Category: 30 Day Challenge

The history of Tainos is vast. I will admit that I do not know as much as I should know about them. This fact ultimately bothers me. So I will stick to what I do know, which is the point of where I can have discussions with people and encourage people to learn about their past. This is how I know what my limitations. Let me preface this by saying that I understand and acknowledge my Ecuadorian side, but I will only talk about Tainos and not the Incas. The reason being is I need to do more reading on the Incan Empire before I can blog about it.

What I know about Tainos is that they are the indigenous people of Puerto Rico. Now I know that there are other islands within the Caribbean as Quisqueya (currently Dominican Republic/Haiti) and the Bahamas in which they inhabited, but for the sake of this blog, I will stick with what I know and talk about Puerto Rico.

From what I have gathered, information about Tainos in Puerto Rico, before Columbus’ arrival, is scarce at best. There are carvings and artifacts that can be traced to this once proud people. Once Columbus arrived to the “new world”, Tainos quickly faded out of existence due to disease and the hard working conditions due to slavery. It was so bad that there was a royal decree to emancipate the remaining population of Tainos in 1520 so they would not go into extinction. This lead to influx of African slaves into the Puerto Rico.

Interestingly enough, the men that came from Spain to settle into Puerto Rico and the rest of the islands did not bring women with them. Of course there is the old tale that women are bad luck on boats, which lead many to take Taino women as their wives, thus leading to the birth to mestizo children.

I will say that the word “Borinquen” is the name that the Taino’s called the Island (“Borikén”). It was later called Puerto Rico by traders and such as the island grew in popularity. The icon that I have on this blog is the Taino symbol for the coquí, which is a frog that is native to the island as well.

Let me just say that as I think about this, I just shake my head because this is the kind of history I would have loved to learn in history class. My knowledge of these things are most self taught in books that I have read over the years. I will always try my best to learn more.

 
Let me start by saying that I love women in general. I think that women in general make the world go round. Most of the people in my family are women. While I lived with my father when I was 16 and beyond, before that I lived with my mother. So, I have a good idea of how to treat women and how they effect the world around them. Most of the women in my family are very strong and outspoken. Thus the major why I love Latinas.

I love Latinas because essentially they are the women that I have grown to cherish and adore. Despite the problems with my mother, she still remains the relative center of what I know about women. My step mother has played a major role in my life as well. I feel that there were gaps in my life when it came to women that she filled. I would be foolish to not mention the enormous amount of female cousins that I have grown up with. I have 14 females cousins and 7 aunts from both sides. My definition of what a Latina should be comes from all of them.

Which bring me to the reason why I love Latinas. I feel they embody the beauty of our people. Since we come in all different colors, shapes, and places…the beauty of Latinas are endless. Then, there is the innner strength that comes from the women that I do know. Being Latina is not easy with cultural expectations and perceived cultural limitations.

I appreciate the struggle that they go through. I feel that Latinas are the back bone of our culture. I know that both my grandmothers held the families together. I am not sure if they had jobs in their younger years, but you can tell that keeping family together was a normal job in itself. The job responsibilities included, makes sure we ate, passing on the culture through language, making sure we went to school, and making sure we prayed. Not mention most times it was the women in the families that passed down the punishment when we were bad and forgave us for our mistakes. I see this kind of strength in Latinas. While, others view them as exotic and insatiable, I view them as women to be respected due the long histories of leadership.

To my dear Latinas, whether you are my sisters or my lovers, I will always hold you in the highest regards. You have shown me how to be strong, to deal with pain, and how to celebrate when I win. Gracias!

I love movies. I have been a movie buff longer than I have been into music. Most times, I am not caring all that much of the ethnicity of people in films as long as it is good and it makes sense. While, I totally get and understand that there will be films that will exploit certain people and play into stereotypes, it does not make me stop seeing what Hollywood has to offer.

But, I will not take a negative tone with this one. I think there are many Latino Movie Stars we could focus on because they are making it in a very competitive industry. I have already written two blogs on Zoe Saldana, so I wont go there (even though her career is exploding). We could look at America Ferrera, whom I think is a very good actress, but I am waiting for her BIG movie. I have always been a big fan of Salma Hyek, however, I feel that her movies are hit or miss. Jennifer Lopez just has not been able to catch a break with roles that define her. I personally think she plays too many non Latino characters.

I will say that when I heard Jimmy Smits was going to be Bail Organa in Star Wars a few years back, I was so very happy. Then I saw his screen time was like less than 15 minutes in both Star Wars films combined. Although, it has got to be cool to be immortalized in a movie trilogy like that though. I have talked a little bit Laz Alonzo before, he was in Avatar, but I really liked him in Miracle at St. Anna. I shouldn’t really forget John Leguizamo for any of his numerous roles, but like Salmita, it is a hit or miss with him.

