"If I could wake up in one hundred years..."

In 2016 in February I met Manuel, one of the first Hispanics that I would interview on my newly imagined Soy/Somos conversations. The political environment in the US and the world felt hugely different then. The shocking Brexit vote fell on the world later that year in June; the American presidential election, in November. “Build the wall” became our leader’s mantra.

A Spaniard who had moved to the US with his wife and babies in l972, Manuel was quietly dressed on that morning when we spoke, silver rimmed glasses, laced up shoes. In the l980s he had formed an executive search firm in New York to find and recruit Hispanics for the workplace when American companies began to see the significance of the Hispanic market but didn't know where to look for hires. I remembered Manuel’s beautiful closing words only a few days ago—on the morning of the New Zealand horror.

“If I could wake up in one hundred years, my greatest curiosity would be to see if human society has evolved into one race. I would hope to find no barriers or prejudice. In Europe I see English lawyers practicing in Spain—and Spanish lawyers in England. Isolated places like Moldava and Mongolia are becoming accessible with travel and communication via the internet. Marriages across race and culture are all around us.”

Manuel’s dream seems more than ever unattainable.

As the world gets smaller and becomes more global, we are becoming fearful of people who don’t look or pray like us. New Zealand is a vast country with only five million people. Even so, it was home to the latest horror. “Keep the migrants out and people who are different.” Hate has gone viral. 

What can I--one person--do? I can speak out. I am still engaged in conversation with Hispanics/Latinos/Latinx in my adopted country—your neighbors and mine—to demonstrate the depth and humanity in all of us. So much needs to be done. There are good people working against hate, people who’ve matched their words with action. I’ve learned first hand about a group of women and men who work day and night to reunite families separated at the US border and a coalition of faith communities who try to meet the overwhelming needs of people facing detention and deportation. There are other issues of desperate importance. Like protecting our Earth, violence against women, the fever spread of automatic weapons. We can choose the issues that resonate the most with us—and take action.

After the shootings while people were praying in mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand,  the nation’s Prime Minister,  Jacinda Ardern, held a news conference to speak about the tragedy that involved many migrants. “They have chosen to make New Zealand their home,” she said, “and it is their home. They are us.”

They are us.

Immigrant Families Together

New Sanctuary Coalition

If you’d like to receive future Soy/Somos conversations, please contact me on my website or write to me at marlena@breathinginspanish.com. Here is how Soy/Somos got started: We Are Many.

Nicolás Castañeda - The Education of a Musician

This story is part of my Soy/Somos series (I am/We are), conversations with Hispanics/Latinos/Latinx in the United States. If you’d like to receive future Soy/Somos, please contact me on my website or write to me at marlena@breathinginspanish.com. Here is how Soy/Somos got started: We Are Many.

I recently met a virtuoso harp player who composes what he calls Contemporary Colombian music—a fusion of folkloric melodies from the eastern plains region of Colombia, contemporary classical music, and jazz. I heard him play at a small venue in New York alongside a drummer and a clarinetist. This was music both heavenly and anchored firmly in rhythms I recognized. How do I describe it? Water rushing past stones in a river. Percussive rhythms. An invitation to tap a zapatéo with your feet.

Nico Castañeda is rooted in the music of his native Colombia with a classical music education in Bogotá and Jazz Composition at the fabled Berklee College of music in Boston.

Today we are sitting at a marble “Tulip Table” at the New York City apartment of a mutual friend who is also a musician and prolific writer. The small vestibule is crammed with harps. I also see a cello, a violin, guitar, full-sized keyboard, three recorders. Nico has brought his own, el arpa llanera, also known as the Colombian Harp. It’s a beautiful instrument, a bit smaller than the classical harp, with 32 chords. 

Though his English is good, Nico and I slip naturally into Spanish, to the intimacy of our native language. 

El Niño Orquesta

 Nico, when did you begin playing music?

