After reading “‘Rhythm & Power’: A Little Bling, a Little Politics, a Lot of Salsa.” by Jon Pareles, I checked out the exhibition in the Museum of the City of New York called Rhythm & Power: Salsa in New York. Entering the museum, I was welcomed by the warm, friendly greetings from the museum staff. I was amazed by the simplicity of the museum.
On the first floor, I visited the exhibition named “Diversity” where we designed our own neighborhoods using an interactive software. The cool part was that we got to choose a particular neighborhood in New York City and what we wanted to implement in it. I worked on creating a playground in Brooklyn Bridge piers.
Later, we met up with our tour guide who showed us around exhibits with detailed description of New York City’s history. When we got to Salsa in New York, first activity she made us to do was to look around the room and find objects that indicated power. As pictured below, the two things I found was the Grammy Award and the portraits under “Salsa and Activism”. Grammy was one of the highest achieving awards so it was a pretty big deal and Eddie Palmeiri, an artist coming from a minority background, achieving that award in 1975 made it a symbol of power. When I looked at the different portraits of Salsa and Activist, I noticed Latino/Caribbean-Americans coming together as a community. I learned about the Young Lords, who were the latino version of Blank Panthers. I also observed people enjoying and expressing themselves through music and joining rallies. This was a moment of pride and empowerment for the Latino community especially during a time when people of minority backgrounds were looked as inferior in the United States.
Afterwards, I visited the exhibition next door which was titled “Activist New York”. Before visiting the exhibition, our tour guide told us about history of discriminatory actions towards minority groups. I learned that Puerto Ricans were driven out of their homes in the Upper West side in order to build Lincoln Center and white people moved into the suburbs because of the growing minority presence in the inner-city. Attached below is a work by Ralph Fasanella, titled “Reviving the South Bronx”, in which he twisted the on-going situation. The neighborhood, South Bronx, seems very lively with children playing around and adults socializing with each other. Also, in the corner, the artist included himself helping new neighbors move in to the neighborhood. I feel like this work was made so the viewers could note that instead of leaving the neighborhood they could work on improving the living condition and build a diverse community.
I would definitely recommend my friends and family to visit this museum and learn more about the history behind the great city we live in.
