This is in response to the angry and inaccurate wespeak in the last Argus written by Ms. Maldonado and Ms. Martínez. I write this as a student of music, a Puerto Rican, a member of Orquesta Fiebre, and a member of the Wesleyan community. I write not about the substance of your performances, but solely in response to the hostile statements in your wespeak directed at me and other performers from Expresiones.
Since I’ve been at Wesleyan, I have been under the impression that Expresiones is a positive and empowering event for Latinos and other performers from various backgrounds. That’s not to say that every act has to be “light-hearted,” but regardless of the content of the piece and one’s opinions, as a community we still must give the performers the respect they deserve for being on the stage. Not to sound cliché or “watered down,” but there is a level of camaraderie that exists between members of the show, which both of you may have forgotten. After all, we all did hold hands and say a prayer backstage before the show wishing each other good luck. Publicly singling out and criticizing fellow performers (as you did in your wespeak) for the sake of controversy is a new level of shamelessness. Neither of you know enough about music/dance or the pieces to criticize us. What are you trying to accomplish by ripping into your fellow performers? Slandering your peers and acquaintances for notoriety is akin to the tactics employed by crooked politicians to gain popularity in the polls. The spirit of activism is working to correct injustice; it is not irrationally attacking those who perpetuate culture and art.
In addition to the false motives behind the criticism, your actual statements were incredibly offensive and absolutely inaccurate. Branding non-Latino musicians as “culture appropriators” is not only ignorant and completely distorted, but is this kind of ethnocentric point of view that does nothing but promote intolerance. No one can claim ownership of music and culture so what gives you the right? Had you bothered to read a book or listen to a piece of music you would know that were it not for many non-Latinos, or “culture appropriators” as you like to call them, such as Larry Harlow, Barry Rogers, Cal Tjader, Henry “Pucho” Brown, and of course Dizzy Gillespie, Latin music would not be what it is today. But I suppose since both of you are “aficionadas” of Latin music you already knew this. How can we as Latinos accuse anyone of appropriation when we have been borrowing aspects of each other’s cultures for years and continue to do so? In addition, the claim that Orquesta’s Fiebre’s music is “watered down” is nothing more than a “cheap shot” with nothing to back it up. Mexican singer/diva Eugenia Leon and her band didn’t seem to think that our music was “watered down” when we were invited to play at their master class, but I guess you are both more qualified to form that opinion than they are. Or maybe they are just “culture appropriators” too.
Secondly, your statement concerning the bomba piece is also very misinformed. Calling it “white men playing Puerto Rican music” is false and insulting. If either of you had bothered to actually read the Expresiones program you would have seen that 7 of the 9 featured performers are of Puerto Rican descent. Also, the founder of FLECHAS (a Puerto Rican organization in New Haven), who provided us with the beautiful bomba costumes, was honored that young people are preserving traditional Afro-Puerto Rican music, since it is falling into obscurity in the U.S. But you knew this already.
Many of us put a lot of time and effort into these performances and didn’t need the negativity of people who are simply angry and misguided. I am tremendously proud of my accomplishments in Expresiones, as all of us who were involved in the show should be. If you feel the need to tear down the performances of others in order to validate your own, go right ahead: shame on you.
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