>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
[ Silence ]
>> Betsy Peterson: Okay.
Hello everyone.
I am Betsy Peterson, the Director of the American Folklife Center.
And on behalf of the center and the Library I want
to welcome you all today
to the latest presentation in the Botkin Series.
The Botkin Series is a wonderful opportunity
for the American Folklife Center to present the latest scholarship
from leading scholars in folklore, ethnomusicology, oral history
and cultural heritage studies.
And it's also an opportunity for us to enhance our own collections.
And in fact, the Botkin Series forms an important component
of our acquisition strategies.
Each lecture is videotaped webcast.
So, just a word to the wise, if you have your cellphone
on right now please turn it off
or else it will appear many years from now.
Today I have the honor
of introducing the New York City based folklorist Elena Martinez
who is a staff member with both City Lore in Manhattan
and the Bronx Music Heritage Center.
Ms. Martinez has received an M.A. in Anthropology and an M.A. in Folklore
from the University of Oregon
and has been a folklorist at City Lore since 1997.
In addition to more than a fulltime schedule as an arts administrator,
programmer, field worker and the
like she's also co-produced the 2006 video documentary,
"From Mambo to Hip Hop: A South Bronx Tale," which aired on PBS
and won the National Council
of La Raza's 2007 ALMA Award for Best TV Documentary.
And I just want to add my voice to the chorus:
it's an excellent documentary.
She's also curated the traveling exhibition "Que bonita bandera:
The Puerto Rican Flag as Folk Art" and served as the Assistant Curator
for the landmark 2011 exhibit, "Nueva York:
1613 to 1945" at Manhattan's El Museo del Barrio.
Her presentation today, "I'd Still be Puerto Rican,
Even if Born on the Moon: Documenting Puerto Rican Migration
and Community through the Arts," traces the story
of the Puerto Rican diaspora
to the mainland U.S. during the 20th century and into the 21st
through the lens of expressive culture.
The history of Puerto Ricans and their contributions
to American culture and especially to the culture of New York
and the Metropolitan region of New York is certainly well,
widely recognized, but has often not been
as well documented as it should be.
People like Elena and other folklorists
and documentarians are doing their best to correct that situation
and highlight the work of folk and traditional artists as well
as contemporary artists in New York by Puerto Ricans, by Nuyoricans
and is helping to sort of correct that picture.
And so, today I want to welcome Elena Martinez to this place
and I'm looking forward to the lecture.
So, please welcome Elena Martinez.
[ Applause ]
>> Elena Martinez: Hi everyone.
I want to thank Betsy and Nancy for bringing me here.
And I'm a little nervous.
I'm at the Library of Congress reading and I'm giving a lecture.
So, if I'm, I probably talk really or something just tell me to slow
down if I start getting too fast.
But, I have a lot of things.
I have a lot of photos and stuff to show you.
And unfortunately, I had music there too,
but the music files aren't working.
But, maybe at the end I'll talk about some of the music things
and we can maybe go back to them and some samples where you can
like listen to a little bit of that.
But, I just want to start off with just a basic introduction.
This presentation is based on a lot, most of the images I added a few,
took out a few from the exhibit I was working on
and added a few for this presentation.
But, today's presentation is based on an exhibit that was
at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center in the Lower East Side
of Manhattan last summer and it was a collaboration with them
and we put this exhibit on.
And it was supposed to be the history of the diaspora,
the Puerto Rican diaspora to New York City in the 20th century.
And but we're using through, as Betsy said, through the expressive,
through expressive culture or through the arts
because the migration experience has been documented in many ways
from economic standpoints, from the historical standpoints
by many different scholars.
But, as a folklorist we wanted to show, you know, the community
and how, the traditions that it uses and the music
and maybe how these have been influenced by the times
or the people in their era.
So, hopefully that'll come through.
So, it is looking at the expressive arts.
The other, one of the other things that I did, again,
I had to take some things out from the exhibit.
But, I did want to put an emphasis on women in the migration
because as some of you might be familiar with
and we hear the stories of the Puerto Ricans like Jesus Colon
and Bernardo Vega and we should.
They have very important stories to tell.
But, there's a lot of other stories about women
who were political leaders and social activists
that we don't hear as often.
So, I wanted to try to get their story
in to make them representative.
So, I try to have more women representing sort
of the different aspects of the leadership positions
and arts and culture as well.
And one last sort of theme that comes up I think for me as I went
through this that the -- how expressive culture is used that is,
it's become very almost institutional based.
Like people used to celebrate certain things in their home
and do things in their home, but now the community, a lot of things
that people use in the community are done
through like institutional sponsorship.
There might El Museo or the Clemente Soto Velez or different places
like that sponsor holiday celebrations or different things.
And that seems the way, a lot of ways
that culture seems to be practiced.
Not entirely, but it seems to be a way that it does happen a lot.
So, that's sort of like another thread that goes through there
that has occurred through the years.
So, I'll be talking a little bit
about all those, about all those things.
Oh and the title, just, the title just since we're talking
about expressive culture comes from a poem, "Boricua en la luna"
by Juan Antonio Corretjer who was a very political poet,
very radical poet.
He was in jail with Pedro Albizu Campos in the 40s and came
to New York and had a very political paper,
which I'll show at some point there.
But, his poem you know it's a very famous poem.
I guess if you guys got these brochures that were part
of the exhibit that whole poem is in there and you can get the whole poem
of where that line comes from.
So, I just wanted to start off, the migration itself.
You see the jobs from Puerto Rican and then,
into the docks in Brooklyn.
And again, I try to sprinkle some poetry.
A lot of the poems you'll be seeing are from Nuyorican poets.
The term Nuyorican, a lot of you might have heard that.
And some might of heard and not be familiar with it.
Nuyorican is a term that originally meant someone
of Puerto Rican descent who was born or raised in New York City
and that's kind of grown.
I'm sure, I don't know if, you know it's sort
of like how the South Bronx has become sort
of a term that means a lot.
It passes geographical bounds.
Nuyorican is also sort of like a state of mind as well.
As some of you know, you're not from the Island.
You're Nuyorican.
I don't know if Chicagoans have their,
Chicago Puerto Ricans have a name for themselves.
But, Nuyorican is a term that's like you know a school of poetry,
the Nuyorican poetry and from the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe.
And it's also spelled a little bit differently too.
There's, originally it should be new, N-E-W, yurican,
but because of Miguel Algarin the poet you see here
who we have his poem that talks a little bit about the effects
of migration and leaving the island and the trauma
of leaving the -- your home.
And Miguel and Miguel Algarin and Miguel Pinero came
up with Nuyorican, N-U sort of just too kind of put it in peoples' face
that we're doing something different.
We're here.
We have this own other culture and things that we're doing.
So, and one of the things, too, is I'd like to point out a lot
of people might not know is that the steamships
when Puerto Ricans migrated after the Spanish-American Cuban war,
you know, New York had been a, very Cuban actually.
In the nineteenth century the Cubans were the largest Latino population.
And then, after the war
in the twentieth century the Puerto Rican community really grew.
And the New York and Puerto Rico Line had been in operation
and that's why a lot of Puerto Ricans ended up coming
to New York City because there were these shipping lines,
cargo lines that had these docks at the piers
in Brooklyn that people came to.
And so, Puerto Ricans came to New York and settled in Brooklyn
and that's actually the common, most, a lot of Latinos.
There's a big Spaniard community, a big Basque community,
a big Cuban community in Brooklyn Heights.
You get off the piers there and settle there and it was very common.
I know like my grandparents settled in Brooklyn
for a little while then moved up to East Harlem.
Then, when that got too crowded, you moved off to the Bronx.
So, it seems like that's sort of like the pattern.
The -- not just the migration from the island,
but the migration to the city as well.
And up until 1928 the ships went to the dock, the piers in Brooklyn
and then they switched over to the South Street Seaport.
The steamship travel is very iconic in the lives
of many Puerto Ricans who came over here.
Many of the people probably came over by steamship,
probably that generation there's not many left from the people who came
by steamship because the steamships stopped in the 1940s.
But again, I wanted to show, you know, where there's iconic moments
and landmark moments in peoples' lives that people make song
and poetry and art about it.
And again, maybe later I'll get a chance to play this.