I was a four years old. I remember the teacher at school—an older woman who moved between us with an accordion while we played on our flautas dulces, plastic recorders. [Literally, this means sweets flutes.] We played songs from Colombia’s coasts on the Atlantic and Pacific. We were in a school for children of employees of ETB, Empresa de teléfonos de Bogotá, the city’s phone company. My mother worked there as operadora de reclamos, like customer service here. The company was famous because it offered so many free benefits to its employees and their children. Healthcare. Travel to school and work. Lunch. Uniforms. Also a vacation club. They wanted students to have art experiences.

When I was seven I moved from the recorder to folkloric percussion. Small drums, maracas, el chucho. That’s the hollow, sugarcane stick with seeds inside. This was the beginning of my adventure with Colombian percussion. At twelve I began with the clarinet, and was lucky to study with Nacor Barón who became director of the Orquesta Lucho Bermúdez, famous in all of Latin America for Colombian folkloric rhythms, boleros, cumbias, porros, and merecumbé. The orchestra would invite me and a few other children to play the clarinet during their band rehearsals. I was like “el niño consentido,” the teacher’s pet. They were very kind to me. 

When did you know that music would be the love of your life?

 A smile spreads across Nico’s face as he begins to remember. Si. Fué así. Three of us children studying the clarinet were invited to play with the famous band at the Jorge Eliécer Gaitán theatre, one of the most important performing spaces in all of Colombia. I was thirteen. The orchestra director said, “We will all begin together, but there will be a moment when the orchestra disappears behind you. And you boys will be playing solo.”

Having a roomful of people—a thousand people—right in front of me and seeing their happiness as they listened to us three. I knew then that this was for me. Curioso, no?

And the harp?

When I was fourteen, a distant cousin from the eastern plains of Colombia appeared at my house with another cousin who played the harp. “Ese es ‘el niño orquesta,’” they cried out, “the boy orchestra! Let’s make you a bet. If you play the harp for a year, I will give you the harp. If not, you’ll return it to me.” They left the harp at my house. I didn’t have a teacher, so I practiced empírico by ear. Mi papá era amante de música llanera, and so I knew the songs by heart. Música llanera usually involves harp soloing, a cuatro (a four string guitar), fast maracas, also voice and tapatéo.

A teacher at my school told me about a new academy for children and adults called Academia Llano y Joropo. He took me to see it after school. There were two huge rooms and about forty harps. The teacher iba dando ronda, he’d walk around the room from person to person. People of all ages playing at the same time.  “Pues aquí te espero. I’ll be waiting here for you,” he said.

I’d go to my school from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m, and from 5 to 6 p.m. to the new academy for harp. I had the unconditional support of my mami, mi super-mamá!  In my school at ETB they didn’t give us homework. All the learning was experiential. To understand the concept of Newton’s law, we’d throw an apple around. English was hard for me. We studied physics, electronics, telecommunications. I would take tests, rehearse my music, and travel.

After about a year of studying the harp, I began to participate in music festivals. I would win an award most times. For example, at the Festival Castilla la Nueva I won “mejor artista” in my category as well as “mejor conjunto,” best artist and musical group. I had two brothers, an older and a younger one. The younger one was mi maraquero. He would join me at serenatas, birthday parties, and weddings. He was also studying at the academy. I was earning some money from the time I was fifteen.  

The Bet

So life in Bogotá was lush with music. Why then did you come to the United States?

It all happened because of a bet. The really wonderful Berklee College of Music in Boston would send their musicians to other countries to audition students. Typically they went to Argentina and Ecuador, and in 2012 was the first time they came to Colombia. 

By now I’d been studying music for seven years at the Academy of Arts at the Universidad Distrital in Bogotá and needed thirteen more months to complete my requirements. A singer at the University piqued my interest. “Let’s both audition,” she said. “If we get to the United States, we’ll eat a bag of Cheetos at the entrance to Berklee.”

