Puerto Rico: A Pitch to the SCC

  La Perla is a barrio, a neighborhood in Puerto Rico with a heart of community, camaraderie, and unity under a strong sense of cultural identity — though one rooted in the necessity for resistance. Every Friday, residents and guests gather to organize a batey , or a communal space for people to come together to sing, play, and dance la bomba , the oldest genre of the Afro-Puerto Rican musical tradition. The spot is known as the “Community Batey of La Plaza del Negro”, and the collective performance that occurs there every week functions as a cultural agent that both strengthens the individuals’ conception of their identity as Puerto-Rican and serves as a form of social and cultural resistance that edges into the political sphere by serving as a refuge for those who have been historically and systematically marginalized.  Bomba has a history tied to resistance, self-expression, and cultural memory. It emerged as a genre in the context of colonialism, providing a means for a di...

  Puerto Rico’s rich cultural identity is rooted in the diverse number of historical influences that manifest in a shared culture, including Taino, Spanish, African, and North American roots. When Spanish Juan Ponce de Leon took possession of the island in the 1500’s, the predominant Taino inhabitants rebelled against the Spanish conquests, resulting in massive loss of Taino culture, language, and traditions and an influx of Spanish influence that permeates Puerto Rico’s current state. The island experienced an influx of African influence with the onset of slavery, followed by Caribbean and Latin American influences resulting from migration, and finally North American influence with the capture of Puerto Rico from Spain by the United States in 1898. The multiple influences have permeated Puerto Rico’s cultural space, notably seen through the development of music and performing arts. La bomba is one genre of music that developed in Puerto Rico sometime after the beginning of the Atl...

Alamo-Pastrana, Carlos. “Con El Eco de Los Barriles: Race, Gender and the Bomba Imaginary in Puerto Rico.” Identities (Yverdon, Switzerland) 16.5 (2009): 573–600. Web. “Bomba Is Resistance: The Community Batey in La Perla, Puerto Rico”. Smithsonian Folklife, 27 Apr. 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BfXOoCKuFU  Lozada, Mariana Núñez. “The Sound of Resistance in Puerto Rican Bomba Connects La Perla Community.” Smithsonian Voices, 31 May 2022, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/smithsonian-center-folklife-cultural-heritage/202 2/05/31/bomba-resistance-puerto-rico/  Cusicanqui, Silvia Rivera. “Ch’ixinakax utxiwa: A Reflection on the Practices and Discourses of Decolonization”. pp. 95-107 (BB) Villa, Raúl Homero. "Introduction. Spatial Practice and Place-Consciousness in Chicano Urban Culture". Barrio-Logos: Space and Place in Urban Chicano Literature and Culture, New York, USA: University of Texas Press, 2000, pp. 1-18. https://doi.org/10.7560/787414-002  Tejada, C. V...

  The Community Batey of La Plaza del Negro as a cultural agent theorizes the arts as a necessary form of resistance, in the way that they serve as a medium for deeply-rooted tensions to be expressed so they can be addressed in a social or political sphere. “If I don’t dance this bomba, I’m going to die” is a refrain from a traditional bomba song, and a sentiment that percolates to modern bomba practices. This quote is reminiscent of Audre Lorde’s theory in Poetry is not a Luxury, where she asserted that poetry is a “vital necessity of our existence” that forms the “quality of light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, than into idea, then into more tangible action”. It is within this framework that la bomba can be analyzed as a creative practice within which progressive social change may be imagined, before it moves from vision to reality by first rousing emotions and then becoming political. While this makes la bomba...

Before the presentation of this project, I acknowledge my limited perspective as a female-identifying white woman and United States’ citizen. I have never been to Puerto Rico, I speak only English with fluency, and the research I have done on social change in Puerto Rico is small compared to the vastness of what is to be known. I grew up in a poor family, but the standards of poverty in the United States are different than those of other places, and I have been privileged in many regards (an example would be my exposure to educational opportunities). Additionally, my status as a future graduate of William and Mary University shapes the themes and standpoints that have been introduced to me and the information that I have studied. Thus, although objectivity and thoroughness are pursued, my positionality has influenced my views and research on the topics covered.

  Before we provide this report, I would like to acknowledge my standpoint as an educated white American woman, who has never been to Puerto Rico. As a future graduate of William & Mary and student within the US university system, I recognize that my theoretical background, while attempting to be well-rounded, is limited by the set of academic texts that I have accessed during my time here. I further recognize that I grew up in a family in the middle-economic class, which has influenced my relatively privileged ease of life compared to many, and thus my ability to be a full-time student. I identify as female and consider this to be a central part of my identity. I acknowledge that my positionality influenced this project to some extent.