But, one of the steamships in-- during World War I, the Carolina,
a lot of these ships were named after cities in Puerto Rico
and the Carolina is in the island.
And the Carolina was torpedoed by Germans in World War I.
And there's a plena, and plena is a traditional Puerto Rican genre.
And that, there was this plena created, plena Espanola,
and Coreto [phonetic] was a very famous African,
Afro-Puerto Rican musician percussionist in the 1950s,
and he made this really famous -- this song.
But, it's about the ship being sunk and ship,
six ships were sunk that day by the Germans.
This was the only with passengers and they lost a lot of passengers.
So, this is a newspaper from Puerto Rico "Illustrato" on the island
and telling about what happened there.
So, it's remembered in song.
This tragic incident is remembered in song.
And also I just want to show you another boat, the Cuamo,
which actually many people came over on the Cuamo.
That was like a boat that brought over a lot of people
and again named after an island.
But, something else that sort of comes about in culture is
that when people think about, most people probably have heard
of the ship called the Marine Tiger.
I don't know if any of you are familiar
or Puerto Rican or heard of that.
The Marine Tiger is a ship that many people talk about
and that they came over on.
But, there's actually a term.
You were called a "marine tiger."
If you were called a marine tiger
that means you just got off the boat.
You were real sort of like from the country.
Not really used to being in New York.
You were a marine tiger.
And they even -- there was another song about that too.
But, that is sort of like cannot be found.
No one can found that.
It was recorded by Panchito Riset, a Cuban singer and I've never have
to see if any collectors have that.
But, there was a song about that, too.
The interesting thing though is the Marine Tiger only operated in 1945
for like a year until, you know,
during World War II and then it stopped.
And then right after World War II plane migration starts.
The steamship era is over
and now Puerto Ricans are the first airborne migration, immigration to,
well migration to the mainland in the United States.
One other thing I just wanted to point out a lot
of people might not know
about because Puerto Ricans are not immigrants, they're migrants,
because of the Jones Act in 1917 citizenship was granted.
And so, that makes the, you know,
they go through the immigrant experience and a lot
of things happens occurs to them.
But, they -- they're, they have different, they --
obviously they have different rights about how they,
their government benefits and things like that.
So, the one thing is these cards not a lot of people know about,
these cards were worker cards that between, I think it was
between 1925, and 1930 and 1959 over 47,000
of these cards were handed out to Puerto Ricans.
They would help to get work, so you could prove you were a citizen.
You know even though you might have had an accent,
might have not spoke English very well, but you could prove
that you were a citizen and you could get a job.
So many -- not everyone had to get these --
but if you wanted you could get them, so many people did.
And because the guy's signature in the bureau office,
in the migration office was Saldania [phonetic] they,
everyone just called them Saldania's, these cards.
You have a Saldania?
And actually that time they said they might have been sold.
People would sell them to maybe other Peruvians or anyone else
who needed a card; that would happen.
So, that was something that went on.
But, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies if you want to look
up you can look up and see if maybe your family member,
you know, had a card or something.
They have all the paperwork and stuff of all these cards there
at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies.
So again, as I said, after World War II in 1949 planes,
you know the faster travels, cheaper,
people come by train now, by plane.
And Luis Rafael Sanchez wrote this article, "The Airbus,
La guagua aerea" about the back and forth, taking a plane.
So again, our -- the experience
of what people experienced gets put into, you know, you know,
gets written about, gets expressed in different ways.
And then, also a movie was later made out of it.
And then, at that Nueva York exhibit a couple years ago Antonio Martorell
who's an amazing installation artist did the installation named
after that in the exhibit to talk about the back and forth,
how migration plays such a pivotal transformative experience
for the community.
Because it's so part of the story no matter where you're,
you know what time you came over.
You know if it was by plane, by steamship,
this really weighs heavily on your story and your experience here
and is very, you know, how you see yourself here you know
in New York City, in the United States.
So again, the difference-- not really folk art, but there was ways
that people have you know taken and taken the experience
and transformed it into something artistic.
One of the stories, which I really think is really important
that doesn't get talked about enough in a way that culture
and music had been influenced by politics.
And I wish, again we won't be able to play the songs.
We'll get to that later.
But, is the story of Rafael Hernandez
and his brother Jesus Hernandez.
And I think this just goes to show how music and culture, like I said,
are influenced and entwined deeply with political situations.
In 1917, Puerto Ricans were granted citizenship so there's --
you know they have citizenship now.
And a couple months after that the,
World War I the United States gets -- has entry into World War I.
Not, there's been a lot of debate.
There's not making any connection that one caused,
on happened because of the other that citizenship was granted.
But, because of that the --
there was a band, there was a regimental band in Harlem,
the 369th Regimental Band was based in Harlem.
The 369th Regiment and they were going, it was a segregated Army.
They were going over to France to fight the Germans and they needed
to -- the leader of the band was James Reese Europe,
Captain James Reese Europe who actually has a large collection here
at the Library of Congress, some of his stuff and some
of the people who were in his band.
And they, James Reese Europe needed more band members,
but it was a black band, a segregated Army
and he needed more band members and they had to be very --
had to read a lot of music.
He needed woodwinds especially.
So, someone's like well, you know you can over to the Puerto Rico.
They have a lot of very well trained musicians there who read music
and you can, you know you can enlist them now
because they are citizens now.
So, he goes to Puerto Rico and he enlists 18 Puerto Rican,
18 Afro-Puerto Ricans into his --
into the 369th, which at the time was the 15th National
Guard Regiment.
And they come back and Rafael Hernandez who many
of you might know is sort of, is considered the greatest composer
in Latin America right now and Puerto Rico's greatest composer
and also in Latin America.
But, he come -- he gets his you know gets his way
over to the United States because he's part of the band.
And they, the -- Puerto Rico has a huge, and all over Latin America
and in Puerto Rico there's a huge tradition
of the bandas municipal, the municipal bands.
They were very well trained.
And this was a -- it was an occupation that a lot
of Afro-Puerto Ricans were allowed to do
so that's why they had these incredibly well trained musicians
there that could read.
They'd come over, they're part of the band.
That band goes to Europe as a -- and that regiment goes to Europe
and unfortunately the, General Pershing wouldn't allow them
to fight with the American uniform.
They had to fight with a French uniform.
It's really a sad story.
But, they were very well decorated against the Germans.
And their band would go around playing for a lot
of French villages when they had time off.
And this was the band that brought jazz to Europe, early proto-jazz
and ragtime and they introduced it
to French audiences and they loved it.
So, that's how jazz leaves its home
of the United States and gets over to Europe.
And Rafael Hernandez and his brother are in this band,
but no one really knows this.
Like if you watch Ken Burns' documentary
on jazz- not even mentioned.
They talk about the 369th that they're a very important band.
Not even mentioned that one third of the band was Afro-Puerto Rican.
So, you know they're -- so they come back and Rafael,
some of them go back to Puerto Rico, but Raphael stays
and obviously settles in New York.
He goes back and forth to Mexico, Cuba and jobs and stays in New York,
but then goes on to have this long, you know, career.
And then, I'll probably mention him later a little bit
about some other stuff.
But, because of the political situation where we able to get --
we had citizenship James Reese Europe was able to go to Puerto Rico
and get these artists and bring them back there,
and bring them back here.
And they were part, and there's a few, Memphis Archives has some
of recordings and they think there's no roster
of the artists that are on it.
But, many think that Raphael is on these early recordings
from the Memphis Archives that you can hear him playing trombone
on there.
So, yeah, so he was part of that story.
So, now going into the experience of work,
Puerto Ricans come here, they start businesses.
They have to, they're getting jobs.
And in the early - I'm just going to talk about a few different business
that are really sort of iconic business --
the cigar tobacco rolling industry was big in the late 1800's
in New York City and actually originally was
like Germans and Bohemians later on.
But then, of course, the Cubans came during the ten years war.
There were a lot of Afro-Cubans came and settled and then,
Puerto Ricans became part of that as well.
So, by the early part, the early decade of the nineteenth century,
of the twentieth century there were still cigar rolling factories
and Puerto Ricans were very much a part of that in New York City.
And in this photo you can see the gentleman
up on the little raised platform was called a lector
and they were readers.