I did very well at the audition—es la verdad. I won a scholarship for half of my tuition for the entire career, with opportunities to add scholarships toward the full tuition. It’s usually a four-year program. I completed it in two and a half to three years. Near the end of my schooling I was able to win a BMI Foundation scholarship. I am very grateful to Oscar Stagnaro, an amazing Peruvian musician. 

What other subjects did you study at Berklee?

I did Contemporary History, Sociology, the Civil War in the US. How for example, the music of the Delta and New Orleans provided a transformative expression of the times. I studied the Celtic harp and the music of Ireland. The Celtic harp also has its origins in folkloric tradition.  As with the llanera, there are variables, but it is accompanied by a singer and almost always by dance. The harp and the dancers are in conversation. A soloist harp is really something new.      

My friend was not selected at audition, but she is still an outstanding musician. I ate the bag of Cheetos alone in front of the school.

“Soy un bicho raro.”

Nico, for the uninitiated, can you explain the folkloric music of Colombia?

It’s music of oral tradition. There are no European annotations, what is called “theory.” Folkloric music is improvisational and relies on its melodies. Because Colombia has a diverse geography, and cities even are separated by mountains and rivers, the folkloric expression is very variable. The music and the lyrics change, but the content always involves flora and fauna and love, and always exists within the socio-political context of the day.

You sound like a professor.

There has always been an attempt to write this music in a more academic way, to play it in church choirs and such. This is one of the things that excites me, creating music annotations not in a European way but in a way coherent with the tradition. Academic attempts in the past have not been able to capture folk music completely.

Soy un bicho raro—an odd kind of bird. I first learned everything empirically. When there was no harp teacher at the Universidad Distrital, I decided to change my emphasis to classical composition. There I negotiated with professors to let me apply the concepts of classical music to Colombian music, so I began studying theory early. At Berklee I studied improvisation in an academic context. I tried to use my knowledge of classical music, jazz composition, and the rich exposure to other students at Berklee to create Colombian musical phrasing in my EP called Renacer, meaning Reborn. I want to conserve Colombian traditions and mix them with swing and jazz from the United States. 

So, creating mezcolanzas de cosas fundamentals is one of your aspirations. The other is to return to Colombia with new projects. What are these?

One of them is creating a book for the llanera harp with annotations that can be used for various folkloric instruments, in order to unify that form of expression. Another project is to continue what I started with my Renacer EP that mixes tradition and improvisation. Many musicians in Colombia are now interested in jazz and contemporary music, so I have thirty to forty compositions based on traditions from different regions of Colombia. I want to record them so musicians have them as a reference.

I am open to so much, especially music from Latin America. The music for harp in Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela, is different. Also in Paraguay and Peru. I would like to travel there and learn.

 I’d love to get your thoughts about living in this country. What can you do here in the US that you can’t do there?

I discovered that here in the United States hay un campo de acción mas amplio. There’s a bigger playing field than I could have right now in Colombia. Here we are exposed to music from the entire world. If this existed in our countries in Latin America, we would have a deeper culture, perhaps less war, more education. This is what I love here.

The arpa llanera has opened doors for me because it’s such a unique instrument. In the most difficult moments she has been mi compañera de lucha.

At the same time, the music industry is so difficult. Performing near Boston, New York, and Los Angeles is hard. You have to understand the industry, to be your own representative, the one who negotiates and records, the composer of course, writing, even. Publicity and communications. Booking the venues. You can get exhausted by all this. The artist may be excellent at his music but not good at handling proposals and contracts.

In many cases you play only for tips. I often drive a total of eight hours to a venue. You practice before arriving, carry your instruments to the site. That all might include four hours before you arrive. In other venues the musicians get a percentage of the cover charge. To make a CD the cost is five to six thousand dollars—to sell one thousand copies. A record label wants to make money. Percentages are low. My complaint is that you arrive with a lifetime of effort and then discover that you have to give away your art for free. Musicians don’t dare complain. 