I know that I have not named nearly as many people as I want to, but I think that the interest of Latinos in Hollywood is growing. It is an uphill climb from playing something like Mexican Gangster to positive role model like Jaime Escalante (Edward James Olmos in Stand and Deliver). We will have to wait and see what we get at the movies in the future.

Did I miss anyone you like?

I remember the first time I heard of this skinny Puerto Rican who can blow away a crowd with his vocals. My aunt Olga was talking about a guy named Marc Anthony that could sing as if he owned the entire industry. She spoke about his command of a song and even though it seemed like he never danced on stage, he was an amazing performer. This conversation was in the mid 90’s.

I think that is a big endorsement from anyone in my family. See, my family has witnessed salsa in the 70’s during the height of Fania. So people like Hector Lavoe and Willie Colon were household names. It made me think that I needed to pay attention to this guy.

When I moved back to NYC in 1998, I started getting accustomed to the night life. One thing that can be said about the bars in the Bronx, they love to play Salsa. This is when I really heard Marc Anthony. The first song of his that was stuck in my head was Nadie Como Ella. I absolutely loved that song so much that I had to pick up his album Todo A Su Tiempo. Since then his music has stuck with me.

Marc Anthony was one of the reasons why I went on my mission to go get as many old school salsa songs as I could. I feel that he gets it. The way he sings and the music that is produced reminds me of being in the basement with my dad listening to El Gran Combo.

Right now, I feel he is where it is at in terms of Salsa. Of course there are a numerous amount of artists in this genre, some who have been in the field longer than him (i.e Tito Nieves), but once he starred in El Cantante he began to embody the music. I feel that his portrayal of Hector Lavoe was good and his performance on the soundtrack was just awesome.

I look at my iTunes and Marc Anthony is all over it. Maybe he was an easy choice as my favorite Latino Musician, but I would be hard pressed to find a better one.

I am not sure what made me pick this topic because there are certainly not many Afro Latinos I see everyday if any at all. I have been sitting here thinking about this. There have been students who can fit this bill, but most if not all, have graduated. Of course, I am talking about the ones that I know well.

In Syracuse, most Latinos live on the west-side. I am not really in that part of town unless I was to see my Dominican barber (and I have decided to save money and cut my own hair). Although, they do have some good places to eat they may make me want to venture out there

I really cannot count anyone on television either. Sure, I can talk about Jose Reyes of the New York Mets since I do manage to watch baseball just about everyday. However, with work increasing and the amount of sucking that this teams has managed to do, I wont miss much sleep if  I miss a few games.

Unless I look into the mirror. Because it turns out that I am the only Afro Latino that I see everyday. I know that other Afro Latinos exist in my part of Syracuse. Clearly, I do not see them as often as I should because it seems that they are just not as many up here as I would like. Of course I am not know it all for the reason of this. But, from time to time I may see one or two, but just not everyday.

While I thought at one time this would really bother me, I have come to realize that I will always use myself as a source for inspiration. I am not going to say that all Afro Latinos should be like me, but I will say that I think that by keeping myself educated and healthy I can make my mark in this writing game.

The Spanish language is so complicated to me. I have always felt this way, particularly with all the dialects from the different Latin American countries. So with that said, no… I do not speak Spanish. I wish I did. I have an iPhone app to help me with this. The funny thing is that I can understand it but I cannot speaking fluently nor can I hold a conversation. However, I do know some phrases and sayings.

I have mentioned that I can, however, survive if I need to. Of course, if you parachuted me into the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico for like a few months, I am quite sure I will know more than just how to find a bathroom, a restaurant, and a doctor.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my grandmothers used to talk to me in Spanish. I even remember songs that associated objects from Spanish to English (i.e. ventana – window, piso – floor, lapiz – pencil, and pluma – pen). I can never remember the rest of that song. So I know that when I was younger my mother was trying to get me to learn a little bit but, all conversations were in English. I am not one of those people that cannot roll his R’s. My mother made sure that I can do that.

So I figured that I can learn Spanish in school. I was excited that they were teaching it in grammar school. I took it very seriously. I was learning the alphabet and the numbers. Then we got to actual sayings and I slowly was beginning to realize that Spanish I was learning was “formal” and no where near the conversational Spanish that I was hearing from my Grandmothers or in the streets.