And what they did, they would read,
the tobacco rollers would pay a little bit of money
so they could hire this person to read.
And what they would do,
in the morning they would usually read the current newspapers,
you know what was going on, all the current newspapers.
And in the afternoon, they would read political and scientific works
of Charles Darwin, Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, you know all these novels
and also these you know other philosophical
and political books as well.
So, cigar rollers, tobacco workers tended to be the most progressive,
highly educated workers at the time in the Cuban
and Puerto Rican community as well, all the different communities,
because they had this lector who was part
of the atmosphere of the factory.
And someone I want to point out again who's not always well known
about that is Luisa Capetillo.
She's on the right.
Luisa Capetillo was from Puerto Rico, from Arecibo and she started
out in the garden industry and later started working
in the cigar factories in Puerto Rico.
She late -- and then she became a lector
in the cigar workshops in Puerto Rico.
She moved to New York in 1917, no 1919 and worked as a lector,
wrote for Spanish language papers and worked as a lector.
And she was this very political, spoke at rallies.
She had a great voice.
And it was not very common.
Women were not known to be readers.
And actually women, you see on the bottom in the right.
That's not a Puerto Rican cigar factory,
but it just shows women were given like the very low jobs
in the tobacco factories.
Just sort of -- they were given the jobs to, just to separate the,
to strip away the leaf from the nib.
So, they didn't even get the good you know jobs in that.
And then, she was able to be a reader on top of it.
So, she was just, had a lot of influence.
And -- but she did go back to Puerto Rico
and got arrested for wearing pants.
She was the first woman to wear pants
on the island - as you see there.
So, she was just really ahead of her time for a lot of things.
Bernardo Vega talks about her in his memoirs.
As I mentioned you know he was a very,
he's usually someone we think about, Bernardo Vega,
when we think about the cigar industry, his memoirs.
But -- and he talks about, a little bit
about her and her boarding house.
She's also a very good cook in her boarding house in lower Manhattan.
But, we usually think about him and his work in the cigar factories
and not that there were women and then,
someone like Luisa Capetillo there as well.
Another industry that's very important
for the Puerto Rican community is, of course, the needlework trades.
So, you know many of the needlework trades were also --
had traditionally been held by other, in other communities,
Jewish and Italian women.
But, by the 20's and 30's a lot more Puerto Rican women are --
Puerto Rican communities are growing and they take over and are starting
to replace a lot of the workers and particularly in dress making,
accessories, and children's clothing.
So, and then, by the 1940's they had become a major new source of labor
in the undergarments trade
and constituted half of the skirt industry.
So, they were a major part of the garment industry in New York City.
And there's a lot of oral histories.
I mean this is another thing that's very part
of the community, of the experience.
I'm sure everyone has like a grandmother and aunt or someone
who might have worked in the, you know,
in the garment industry doing something.
It's just very much a part of the experience,
this migrant experience in New York City.
And so many people have stories about this.
And -- but there is a history of that in,
you know in Puerto Rico there was a lot of piecework done.
Women, girls did learn to do embroidery
and different types of textile work.
You see right here there's a picture of women in Puerto Rico.
I think that's Aguadilla that they're making lace, bobbin lace.
It's the, Puerto Rican lace and, which is really interesting
because usually lace was considered always --
I'd always heard that lace was considered the very elite upper
class people did it.
But, obviously this looks, you know this Afro-Puerto Rican women making
some lace.
So, obviously it was more spread out around the island
than most people had thought.
And one picture here: This was Rosa Elena Egipciaco was someone
who was in New York City.
She moved back to Puerto Rico a couple years ago.
She's a National Heritage Award Winner,
the NEA and for her bobbin lace.
And she taught many, many women in New York City to do that.
And it's not a tradition that a lot of people do
because it's a very time consuming.
A lot of the traditional Puerto Rican folk are unfortunately don't
get practiced as much as they should.
Like, it would be nice in New York City because things
like [Spanish] things like the [Spanish] are very time consuming.
The Santos carving, which I'll show a little bit later too,
are very time consuming.
It's not like something you can just pick up in a couple classes.
So, it takes a lot of you know effort
and supplies and resources as well.
But, she was someone who had taught, always taught a bunch of classes
and sort of like the heir to the legacy of Puerto Rican women working
in textiles in New York City.
Another industry of course, is the markets, the bodega,
the bodega owners and so that was very important because you come,
you have this growing Puerto Rican community
in places like East Harlem.
Between the World Wars East Harlem's growing, it's huge.
You have all these Puerto Ricans moving,
but where do they get the food to eat, their traditional food?
That's not there.
The -- all the pushcart vendors were Jewish.
A lot of Jewish vendors did not supply this food.
So, bodega owners were able, were starting to open to supply the food
to get the platanos and the other you know foods
that were needed from, to make the cuisine.
What's really important is that on the upper picture, the black
and white is the La Marqueta,
which is one of those other important iconic places
in New York's history, which most people again,
probably have stories of.
In the late 1930's from WPA funds Mayor LaGuardia created a bunch
of markets.
There is the Arthur Avenue market, the Essex Street market.
And this one was the Park Avenue market, but no called --
in East Harlem you didn't call it the Park Avenue market.
You called it La Marqueta.
And that's where everyone went and not only just to buy food.
You would buy your shoes there, you buy clothes there.
You go with your mom on Sunday.
You'd make the trip from the Bronx maybe and go down there.
So, everyone went there.
And it was, as you can see it's really,
it was a really vibrant place.
There was tons of vendors, a lot of things going on.
It's still open, but it's like a shadow of its former self.
There's a few, few vendors and they're trying
to make a comeback, but it's been very hard.
But, they still have it going.
They have live music outside of it on Saturdays;
if you ever get a chance to go there.
There's like live salsa you know that people go to that,
actually get some more people and probably, that probably,
then probably go into the actual Marqueta.
But, it's very, even though like I said, it's not vibrant
and strong like it once was.
It's still part, a very big part of the memory of many people who lived
in East Harlem and the Bronx in New York City and other places.
Well, you know other enclaves in New York City
as well, just some other bodegas.
Oh, just -- I just want to show this I.D. card, too, of Prudencio Unanue,
that's the family name for the people who started Goya.
I'd just thought I'd add that in there because you can't think
of Latin food, Latino food without the Goya family.
So, this is one of the worker I.D. cards.
The Goya, the people who started the Goya, the Unanues were
from the Basque country actually, but they came through Puerto Rico
and then, from Puerto Rico migrated up to New York City
and founded the Goya in, around the 20's or so.
And I think they had like a factory on Duane Street in Manhattan.
So, that's where they were.
And of course, you know, "Goya, oh boya."
Everyone like grew up on all those things.
"If it's Goya it's got to be good."
We all know that.
So, that's part of, again, part of the, you know living in New York
and probably now nationally and eating Latino food.
Another entrepreneur business were the botanicas.
The botanicas were important for people
who practice Espiritismo or Santeria.
And Santeria became bigger among the community
after like a large amount of, in the 1960's and 70's
when you had a large migration of, immigration of Cubans again
to the tri-state area a lot
of Puerto Ricans also started becoming Santeros
and practicing the Afro-Cuban religion of Santeria.
So, this was another business
that was very important for the community.
And the Justo one you see there is in East Harlem and it's like one
of the oldest, I think, in the city.
It's been around for a very long time.
And these are just some items from, if you're a worshiper
that you would practice with.
That's the alter, La mesa blanca for espiritistas.
And then, on the side is the Madonna doll.
This is made by, actually, Ramonita Zavala is the woman who made
that with her son who helped her and she was in the garment industry.
And she makes now things like this.
And this is her Madonna doll that she made and we used it
in the exhibit for something else a few years ago.
But, Madonna dolls actually come from people
who practice Espiritismo and Santeria.
They use them to sort of, they use them.
They set them in little chairs to sort of like call
down the spirits a little bit.
But, people now, even if you're not a practitioner of that they're sort
of like, you know you want them.
People like them.
And they might just be gifts or anything.
So, you could have one even if you're not a practitioner.
And a lot of people just make them just to sell not have,
and have any religious significance to them.
One last business this very important, well it's --
two more, very important is the music stores.