Let’s do something to make people more aware, to appreciate the importance of art. In Colombia there is some money destined for artists to play at festivals and contests where they offer, say, $5000 as a prize. But Colombia is moving away from this effort. It’s become more of a business than culture. Art is seen as a commodity. The magic that transports you to another world dies. The importance of art to communicate what is happening in the world deserves support.

Here is Nico’s website, where you can hear more of his music.

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We are more alike

Hola gente,

Tomorrow you'll be receiving from the Soy/Somos series the first half of Diego's story. Diego is a storyboard illustrator and also Puerto Rican, and while he lives in New York, his parents and family live on the island, still suffering the devastation of hurricane Maria and our government's utter failure to help.

Yesterday, "Maria Was Also a 'Real Catastrophe,'" the NYTimes' reported that "on Wednesday, the president smugly declared that 'we did a fantastic job.'" The death toll resulting from the hurricane is now estimated at 2,975, the Times reported, and "it is essential for Americans on the mainland to appreciate that their fellow Americans in the Caribbean have suffered a life-altering catastrophe greater than Hurricanes Katrina or Harvey and require the same outpouring of help and sympathy as New Orleans or Houston. This is a time to open hearts and wallets."

This weekend, while playing in NYC, Donald and I came across a gallery on Ninth Avenue featuring the #StrangersProject, displaying some 200 single-page,  handwritten stories written by people from all walks of life. The 8x11 pieces of paper where hanging on clotheslines around the room. We stopped to read; we spoke with the creator, who has collected more than 40,000 stories. "What is it like being you?"  It's a phenomenon! See STRANGERSPROJECT.COM. People's stories, all ages and backgrounds, were stunningly similar. They felt lonely, loved someone, lost someone, longed for someone or something, were afraid, felt they didn't count. Ordinary, essential things that all of us feel. We are so much more alike than different. This is what I mean to convey in my conversations with Hispanics/Latinos/Latinx, in the Soy/Somos series. 

Make the time for Diego's story tomorrow. He's an artist and very interesting human.

Soy/Somos: Writing in English is Like Breathing

Soy/Somos, a real-life collage of Latinos in the USA. Find an earlier Soy/Somos story here. 

It was rainy and very windy on the Montclair State University campus in New Jersey, where I met Joceline, a young woman on the cusp of 23 and about to graduate. What a pretty campus it is--surprisingly built in stucco white, Spanish-mission style with red-tile rooflines. 

Joceline O.--born in the United States to Peruvian parents--agreed to speak with me about living with difference. Some of her courses this final semester of college, Postwar American Fiction, Shakespeare--Tragedies and Romances, Nonfiction Creative Writing, and Chinese Civilization. Joceline describes herself as an American, Latinx, English major, only child, daughter of immigrants.

Who were you as a kid, Joceline? Do you have an early memory?

We used to live with my grandfather in Lima--on the second floor of his house. And my parents weren’t married actually. My grandfather thought it was important, because they were coming here to the US. If anything happens… 

I remember the wedding, because I was five. It’s almost like a movie for me. We were in a room in the judge’s quarters. My mother was getting ready--it was a white dress, a little sexy actually with spaghetti straps. There was a veil--my mother had bangs--white pearls, and like a silver bracelet. Red lips. I was sitting on a fluffy chair or sofa, wearing a pretty dress too, so I felt special. 

She was putting on lipstick at the mirror, and smiling, and my dad was laughing. Helping her with the veil. I remember standing on the side watching them. And then they kissed. 

How did your parents get here? What was your life like growing up?

My parents met at the university in Peru in the 1980s. They came here in 1994. My mom was halfway pregnant, and I was born here. Then we left and retuned to the United States in 2000 when I was five.

We moved in with my uncle, my father’s older brother. He had a one-bedroom apartment in Queens. We lived in the living room. My tío was ambitious, wanted to be a doctor. He already had an American girlfriend. She was white and couldn’t speak Spanish. But my uncle had a beautiful accent in English. He never got to be a doctor and was bitter about that. I know he felt that we were holding him back. He didn’t invite us to come. We just crashed. 