I used to get very intimidated as a kid when it came to speaking Spanish in the real world. When I was 14, I worked for Pathmark on 207th street. This was one of the first times that I really encountered Dominicans in large numbers. Frequently, people would ask me questions in Spanish about where something was located in the store. At times, I would be like…”no speak Spanish” and then I would get a weird look. Other’s I would understand and direct them. But, this one time, some guy came up to me and said something that I did not understand. So in my infinite wisdom, I say perfectly, “no hablo espanol”.  He gave me this only look like.. “really?” and walked away. I started sticking to… No Spanish…lol

I began to get discouraged because I was starting to find that I was getting corrected at home and at school for what seemed to be 2 different languages. Ugh! I was so done. I think there was a part of me that shut down. I am really not sure how I passed Spanish in High School, but clearly I did something right. Maybe it was my gumption to graduate.

I will say that I do love to hear other people talk in Spanish. It is something that I love to hear on campus when I walk around. I have picked some more things in my years and I really do want to learn as much as I can because to be honest, if I do have kids, I want them to learn how to speak the language.

This is a subject I can write all day about. I have serious issues with how Latinos are viewed in the media. We are the largest “minority” in this country and yet we have the smallest representation in the entertainment industry. However, as our numbers grow there is an influx of advertisements that cater to the Latino middle class. The last presidential election has shown that Latino have a huge say on who gets put into the white house. I think the powers that be have taken notice of that.

There are too many issues for me to certainly list, but I can say that the power of the media can shape they way the world can look at a person or a people. Media plays a huge role in Latino identity. The Latino Identity is typically defined as a light skinned, dark haired individual that is often made to look exotic. Afro Latinos are rarely seen in areas of television media with the exception of sports. Despite what the media may consider to be Latino, the darker skinned people still remain fairly invisible.

Beyond that, I have noticed that often times the media has a way of making Latinos seem more like outsiders than immigrants. The Arizona Immigration Law (SB 1070) is a great example of that. You have to think about  it this regard, most Americans do not know the difference between Mexican and Dominican. I am also willing to bet that most of America think that either most of us came to this country by either raft or climbing a huge chain link fence. Which is a shame but let me share a story…

When I was in the Dominican Republic partying with family, I met this guy who was a husband of a friend of mine. This tall Dominican who was so funny and loved to tell stories. So there was a lot of bantering going around.. Turns out that he lives in Tennessee. He married my friend in NYC and then moved to the south where they raise their children. So, being a good dad, he coaches a little league baseball team. So his team is filled with little White kids as well as Black kids and maybe one to two Latinos. This one little White kid walks up to him after practice. He looks up and says (in a southern accent). “you sure are the tallest Mexican I have ever seen”. That story just made me laugh so hard! But, it is goes to show a my point…we are not viewed separately. Most of our images are not of a positive nature either.

We simply need to do better. I had to really think about what we see on television and movies. I will just limit this to American Media but what do the Latino actors/actresses play in films and sitcoms? Is our “race” a factor in these shows or can these people play anyone. What about the roles that are meant to be played by a Latino but someone else plays them. I know people love Scarface, but I really cannot get into that movie. I love Al Pacino, but not as a Cuban. Another thing that surprised me this week was Blair Underwood playing a Afro-Cuban in the show The Event. I wont say it is not believable…but why could they not get Laz Alonso to play that role?

Picky? Maybe. I just think we need positive views on our people and less images of our people in shambles. The media can empower or bring down whomever they choose and it can also play a big role in how children view us.

Preface: Yes, I am late this one but and I actually starting this yesterday while I was out at the bar…

I am sitting here trying to figure out Latinos in pop music. I do not want to say Marc Anthony because that could be an obvious choice. I thought about Christina Aguilera but, I don’t care about her work all that much. Jennifer Lopez seems to be so passed her time. So I have the person that I have left is Pitbull.

I know that hip hop may not be considered as pop music, but it is pretty close. I personally like Pitbull because it is my opinion that he brings something different to the table. Sure, he resides in the Miami, which can considered the dirty south. If you know anything about Miami hip hop then you know that it is pretty much all booty music (no complaints here).

Pitbull is a Cuban American that was put on the music map in 2002 in the Kings of Crunk album by Lil John. Since then he recorded his debut album M.I.A.M.I in 2004 and 3 other albums since then. It is always interesting to see where Latino rappers fall in the hip hop genre. I think he lyrics are funny and his songs make me want to dance. I was a huge fan of Big Pun and when he died, there was a huge whole left in terms of Latinos in Hip Hop.

Then Pitbull comes along with this flashy beats and catchy hooks and before you know it he is 4 albums deep and is almost everywhere in Miami. When we think about Latino artists in pop music, I know he may not be as big as Santana, or have the fan support of Christina Aguilera, but I feel that he is growing in popularity that he will be a big force within the industry.