Music stores were really, really important
to the emerging Puerto Rican community because New York,
what we knew as New York music later became mambo and salsa
and all these musics come out of -- you know, come out of New York.
And the early music stores in East Harlem were very important to that
because you know you come to New York, you're wanting,
you're missing your homeland.
You walk by these music stores.
You hear the sounds emanating from the speakers
of the music from your homeland.
And also, if you were a musician, if you needed a gig,
you'd go to the people, to the store owners" Where's someone is playing?
What bands are playing?"
If you were a big record label owner like Decca or Victor,
you went to them and said "What's hot right now?
What's playing?"
And so, some of these store managers became very trend --
you know important figures in the connection
between the music scene and the music business.
This is Rafael Hernandez again with his sister Victoria Hernandez
and they were very close.
And they started a store in East Harlem on Madison Avenue.
You can see it, Hernandez Music Store.
They started that in 1927.
And again, you see the garment industry connection.
You know Rafael was very like Bohemian.
He would just hang out; you know smoke cigarettes,
play his guitar on the sidewalk.
He you know wrote, "Lamento boricano" supposedly in that store.
But, she was the business one.
She's an expert business manager.
And that was very amazing because at the time in the 1920's only
about .5 percent of Puerto Rican,
of the Puerto Rican population females were --
Puerto Rican females were owning businesses.
And here she was running a business,
you know being this connection between business owners.
And she did work in the garment industry before she went
to the music business.
And she, so half her store had dresses
and half the store had music.
So, she would sell these.
And then, she always had, and I think this idea
of having a store that's just one thing, like you know Virgin
or Tower, that's some sort of a newer thing.
Years ago people had like a lot of different things,
you know, selling in their store.
They -- what happened, they -- he went to Mexico for a little while
because the Mexican movie industry was huge.
He went to work in movies there.
She moved up to the Bronx at some point, in 1941 opened another store.
And she worked in the store,
in this store in this building on Prospect Avenue.
And you can see underneath the Casa Amadeo sign says Antgua
Casa Hernandez.
That was her store.
In 1969 Miguel Amedeo, the gentleman on the bottom, he bought the store
from her and he changed it to Casa Amadeo
because he's a famous composer in his own right.
And once he changed it
to Casa Amadeo she never went back in the store.
She was really mad, he said.
But -- and she ended up moving back to Puerto Rico.
But, she was an incredible figure.
She was this woman who had a lot of power in the business.
And again, but you don't hear of her.
You don't hear of people on the sidelines like that a lot.
She also was an accomplished musician herself, but women,
it wasn't really proper for women to go into, you know musicians is
for Bohemians and people who do drugs and things like that.
It wasn't proper at that time for a lot of women to go
into music, so she didn't.
But, she gave piano lessons in the back of the store.
And in the East Harlem store she gave piano lessons
to a young man named Tito Puente.
So, she was his teacher.
And you know Casa Amadeo - City Lore, the work that we did,
we worked a lot with "From Mambo to Hip Hop."
The work that we did we were able to -- we nominated Casa Amadeo for the,
and it got put on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
The building that it's housed in, that building is
on the National Register because of Casa Amadeo being there
because of its work within the Puerto Rican community
and Puerto Rican music.
And it's the first place on the mainland,
the first Puerto Rican site on the mainland that was nominated
to the National Register.
One last sort of business sort
of thing is just periodicals and newspapers.
Since the 1900's the Cubans had tons of papers when they were here.
Puerto Ricans followed suit and had many different papers.
And the, "Grafico" was a really big one, owned by Bernardo Vega.
Bernardo Vega actually ran it for some point.
But, what was really interesting about newspapers and the periodicals
at that time, they might have,
in the Spanish language world they might have had things
about politics.
They always had poetry though.
They always had poetry and cultural things.
So, it was a really a mixed thing - There was never just this idea
that it all was just poetry, all was just business.
There was columns about the latest things that was going
on in the art world or the theaters and a lot
of poetry, too, as I mentioned.
So, and so this was just very important in the community
as well and, "Grafico" was a very important paper for a while.
I wanted to bring this up because this is one of my favorite stories,
too, is that when we talk about publications is that,
I don't know if any of you are comic book fans.
But, Marvel Comics for a while was run
by a Cuban recently, Jose Quesada.
But so, everyone thinks "Oh, this is an instructive, the first Latino
to have him doing comic books."
Actually the Latino connection with comic books goes back much further.
Alex Schomburg, who's a distant relative of Arturo Schomburg -
that the [New York Public] Library's named after, he came over here
in the 19-teens and he was a graphic artist
and printer, him and his brothers.
And in 1939 he got and he got, he got -- he became part of,
right before World War II, he started writing
for different science fiction magazines
and got involved with Marvel.
And that's one of his Marvel covers.
He drew a lot of the "Captain America," "Submariner,"
"Human Torch" if you're interested,
if you're a Marvel fan you might know some of these names.
And he did a lot of covers for them.
Stan Lee one of the people from Marvel called him
"the Norman Rockwell of comics."
So, and so he was, you know he did a lot of work.
Then, you can see the World War II imagery, the,
you know the superheroes fighting Nazis, "Captain America" and stuff.
So, this was the golden age of comics at the time.
And next to it is just a current comic book from an artist
in the Bronx, just so that it keeps going that and this current,
Miguelangel Ruiz does his comic book
and his main character is based on the vejigante mask.
It's this figure who has a sort
of vejigante mask, which I'll get to later.
That's a traditional Puerto Rican art, traditional mask.
And so, he uses that now and he's making this series now.
And it's just very, self-published, but he's like kind of trying
to get it all over New York City.
So, the Puerto Rican influence in comic books has been around.
So, as I mentioned before I wanted to point out some women.
There is these different parts of the,
you know of the Puerto Rican migration experience
and the diaspora.
What people did when they came here that women were very much a part of
and we don't always hear.
So, in Brooklyn especially when people think
of the Puerto Rican community, we always know the South Bronx.
We know the South Bronx is a big enclave.
We hear about East Harlem, the Lower East Side, which doesn't get as,
you know is also very important and doesn't always get as credited
with having a lot of artists from there
as well and political activists.
But, Brooklyn had a very large continuum of people
who were very involved in Democratic,
the Democratic Party machine and Socialist party and a lot
of different things going on.
And Celia Vice is really important.
She was involved in many different civic business organization,
but she also in part of her work she started the Three Kings Parade
in Brooklyn, which still goes on.
And there's one in Williamsburg, I think that's the one.
And she started that in the 1960's.
So again, even though she's a businesswoman involved
in other civic activities this cultural thing is, that is something
from part of the culture and you know she made
that part of her work as well.
Another thing that was very big from the -- in the Brooklyn community,
there was lot of different organizations, political clubs,
social organizations, mutual aid societies.
And some, Antonia Denes, Denes, [phonetic] was this woman
who was very involved in many different ones.
She started actually the largest mutual benefit society
in Brooklyn in the 1920's.
So, she was a very important person starting all these different
aid clubs.
When you're a new migrant
to the city you need all these different organizations to help you;
and all immigrants have this.
A lot of immigrants from all different communities have these
different social hometown clubs or social clubs to help them.
Like I come here, I don't speak the language.
I need help.
Who do I go, where do I get a job?
Where do I go to find a place to live?
So, there's organizations like these.
And in the Puerto Ricans they were
"hometown clubs" were they're really big ones.
They were, like over 70 to correspond to the island
and the number of municipalities on the island of hometown clubs.
So, this Club Caborrojeno was a really famous one
and it just started out as a small hometown club.
If you were from Cabo Rojo, that's where you would go to,
Cabo Rojo was this little town on the western part of the island.
You would probably go to that social club for events and things.
Later on the 50's and the 60's it becomes this hot,
hot spot for Latin music, for mambo music.
So, you're seeing a band there in 1956.
So, it became like a really important spot for,
some of these did change.
Some of these didn't make it over, like cross over to sort
of more you know, I want to say commercial,
but you know more open, more to the public.
But, a lot of the hometown clubs had a lot of different activities.
Here's another one.
There's Anasco Social Club has its float in the parade.
And after the Puerto Rican started out by El Congresso del los Pueblos,
a group of all the hometown clubs
and that's what actually started the parade.