I remember a Chinese family in the neighborhood. It was funny because they didn’t speak Spanish, and we didn’t speak Chinese. One time they gave me a sandwich made out of rice. I ate it and didn’t like it, so I faked it and they gave me extra. But they lived better; there was light everywhere. The girl and I played, and I learned some words of Chinese. After that we moved to Washington Heights in the upper part of Manhattan. 

My father worked in farms. He met in groups with other immigrants, and they would be picked up for work. He’d go to school and learn English at night, and my mom would take care of me. Eventually they switched, and mom went to school at night.

Actually, my middle name is Laurie. My dad gave me the name for his English teacher at the community college just before I was born.

My mom got a degree in business in Peru, but here it meant nothing. She was working in Grand Central Station at a cold cuts place. I would see her after school. I thought she worked in an amazing place, a palace. She was there because of me, and I loved food. I found out later that her boss was scamming her. The workers were her and an Asian immigrant. My mom wasn’t getting paid. She didn’t have the language, so couldn’t demand her pay. She lost about $300 dollars. It isn’t a lot, but it’s a lot. After that she started working at a medical office. Bills and coding. The doctor and his wife were Anglo-American. The patients and staff, Hispanic.

I’d done kindergarten in Peru, but I had to repeat kindergarten here. I went to PS 173. My teacher lived in my building too. She was Hispanic. After that it was all white. I was in ESL until my last year of elementary school. There were other children of immigrants. Most were Afro Latino. 

Do you identify as “Latina”?

I think of myself as Latinx because it’s gender neutral. Some people say it’s not a real Spanish word. But--you know--language changes and evolves. I prefer Latinx and, if not, Hispanic. This helps me differentiate myself from Latinos from back home in South America and me and other Latinos who are from America. 

Beyond these descriptors, how else do you see yourself?

I know people think I am very confident. Outspoken. My mother and father have abrasive personalities, so at home you have to make your point, stand up for yourself. I am not afraid of a fight--if it comes to talking. (Joceline's sense of self is compelling, also her compassion, and I wonder if these qualities aren't direct by-products of a close-knit immigrant family.) 

Did you have any formal training in Spanish other than hearing it? 

I came with kindergarten level Spanish. Ever since I got here my parents have been speaking to me in Spanish. They correct me. Say, I am mumbling something. “Habla castellano, que no te entiendo!” Speak clearly!  I got it. I got it.

One of my best friends is ½ Mexican, ½ Chilean. We speak half sentences in each language.

Right now I finished up to level three in Spanish--native Spanish--here at Montclair.  I am able to read and write a lot better than I used to. I took Spanish literature. I’ve studied Italian, too. When I write in Spanish, it feels like writing hurts my hand. (Joceline rubs her right hand.)  In English it’s so easy for me…

It’s like breathing. You can’t hear the accent. 

Is there someone who’s had a very big influence in your life?

My dad’s been the longest time with me. They were going to leave me with my grandmother in Peru, but he insisted on bringing me. He’s a drama king.  A good man, influenced by Peru in good and bad ways. His work ethic is strong. I’ve inherited that too. He was in engineering when he left Peru. Laid off during Fujimori. Now he works in building maintenance for a real estate company. I’m very proud of him. 

What do you see for yourself in twenty years?

I’m hoping to reach my peak at 50, not too fast. Hoping to work for the government--I like security, always.  Hopefully I’ll have my law degree and my parents living next to me. Not in my house, but next to me. Maybe I’ll be married. Maybe I’ll have a daughter. In my career I’d like to be able to travel. Maybe romance. And helping the Hispanic community.

What do you think about the response by young people after the mass shootings in Parkland, Florida?

I am a little bit bitter. These are kids with a nice school. Police shootings are also involved and hurt Latinos and people of color. We should value the lives of kids in the schools and in the streets. They do have my support. There’s momentum now, and it may die down. When I’m in a position to help, I will help.

