landed, Puerto Ricans faced discrimination for their race, class, language, and lack of formal education. Toñita was only 16 years old when she arrived in 1956. She came on her own to work as a babysitter in the Bronx. Then, in the 1960s, she moved to the south side of Williamsburg. Big industries like the “Navy Yards” and the “Domino Sugar Factory” were hungry for cheap labor, and Puerto Ricans became one of its major workforces. Like many other Puerto Rican women at the time, Toñita worked as a seamstress at a skirt factory. The area became known as Los Sures, Spanish for the Southerns, referring to the people coming from the South, but also the stretch from South 1st to South 11th streets in Williamsburg, because the people living in these humble buildings and unkept streets were mostly Puerto Ricans. Similar to El Barrio in East Harlem or the South Bronx, Los Sures became an enclave for poor Latino communities, who were treated as second-class citizens and pushed away from other neighborhoods. Toñita rented an apartment on Grand Street from a Jewish woman. They became close and Toñita cooked for her landlord’s daughter. When the owner grew older, in 1974, she sold the building to Toñita for $5,000 dollars, that would be more than $30,000 dollars today. Toñita loved the neighborhood and she had no plans to go back to Puerto Rico. So she made the effort to purchase the building. Toñita based her idea of opening a Caribbean Social Club on Puerto Rico’s “chinchorros”, or simple bars where families and friends gather to eat typical food, drink, and dance. Puerto Rican Social Clubs became more popular as more boricuas arrived in the city. They were mostly informal, sometimes even held in someone’s living room, and they often didn’t have licenses to sell alcohol or officially run as a bar. Toñita was also one of the few women who owned social clubs in the city. Toñitas opened in 1974 as a members-only Caribbean Social Club for the neighborhood baseball team. In 2000, Cay acquired a liquor license and started selling beer and Puerto Rican food to patrons. As gentrification pushed longtime businesses out of the area over the years, Tonita’s continued to be a pillar in the community. Even when Cay was offered millions of dollars for her property, she held steadfast. Toñita says she’s not interested in selling. She doesn’t need to. She makes enough from collecting rent from her tenants and the earnings at the club. She just wants to keep doing what makes her happy—being at the club and serving her community because it’s more than just a club; it’s a place to preserve Nuyorican culture. In 2023, Cay faced a court hearing about the future of the Puerto Rican landmark due to unpaid fines. However, many of her supporters believe those fines are being used as an excuse to push her out of the neighborhood. Toñitas has garnered a lot of support through social media and has even welcomed celebrities like Bad Bunny, Maluma, Madonna, and many more to the space. Luckily, Toñitas is here to stay and in 2024, it was able to celebrate its 50th Anniversary.