It was all the hometown clubs coming together.
So, while they did mutual aid stuff, while they did civic work
for the community, to help the community,
there also was a definite cultural aspect
of the work that they did as well.
Just to touch briefly on politics,
Oscar Garcia Rivera was the first Puerto Rican elected
to a public office.
He was an assemblyman for East Harlem in the 1930's.
And the reason I wanted to bring him up is
because the Lucky Corner was a really important spot
in East Harlem.
And it's sort of like one of these spaces that are sort
of like people talk about.
It's not that there is a sign there or anything, but all the politicians
in East Harlem would go the Lucky Corner
and give their speeches and give their rallies.
And you can see his name is on that one for that one, for that rally,
and also Fiorello LaGuardia and Vito Marcantonio,
which at time we always hear stories.
I don't know if anybody's read, "Carlito's Way" or anything.
There's all these stories about the Puerto Rican
and Italians always you know butting heads in East Harlem.
But actually, there was a time
when the Italian community was actually very supportive
of the Puerto Rican community.
Marcantonio was a lawyer for Pedro Albizu Campos when he was in prison.
And actually I think, from what I heard, I don't know if this is true,
but Marc Anthony's father named him after Vito Marcantonio.
So he's very political.
So, the community worked together in politics and Marcantonio
and LaGuardia fought very hard
for Puerto Rican rights in New York City.
And, of course, I wanted to just bring in, of course,
the most important political figure.
Some, you know there's a few people that are very iconic
in the community, Tito Puente and Sonia Sotomayor is one of them, too,
that have become so iconic for the work that they do
that they take what, and we have Nuyoricans are and take
that to a national stage.
And I want to include a part of a poem
from Tato Laviera one of the Nuyorican poets.
Tato Laviera is considered one of the most -- has the most books out,
most published author of the Nuyorican poets.
And he wrote recently a poem for -- in honor of Sonia Sotomayor.
Sorry there's a few typos in there.
But, he wrote that and I think actually she was able
to see this poem at some point.
So again, these, our landmark events and people
in our community bring out, you know, poems or songs from people.
Another really important activist who I think is so important
and again, who might not be, not known outside
of the community is Evelina Antonetty.
Evelina Antonetty, she came from Puerto Rico and actually her mentor,
you see the top picture where she's next to Jesus Colon.
He was one of her mentors
and he really helped her get involved in politics.
She was, became, got into labor organizing.
But then, settling in the Bronx, she became a really outspoken advocate
for the community and actually became known as the
"hell lady of the Bronx."
She was actually called "the hell lady of the Bronx"
because she didn't take anything from any local politician or anyone.
And she founded United Bronx Parent in the 60's and I don't know if any
of you are familiar with United Bronx Parents.
But, they started out as a, they established bilingual,
bicultural daycare center.
But, later on as they realized that more services were needed
for the community they became, really- launched a lot
of adult education programs, rehab programs and actually became a model
for Social Services all around in the northeast.
So, she started that.
Her daughter took over for many years, the organization.
But, what's really-and that's her in the bottom picture above the sign.
But, one thing I really think is really important about UBP is
that they also used culture to talk,
if you're doing social services you cannot, not use culture.
This is their main building in the Bronx on Prospect Avenue.
That's bomba, the music of bomba from Puerto Rico.
There's dancers there doing bomba dance.
There, whenever they would do events to get the people --
to get the community involved and active they would have,
you know they would have events like that to get the people together.
And actually they just, a couple weeks ago I saw Lorraine,
her daughter, and they named a street after, Yomo Torro.
I don't know if anyone knows who Yomo Torro, the cuatro player,
Puerto Rican cuatro player.
He passed away last year.
They named a street after him.
So, she was there telling a story about when UBP, United Bronx Parent,
did voting registration they sat Yomo on two milk crates in front
of the building with his cuatro and just had him play for hours
and hours, all day just to get people to come
so they'd realize the importance that how, you know how this,
how you need the arts and the culture, the arts and culture
to bring people in to get them interested in what's going on.
Another thing that the United Bronx Parents was very active
in was the rallies against the movie, "Fort Apache: The Bronx."
A lot of you might probably remember that movie
from around 1980 or so with Paul Newman.
And there was the CAFA, Committee Against Fort Apache was formed
and the United Bronx Parents was very involved in that committee.
And they would form rallies everyday while they were shooting
in the Bronx.
I'm sure they just created just a hassle for the filmmaker
and Paul Newman and everyone,
but they would have all these rallies all the time
and at the top of the rally.
But, what they would do at the rally, they always had music
and they always had performers to get people.
The bottom is some of the musicians: There is,
one the left is Mario Rivera,
on the right is Andy Gonzalez a Nuyorican bass player,
probably the most recorded bass in Latin music right now.
And him and-- Andy and his brother Jerry Gonzalez through being
in this band, all these guys being in this band,
they formed the Fort Apache Band through there.
And the Fort Apache Band still plays.
And they still perform today.
And Jerry Gonzalez when he formed
that he said the reason they called it the Fort Apache Band,
and this is from an interview.
I don't know if this was his real reason, but this is what he said
in interview is that, "He formed the band to show people that there are,
there is good things that come out of Fort Apache."
Fort Apache was the name of a police precinct on Simpson Avenue in --
Simpson Street in the Bronx that you know the cops named this Fort Apache
because they surrounded by you know hostile territory,
all the people who lived there.
And the movie basically showed very bad depictions
of Puerto Ricans and African-Americans.
And so, but they, in this Committee Against Fort Apache they wanted
to show that no, we're not, the -
everyone in the neighborhood is not like that.
And the Fort Apache Band wanted to show
that you know there's good things, there's art, culture,
music that come from that as well.
I just wanted to show this.
This is an old, old flyer from the Park Palace that also shows in a lot
of old musicians: Rafael Hernandez, Davilita, and getting involved
in political events as well.
Again, music and politics were always sort of hand in hand.
That's a mural right in front of the old building of Evelina.
Evelina's yelling at some politician there,
in the real photo, in the real photo there.
And the photo, the other part of the photo comes
from her grandson Joe Conzo Jr. who's a very famous hip hop
photographer and he documented a lot of the Bronx when it was burning.
They put, the TATS Cru is a really famous graffiti collective,
graffiti arts collective who actually came here
to the Smithsonian to the Folklife Festival over a decade ago
and they painted this last year and, you know,
the Bronx Parents, in honor of her.
I'm going to get more into the murals, how important murals
and public art is to the community as well.
And, of course, we talk about politics and community activism,
of course, the Young Lords are really important.
In the bottom is a Young Lords rally.
The top and I wanted to show the women of the Young Lords
because the men of the Young Lords get a lot of recognition,
Felipe Luciano, Juan Gonzalez, all those guys, but, Pablo Guzman,
you know they write, they've been on news shows and stuff.
But, you know there was women, there was active women and they made sure
that you know like the women's issues got really represented
and the Young Lord's issues as well.
And the one, the woman all the way on the left is Iris Morales
and she's a filmmaker and a lawyer and she made the film, "Palante,
Siempre Palante " about the Young Lords.
Here's another, again, the 60's at this time,
I mean all this stuff was going on United Bronx Parents, Young Lords.
It's the 60's.
It's -- everyone has, there's all these identity politics going
on right at, the Young Lords are modeled after the Black Panthers,
there's the American Indian Movement and you have the Feminist Movement.
So, there's a lot going on and then, the students are also rising for
and at this time Puerto Rican studies
and African-American studies, where people are trying to push them
to get them you know involve, and get these departments in the school
as well, these programs in the school.
So, all the stuff that was going on at that time is, because of,
you know, because there was a political climate
of the time as well.
And one other group I wanted to point out again, where art and --
where social activism and culture come together is
in Park 52 in the Bronx.
I work a lot in the Bronx where a lot of my stuff is
like a very Bronx base and this park is across the street from PS,
the old PS 52 [Public School 52] where Ray Berretta went to PS 52,
Manny Oquendo went there, Eddie Palmieri went there,
Joe Joe Quijano - all these musicians went there.
So, the park across the street in the 80s,
and around 1980 the Parks Department was broke, right,
a lot of New York City was broke.
They're not taking care of it.
There was crack vials, there was garbage.