 

Music has always been a part if my life. While I may not have appreciated Spanish music when I was a kid, I have grown to love it as an adult. My house was always blaring Salsa when times were good. My dad had 8 track and vinyl of just about all the biggest Salsa artists of the time. I have spent most of my adult years searching for all the music.

All the music was kept in the basement. This was where the precious stereo, that I could not touch, lived in this wall unit that had all the records in one space. The 8 track tapes were in another space. Scratching of the vinyl was considered a capital offense in my house. I never knew why because it seem that rap music was getting away with it at the time so why could I not try it? Needless to say I was not stupid.

My dad also had a set of Congas that I just loved to bang on. I was not as good as he was on them, but he let me play on the smaller bongos for good measure. Every so often a song would play and he would sit and play them. It seems to go into rhythm so it was all good to me. What I was also allowed to play with was the guiro. This wooden percussion instrument that my dad used to show me how to play. I would laugh to my self because the handle of instrument that scraped the guiro looked like my brother’s afro pick (and we are not black…riiight!)  I also loved the claves! The looked like nun-chucks that Bruce Lee used in the movies! I would play with those too with my dad.

Now that I think about it, I think he had like a whole set because I seem to remember the cow bells and maracas too. I couldn’t tell you what happened to all that stuff, but I remember it fondly. When he wasn’t around I would spend hours looking at the record covers. Some of the art on those covers was so cool to me. I would also see pictures of Celia Cruz, Hector Lavoe, El Gran Combo and Johnny Pecheco (to name a few). Of course, of thing about Latinos is that all music revolves around sex and some of the covers had art of naked women…but that is besides the point.. 🙂

I used to watch my dad painstakingly record all this music from vinyl, 8 track, and reel to reel (yes that old) on to tapes (that are now out of date). He used to make copies for people because my dad had all the latest music and all the oldies. I found myself being that way in college where I would do the same thing for hip hop. I would make tapes for people because I had all the good stuff.

Of course, getting older and taking pride in where I come from, I have a good part of my 30’s looking for the same music my dad used to blast. There are some songs that stick with me like “Pedro Nejava” byWillie Colon. Often times when I do visit my father in Florida, I raid his CD collection and covert hours of music into  my iTunes.

One thing that he currently has, that I am dying to get my hand on is his vinyl to CD recorder. That will put me in a world all of my own if I can get some of his old stuff that I cannot find. I would be set. The point is music is gift from a rich culture. I love salsa so much that I can barely stay still when I hear it. I have been lucky enough to see a few good live artists. But this obsession I have will not die anytime soon.

If you have read my blog for a while then you know that I am no stranger to this subject. I specifically added this topic to the blog challenge because I think it is something that should always be talked about even though the purpose of this month is unity, it is also about education. Do not get me wrong, I love being Latino and I have said that from day 1, but the only draw back is how there seems to be a color divide amongst us.

Last February I talked a lot about Afro Latinos and how they are at the bottom of the social ladder in the Latin American culture. A good example is the comic book shown above. Memín Pinguín is a character in a comic book created in the 1940’s. Somehow this comic is still popular in places like Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Panama, and Colombia. The character is about the misadventures of a poor Cuban Mexican boy. This book has become so popular that there have been talks about a live action movie.

Depending on whom you speak to there can be arguments that this book is meant to be comedy and that there are stories of pride that takes place from Memín. However, it is my opinion that you can dress up a pig in make up, but it is still a pig. The problem is the way Afro Latinos are viewed in many of the same places that this book is popular. Is there no wonder that they are not taken seriously within Latino culture. I consider this book to be very much like black face in the United States for African Americans.

I made a joke on Twitter during the World Cup that this event would one of the few times we would black people all over Univision (since they televised all the games). While I meant in jest, I know that what I said is more or less true. I will be one of the first people to tell you the this type of prejudice exists in my own family. Dark or light, I will guarantee you that most people in my family have been told to date/marry someone lighter than them. How does something like that make us feel about our skin color? How are we to look in the mirror and see beauty in our complexion when the ones who are supposed to love us find it hard?

We have deep issues with identity as a people. There are those who would rather just believe that we have no African influence at all in our blood and culture. Unfortunately our art and music depute this notion. Being black is viewed so negatively that we are lose the meaning of what makes being Latino so great.  I have personally felt that color divide in college when I simply did not fit in with Latinos and African Americans. Of course, when I look back at it, I never really had to fit into both because being Afro Latino gives me fluidity to  fit into both.