This country is my motherland. Peru is my grandma. I get mad with my motherland like I get mad with my mother. I get angry because I love this place. I like to visit my grandma.

I love the melting pot, honestly speaking. You can get out of your own bubble and be with others who are different. But I feel guilt too. The land belongs to Native Americans. The creation of the United States was based on injustice. 

The love comes from my parents. When I complain, my parents will say, if you were graduating in Peru, you’d be in a small room. You wouldn’t have senators coming to speak to us. Be grateful for what you have here.

Joceline, what will you do after you graduate”

After graduation I’ll try to find a job in government. Keep going. I’ll be studying for my LSATS in November. I want to pay off my college debt.

Joceline accompanied me to the Au Bon Pain café on campus, where I ordered a cappucino before heading home. The rain had stopped, and the wind had died down.

Read more Soy/Somos stories on HuffPost...

Soy/Somos: "Good morning America!"

“Good morning, America!” the subject line of the e-mail at the top of my feed said a cheery hello. The sender was my cousin Ruthie, born in Aruba, daughter of my father’s brother, Monte.

On my visit to Aruba in the 50s. Little Ruthie: brown and yellow bangs, bluest eyes, little Dutch girl in a white pinafore speaking the oddly musical Papiamentu to my Spanish ears, a creole language spoken in Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao (a mishmash of Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch). Many years later I meet cousin Ruthie in Amsterdam, now a middle aged woman, tender and private.

“Dearest cousin," Ruthie began. "I enjoy the e-mails from your blog mucho.” She jokingly retitled my recent Soy/Somos post, “I’m Not Yelling! I’m Cuban!” to “We scream! We are all Cuban!” describing in her e-mail how language differences affected her when she moved from the tiny island of Aruba off the coast of Venezuela to Holland, the motherland.

"I felt a  tremendous loneliness in my early years in Holland," she wrote, "spoke a little bit of Dutch with a thick Aruban accent. Later on realizing their stoic character being: 'We don’t need to understand you. You have come to our country, so get on with it.' So rude in my eyes, back then in the 70s.

"My language/Antillano problem--and I speak only for myself and the white friends I know born and raised in Aruba--is that we have three or even four languages to manage. We all have the same weirdness that in conversing with each other we hop from Dutch to Papiamentu, English, or anywhere in between. In 2016 I noticed that Arubans of color found this irritating and would ask me to choose one language. Hah! And they knew all three languages themselves.

“Nowadays my Dutch is pretty much accentless," she wrote, "so my inner world is not noticed much by the Dutch. I cannot express the typical soft, warm breeze, light attitude of the Arubans. Thongs on your feet, short sleeves and slow walking. No complicated issues to work out. You like me or you don’t. It's understood. I miss laughing about nothing. Our humor is aimed at ourselves in Aruba. Here humor is aimed at the other. It's scary, as you need to be Dutch with the will to outsmart the joker. If you ask me how life becomes slightly unbearable to immigrants, it would be this. The missed humor to share.

"It’s a wild world at the moment but still lots of shelter and food on our tables for which I am grateful." Ruthie recounted some of the mother-daughter moments in her life, knowing I'd written about the painful distances between my mother and myself. "We are all in relatively good health with all the quirks and little pains any body shows at this age. Too much richness in foods these days, and we all love the tasty but wrong product. Hey?”

This blog post is for you--dear cousin Ruthie, in the watery city of Amsterdam--you who were touched by my words and the words of people I put on paper, and added your story to theirs. Today the overwhelming majority of people live in a multicultural world. I just learned yesterday that in New York City thirty-seven percent of inhabitants were born outside of the United States. We rub shoulders with others of sharply different backgrounds and oddly musical accents.

Laten wij luisteren. (Dutch)   Laga nos scucha. (Papiamentu)  Escuchemos. (Spanish)  Let's just listen.