Community members, a bunch of community members got together,
cleaned up the park and they painted it a different color
than the parks department.
They refused to paint it, the parks department, because they do it
on their own and they take care of the park
and they make sure kids have access to the equipment there, the balls
and everything that they need.
But, they also about 25 years ago started a concert series.
They had -- they asked --
and the Parks Department wanted to build more handball walls
and they're like well, a handball wall is a really lazy thing to do.
It's just putting up a wall.
We want you to build a theater.
They built a, so they made the parks department build a
little amphitheater.
And now, every summer for the past, actually probably closer
to 30 years they, every Wednesday in the summer they have Latin jazz
and Latin salsa concerts there and they're going on right now.
And they do that for the community.
The community comes out, it's packed.
But they, you know they're --
they show what you can do as community activists
to help your community and bring music into that as well.
And this is from a photo of City Lore, it's part of our,
"From Mambo to Hip Hop" film.
We had all the alumni from the school get up on,
come together and play in a concert.
So again, now we're, now I just want to get into some of the,
some of the, you know actual arts that, produced by the community.
And when we think of poetry
in the community everyone usually knows who Julia Burgos is.
He's like one of the most famous poets in the Puerto Rican community.
But, I want, I was very interested in this woman.
Her real name, she goes by Clara Lair,
but her name was Mercedes Negron Munoz and she was the cousin
of Luis Munoz Marin, the first elected Governor,
Puerto Rican Governor of the island.
And she lived in New York for a while in the 20's
and she wrote some poetry about New York.
So, I thought it was really nice that she actually came to New York
and sort of wrote and being, lived in New York
and wrote about New York.
And so, and actually she was actually an inspiration
for Julia Burgos who came later.
And of course, there's Julia and she came to New York in 1942.
She had already been a published poet.
But, she got really involved in politics.
Juan Antonio Corretjer the poet who did the name of presentation,
he had a paper called "Pueblos Hispanos."
It was very political.
I think, I think it might have been partly funded by the
"Communist Party" or something,
which is incredibly progressive political paper.
And she had a column in there and she put poetry in there.
There's sort of a not a very good copy of it.
But, you can see that, you know that was the paper, "Pueblos Hispanos."
And she worked on that as well.
She was very involved in the independentista movement,
the nationalist movement of the island at that time.
And right, to the right is a mosaic by Manny Vega.
Manny Vega is a really prolific artist in New York City right now.
He does a lot of public art, outside art
and he does all kinds of artwork.
But, his art is seen everywhere in the Bronx and East Harlem
and he does a lot with mosaics.
You see them in different subways
and this one he did a few years ago, actually in 2006.
It's called, "Remembering Julia" and it's on 106th Street,
because she actually --
unfortunately in her life she was very ill and I think she was,
she was, she had alcohol problems as well and she was found
on the street unconscious and taken to the hospital
and no one knew who she was.
And she was buried in Potter's field until her family finally came
and claimed her and she's now buried in Puerto Rico.
But so, because she had that connection to East Harlem
that they did that to remember her by.
Sorry, this isn't a very good photo.
This is -- I wanted to get someone,
when we talk about poetry and the Nuyorican.
I want to talk about the Nuyorican poet, poetry,
the Nuyorican Movement, whatever we want to call that.
This gentleman is someone who's very inspirational to all of us poets,
but you'll never hear about him.
Jorge Brandon was from Puerto Rico, from Moca, from the town of Moca,
but everyone, he was called "El Coco que Habla."
That was his name for himself.
And he was sort of like a guy who lived
on the streets, but was a declamador.
Sort of, just like was on the streets.
What you see there, the Lower East Side had sort
of very similar experience as the Bronx.
You know when people think of the Bronx: buildings burnt down.
You know empty lots like that, had a very similar experience
and he would just be part of this neighborhood.
I don't know if you've ever, if you ever heard of him Connie,
but he was part of this, you know part of the street culture there.
And many of the young poets like Tato Laviera, Miguel Algarin,
who are being, who are young poets at the time would see him
and sort of, he was like an inspiration for them.
And you know you could see him walking on the streets.
Sometimes he'd do his poetry in decimas,
the decima tradition of Puerto Rico.
Not that the Nuyorican poets really used decima,
but it sort of like gave them a link to sort of the poetry
from the island and then, also this idea of being a declamador.
The declamador is a tradition from all over Latin America,
but in Puerto Rico as well, where you declaim.
You get up and you state things
in like the public square sort of in poetic form.
And so, he was sort of like that.
And then, here is Miguel Algarin.
We saw his poem before.
And that's him in front of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.
And that was, of course, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe is
such an important site
for the Puerto Rican community when it comes to poetry.
Miguel started that in 1974 because all the poets used to meet
in his living room and he goes, he said, "He just wanted
to get everyone out of his living room" so he started a club.
So, that's how the Nuyorican Poets Cafe was born.
So he -- and it provided a forum for all these poets like Tato Laviera,
like Sandra Maria Esteves who is part of that, Victor Hernandez Cruz,
Miguel Pinero, Bimbo Rivas.
And also you see there Pedro Pietri.
The poet Pedro Pietri passed away a few years ago,
who was a very beloved poet of that scene as well.
And you see that mural on the Nuyorican was created
by Chico Garcia, who is a local, a local graffiti artist,
a local mural artist from the Lower East Side.
I want to bring in-- I mentioned Arturo Schomburg earlier
and when we think of Puerto Ricans
in the library system we think of Arturo Schomburg.
But actually, Pura Belpre here was actually the first Puerto Rican
librarian in the NYPL, the New York Public Library System.
And what she did was really important.
What she did is that she, a lot of people call her a folklorist, which,
I don't really think she should be called a folklorist.
She's an author and she wrote children's stories
and she was a story teller.
But, she reinterpreted a lot of Puerto Rican folktales
that she heard growing up and she would tell them to kids
at these story times in the library.
So, she was there.
So, the librarians there realized what she could do and her resources.
She helped them.
She became an active advocate for Spanish speaking books
and presentations at the library.
She instituted bilingual story hours
and made there was Spanish language books at the library,
implemented programs based on holidays like Three Kings.
So, it was really about Puerto Rican culture because she's coming
at a time, oh wait, okay then there's a lot of --
I don't have much time, a lot of Puerto Ricans coming.
So, and that's her famous books, "Perez and Martina,"
based on an old folktale.
I want to just go through some of these really fast.
I really want to get to the end part, which is a lot
of like stuff that's going on now.
Miriam Colon, the theater,
Puerto Rican theater really had a-- was really important.
There was different sorts.
There was a dramatic theater, which Miriam Colon comes out of.
But, there was also these theaters like the Teatro Puerto Rico.
You see a line, literally a line around the block.
That's what it was like.
These were sort of like vaudeville shows
where you'd see a flamenco dancer, a Puerto Rican traditional singer,
like a hula hoop person, too.
You know who's the blind guitarist?
>> [Group response] Jose Feliciano
>> Elena Martinez: Jose Feliciano got his start
at this theater Teatro Puerto Rico
when he was eight years old in a talent show there.
So, they have all these sort of different shows like that
and they have bands as well and, of course, Mexican movies.
Every Puerto Rican went and saw Mexican movies
because it was the golden age of Mexican cinema.
That's why all, my father and every Puerto Rican I know older
than that loves mariachi music.
So, that comes from like those shows.
The Lower East Side theater community,
Bimbo Rivas who I mentioned earlier, that's a mural of him.
But, he coined the phrase Loisaida.
He was the one who coined that in a poem he did and Loisaida is the name
that the, sort of the Puerto Rican community gives
to the Lower East Side.
It was from a poem.
He said, "The mountains and the valleys cannot compare my love
to you Loisaida, I love you."
So again, and that's what I meant, public art is so important
with the Puerto Rican community.
Nitza Tufino was one of the founding members of Taller Boricua.
This is one of her pieces in the 103rd Street subway.
And that's another Manny Vega mosaic in the 110th Street subway.
But, Taller Boricua again, is one of these organizations that started
in 1960's where all these identity politics are going on.
A lot of African-American and Puerto Rican artists got together
and would protest things at like MoMA [Museum of Modern Art]
and stuff because they didn't show any other,
they didn't show any ethnic artists so to remedy
that they started Taller Boricua, the Puerto Rican workshop,
so that they can do their own work.
