Alana Casanova-Burgess

We asked the municipal government for an interview and for comment, and they did not respond.

The king did make a visit to the church next to the statue during his visit, but he didn't walk past it.

It seems unlikely that he saw it at all, given how far away his driver parked.

We'll never know if the king of Spain noticed the tiny crooked colonizer, but frankly, I don't think most people care if he saw it or not.

Four years later, Ponce de Leon is still slanted.

The city never did fix the pedestal, so the effect is that the statue is leaning to the left and is also lower to the ground.

Not down a peg, literally.

It's telling a different story than it used to.

I've heard a lot of fantasies about what could happen next.

What if Ponce de Leon keeps leaning and just crashes to the ground again?

And then what?

If the bronze from the cannons that the statue is made out of is so important to a story about Puerto Rican identity, what if it were melted down and forged into a new monument?

Who would we replace him with?

What story would that tell?

Or what if the pedestal were left empty to invite us to reflect on who actually represents us?

What would we learn about Puerto Rican-ness if we really had that conversation about who has championed Puerto Rico and who our heroes are?

So we're going to do just that.

From Futuro Studios, I'm Alana Casanova Burgess, and this is La Brega.

In this season, Puerto Rican champions.

That would be me.