More public art, the cast on the, the very famous cast
by Rigoberto Torres and John Ahern in the South Bronx;
Rafael Ferrer's Puerto Rican Sun also in the Bronx.
TATS Cru I mentioned earlier do memorial walls of these very,
you know were very big in the 80's during the crack epidemic
when there was a lot of violence and problems.
They're not as big as-- they're not really as popular as much anymore.
TATS Cru did hundreds of them.
But, you know people, families who want to remember their loved ones
who maybe died in some gang violence or drug violence
and people would pay them to make these walls.
That's the Graffiti Hall of Fame on 106th Street.
Every year it's changed.
You can go and watch them.
It's sort of like a big performance, watch them make the new murals.
This is a TATS Cru one with all the Puerto Rican symbols in it
because they're -- most of TATS Cru is Puerto Rican.
And one thing I wanted to mention, too, the silkscreen tradition
in Puerto Rico was really big.
It was really popular on the island.
And at one point in the mid-century the government used it to--
a lot of people were illiterate in the countryside
so they would make screen prints to like get the word
out about certain issues to them.
And later on in the 60's again it became very, a political tool
and it was used for festivals as well to,
you know to advertise for things.
So, Taller Boricua used silk screens a lot in their work,
in their work in East Harlem.
But, this was a silkscreen that was made for our exhibit,
the exhibit that this is all based on by Miguel Trelles who was
in the Clemente, so who was based
in the Clemente Soto Velez Center in the Lower East Side.
I don't want to talk too much about music
because music is its own lecture.
But, la musica hibero, the music of the countryside in Puerto Rico-
that's Ramito, who's very famous;
everyone has probably heard of Ramito.
And Ramito did, made the song
"Que bonita bandera" [What a Beautiful Flag],
which you hear all the time at the parade
and everything and he wrote that.
And you know that's Yomo Torro on the bottom,
who's our most very influential figure.
He was a cuatro player, but he was also a very important guitar player
before he became known for the cuatro.
And that's him in a New York radio station.
But, Willie Colon, who's a very famous salsa singer,
salsa trombone player and musician, Willie Colon was
so influenced by Ramito's work.
He had grown up Puerto Rican.
Salsa musicians basically play Cuban music.
Salsa is a Cuban music, but Willie really reintroduced Puerto Rican
elements into what we call salsa and made it, you know,
gave it some like Puerto Rican flair.
And what he did is that there was a song by Ramito, a decima song called
"Patria ya amor" [assumed spelling] and Willie took it.
And Hector Levoe who's in that picture on the album cover with him,
they named it "Canto a Borinquen,"
"Song to Puerto Rico" on this Christmas album.
And this Christmas album, "Asalto Navideno," is so important to young,
to Puerto Ricans of the generation from the 70's on because we--
people in the 70's had never heard their own music; when you --
if you're a young Puerto Rican growing up in the 60's
and 70's you hear salsa that's Cuban music.
What's the music from the island?
And this album put, took decimas and the aguinaldos from Christmas
and put them to salsa arrangements.
And then, you have Willie and Hector on the cover,
you know kind of an urban Bronx version of Christmas, right,
stealing the presents I guess or something.
But, the "as alto" was sort of a double meaning too because an asalto
in Puerto Rico is the Christmas caroling.
You do an asalto.
You assault people with music, these parrandas that you go on
and then they just using the play that would asalto,
you know sort of an assault, you know robbery or something,
so bringing it sort of to the Nuyorican mindset.
La Calandria is another la musica hibera,
this is old time music from Puerto Rico.
She was a major proponent of that.
And what's amazing is she was a trovador.
Ramito was a trovador, she was a trovadora, he was a trovador.
Trovador is not just a singer.
They improvise.
They know the music so well they can improvise.
She was also this amazing, amazing improviser.
She lived in the Bronx.
She ended up spending the rest of her life from, after from living
in Puerto Rico living in the Bronx, and that's her
at the Teatro Puerto Rico.
But, usually women don't get like the recognition like when it comes
to things like that you know and being improvise, improvisers
and masters of the genre.
The pava, the Puerto Rican pava from the musica hibera is,
even though it's used from that genre,
the sort of the campesino de hibero
from the island it's still used today.
Sort of people use it
as an identifier even though they wouldn't wear maybe all the time.
If you wore at the parade, the Popular party uses it
for their symbol in Puerto Rico.
And that's from the parade so there's people who also
or for the PPD and in New York City as well.
And I wanted to bring this, two popular music,
popular music is you know maybe outside the bounds
of what we usually study as folklore.
But again, Tito Puente is so iconic.
He took, brought the Nuyorican community,
brought the Nuyorican culture to the, and as a musician,
as someone who is Nuyorican brought
that to the forefront, became international.
And Myrta Silva I wanted to mention because she is someone
who doesn't get recognition.
She sang for the band Sonora Matancera, which she left
and when she left that band from Cuba another young woman took over
and who wasn't as well liked because everyone Myrta.
The woman who took over was Celia Cruz.
She was this amazing singer, Myrta Silva,
and she also could play timbales really well.
And she sang Guajiras and Guajiras are these type of Cuban music
that are really raunchy and have like a lot
of like double entendres and stuff.
And she was really known for that.
But, some of the people don't always you know get to know her as well.
She's not really known outside the mainstream.
So, and I want, and she was just really important.
She had her own TV show that everyone grew up listening to.
So, and I try to-- she's always sort of a character, too.
She would like dress up funny sometimes and she was a big lady
so the people would make fun of her.
But, she was just a really great musician as well.
The identity politics of the time, you know, all the stuff that's going
on the music is also transformed by all that's going on, too.
And Latin boogaloo at the time is really part of that,
what's going on in the 60's and people, and Latin boogaloo is a mix
of Cuban music and African American R&B.
And this band, Pete Rodriguez's band, Pete Rodriguez was
from Simpson Street in the Bronx,
right down the street from Fort Apache.
"I Like It Like That" - you all probably know that song, right?
You probably know it or heard it on the Burger King commercial for,
it was very famous there for a while.
But, that-- you know that was like the biggest hit of that time.
But, there were many Puerto Rican musicians who part
of the boogaloo movement and that's sort of like was the transition
from the older mambo era into the salsa era of the 70's.
And the Ghetto Brothers were a Puerto Rican band who were from,
were-- the Ghetto Brothers were a gang, but they loved rock music.
They loved Beatles and stuff
so their music was like influenced by rock.
So, I just want to show some of these transitional musics.
Now, just to point out again, one of the things I just want
to mention really quick, I'll go through this really fast
that the idea that people do all kinds of things in their own home.
They make the food.
They celebrate holidays and stuff, but sometimes we don't,
won't have a chance to do that or we don't know how to do that.
Maybe you're you know you don't have the resources to.
So, now there's ways that people can celebrate a lot of stuff without,
but there's institutional sort of sponsorship of these things.
Most Puerto Ricans love to trade coquito [eggnog],
love to go over friends or family for coquito around Christmas time.
But, actually this woman Debbie Quinones in East Harlem she,
in 2001 she started the Coquito Masters and it's a big contest.
And usually just be in one area like El Museo would have it.
Now, there's a borough by borough sub-contest and they,
all the winners all go to El Museo at the end.
And there's - you know the winner is, but coquito is very much a part
of the Puerto Rican experience.
I think everyone looks forward to that for Christmas time.
It's basically eggnog, right, Puerto Rican eggnog with rum so.
Pasteles, of course, another thing about Christmas time you have
to share your pasteles with everyone.
But again, these are things
that might have not always been Christmas time things,
but they're so time intensive and so much labor goes into them.
Usually you make them one time a year with a lot
of family around and that's it.
Then you share them with everyone and that, actually the same thing
with la musica hibera -- the music of Ramito in that, la musica hibera.
It wasn't always just Christmas music,
but people call it Christmas music now.
It actually was just music, people on the rural
and the countryside listened to.
But, when people came here it's sort of like this became something
that people would listen to on holidays.
And the shows, the big shows would be, would happen around holiday time
where you'd get all these singers to come up and people would go.
Santos carvers, Santos are another folk-art from Puerto Rico.
Again, not many people here do it because it's very, again,
very time intensive,
very labor-intensive and it's very skilled.
But there is a woman now in the Bronx
and the first woman I've met here doing it, Marta Rodriguez,
and she -- that's her Three Kings and then, of course,
there's the Three Kings, another thing.
Three Kings is something people celebrate.
But, Clemente Soto Velez is on the lower east side
and El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem have Three Kings events.
So, if you don't celebrate in your home you can go
and they'd always have famous - Papoleto, the poet or some --
Johnny Colon, I think, one time was a Three King; famous musicians,
or poets or people in the community will dress up as the Three Kings.
And Yomo Torro, who used to play the cuatro -so you could celebrate the
Three Kings, even if it might not be something you do in your home.
The Stations of the Cross during the spring
for Easter time would be celebrated in different communities.
St. Bridget's Church would do it on the Lower East Side and Crotona,
they would do it near Crotona in the Bronx.
Fiesta de Cruz in May, again it's something that a lot of people
on the Island might have once celebrated.
And it's based on the May ceremonies and to celebrate Mary.
And it's a novena, a nine-day celebration.
That's why you see this altar it has like nine levels for the novena.
But a lot of people don't do that like in their home that much anymore
but in Los Pleneros de la Viente Uno have been doing it.
They put on a show for the Fiesta de Cruz,
the May celebrations every year
and they've been doing it I think almost like 27 years.
So, again you don't-- for people who may not be able,
not know how to celebrate these things you can find ways
to do it with other groups.
Should I take or questions or I mean I don't know what we're running.
>> Nancy Groce: You want to just wrap up maybe
and take a few questions.
>> Elena Martinez: Okay, so well I was going to go through the year.
I only made it to May.
I have a few other things to show you guys, but I'll stop there
and then, and then if anyone has any questions
about anything in particular maybe.
[ Moving around ]
>>Male audience member: I'm from Puerto Rico and I'm extremely glad
that you were able to depict the presence of Afro-Puerto Rican here
in this journey because there is a tendency to exclude their presence
and contribution to the national experience.
[Short comment in Spanish]
>> Elena Martinez: Well, thank you and actually the story
about Rafael Hernandez is so --
I just, I think that his story is incredible.
I mean the 369th story is an incredible story
and then the added layer of how James Reese Europe went and learned
about this musicians and then the whole history
of the banda municipales there;
and actually if anyone is interested there's going to be a big concert
at Hostos [phonetic] on November first in honor of Rafael's music,
Rafael Hernandez's music but also the 319th Army Band will open up
and they're going to do the music of the 369th.
Because I've been doing a lot of work with the regiment,
the 369 Regiment trying to help them archive some music and stuff
because they have displays there of the 369th in World War I
and they don't have anything about the Puerto Ricans experience.
But they realize that they don't have anything there and they'd
like to make sure they give recognition.
And that's just one, I mean Raf -- that's just one story.
So, there's more.
There's the Autoro Schomburg, there's more stories of that.
So, this one there.
>> Female audience member: Yeah.
I'd like to ask a question about the impact of music on the community.
It deals with "West Side Story."
When "West Side Story" first came out what do you think - how,
what was the impact of "West Side Story" and its portrayal
of Puerto Ricans, you know in the Puerto Rican community?
>> Elena Martinez: You know I think I'm really --
I think there's a divided thing about it right.
There's a -- there were these like -- there were these stories.
I mean you can actually view --
interview a lot of people from that era.
There were a lot of clashes between Italian gangs
and Puerto Rican gangs that was a fact of life.
I mean a lot of young men who grew up have these stories
of that happening and that occurring.
There's also that time, also in that era, there was this like fear.
There was a lot of Puerto Ricans moving into New York.
There was just a growing of the menace,
like the Puerto Rican menace.
So, that sort of like added to that.
I think the Cape Man happened around that time, too,
the story of the Cape Man.
So, it sort of like added to that.
But then, then, and then the funny thing is,
is that actually the music they play,
it's not even Puerto Rican music and then, I think like actually
"America," like the "I Want to Live in America," that's a Mexican tune.
I think, actually the Mexican rhythm.
So, it's funny because they don't even like --
they don't even portray what's really like Puerto Rican culture.
But then, but then it's like, but then everyone is so happy
that Rita Moreno comes out of that
and is you know is nominated for all these things.
So, I think there's like this love-hate with it.
And, you know, and I -- that's what I get out of it.
And then actually when I watch it sometimes now I do feel
like they tried to touch on some issues.
Like you can look at it just superficially,
and look at like "oh, it's just horrible."
It's really racist or something, but I think that's what they do try
to touch on is some of these issues like Rita Moreno's character talks
to the cop at one point telling him he's racist.
I think they do try to delve into issues, but it was just
for that time what they were able to do.
So, I think there's like --
there's pros and cons with it I think as well.
I don't know if that's okay.
>> Same female audience member: No, I was thinking of the values
that they actually portrayed in that, in that production.
>> Elena Martinez: Well people have written about like actually the song
that Rita Moreno sings, "I Want to Be in America",
that's actually rally bad; like she's putting down the island,
like totally putting down everything about Puerto Rican culture,
everything about the island and just saying how everything is great
in America.
So, you can look at that say well that's actually, you know --
that's sort of that's all about-- you need to assimilate, you know,
everything, loose everything and just the American way,
which was a product of like many of that generation,
like my father's generation probably went through and had a deal
with you know or something.
So, I -- there has been -- I've seen things written about that,
that yeah, that is problematic.
That's definitely problematic in it, so.
>> Nancy Groce: Maybe one more question and then if people want
to stay later and talk to you.
>> Elena Martinez: Okay, great.
One more? Okay.
>> Female audience member: This is a question.
Do you have a Facebook page or something like that
where you have you know just to look at things?
>> Elena Martinez: No.
I am anti-Facebook.
I don't have Facebook.
I'm like one of the last people probably on earth
that doesn't have Facebook.
But City Lore, I can give you the City Lore information.
There's like stuff on City Lore and there's some,
like we have some small like virtual exhibits about like the "Mambo
to Hip Hop" stuff and other things on there.
Well, not this stuff so much, but some other stuff that I can --
I can give you that information for City Lore.
>> Same female audience member:
Does El Museo del Barrio have a lot of information, too?
>> Elena Martinez: El Musep del Barrio?
Probably not.
You know just a really fast thing to kind of wrap --
relevant to this is that [Spanish] is on the lower east side.
They're institution that kept their name
and they made sure they kept the name Clemente Soto Velez
because they were a Puerto Rican organization that was founded
by Puerto Ricans and obviously the community is changing with all kinds
of Latinos moving in, but we were in the vanguard for a lot of things
and we need to remember that and give that recognition.
So, they're very adamant.
The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Miquel is not even on the board anymore.
It's becoming not even, like not even anything
about Nuyorican culture anymore.
So, the Clemente Soto Velez is the only place that holds it.
Now, El Museo has had was very hard relations or difficult relationship
with the community because they were founded by Puerto Ricans too,
again at the same time as Tallier Borequa
and all these things were found in, all these-- everything.
All these people are politically active.
El Museo was founded at the same time by Puerto Ricans
but now they have a large Puerto Rican collection of like Santos
and different things, but you would never know if you walk in there
that it was a Puerto Rican institution.
The board is not Puerto Rican.
Hardly no one that works there is Puerto Rican.
It's been a real butting heads thing with the community about that.
So, I -- no they did do the Nueva York Exhibit,
but that was because that was sponsored
by the New-York Historical Society,
so that was you know big institutions got together.
But, yeah the, El Museo,
I don't know if they even know about this, so.
>>Female audience member: Thank you.
I just know of them before they were even El Museo del Barrio--
>> Elena Martinez: To me it was founded by Marta Moreno Vega,
the Caribbean Cultural Center, and the peot Jack Agueros,
who did a lot Julia de Burgos was by all these people
who were very active in the community and artists themselves
and cultural workers started that and now it's sort of like lost all
that and so yeah, it's been something
that the community's been very --
has gone back and forth with them a lot about.
So, but thank you everyone.
I'm sorry I didn't get to show everything, but thank you.
[applause]
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.