Learning about another culture has always been interesting and an awakening of the differences of my city and what a true milky way of cultures and identities we are. It is hard to imagine that during times of desperation, despair, and even lost hope, a whole community still came together to unite as one and celebrate, forgetting the fact their country and government do not want to bother to help.
It was during the 1960s and 1970s when discrimination against people of color was at its prime. Many Latino families were living together in neighborhoods and it was apparent that many landlords and government officials were neglecting them of help and resources. Landlords would burn apartment buildings down to the ground to get insurance money. To add on, these families were not able to take out loans from banks to grow their own businesses or purchase other homes. There were a total of 33,465 fires in the Bronx, many of them are landlords accused of burning down their own buildings and it got to the point where firefighters did not bother putting out fires anymore because of its frequency.
Salsa came up from these ashes. It became the community’s sense of self-expression and helped “to solidify latino/Caribbean-American identity in general and Puerto Rican-American pride in particular.” The idea of all of cultures coming together from different countries, areas, and backgrounds, but uniting into one type of dance is uplifting. Salsa, itself, is a dance that speaks of confidence, smiles, strong body posture, and more. It is important to note that “salsa became the soundtrack of diverse Latino communities inspired to establish greater self-determination in the United States and aboard.”
Recently, I wrote a narrative essay in Writing I talking about my personal struggle with my identity as American born Chinese. I talked about my culture and my religion and how I felt the government and people of authority did not appreciate minorities even till this day. “I was burning joss paper with my younger brother [on our front balcony] when the stranger in his full uniform and helmet walked through our front yard with his two hands open and shrugged his shoulders, silently asking what kind of crazy act we were committing. I was speechless, baffled even, that someone had bothered to call 911 and report that they saw two teenagers, in their pajamas, acting suspiciously with a fire in a recycled oil barrel and throwing into the fire, what seemed like mere folded paper. Gaining my composure, I quickly found words that could possibly convince a white person I was not burning anything suspicious, illegal, or questionable.”
I thought this instance was very similar to what I have learned. It is still a constant struggle today and I continue to advocate that our model minority myth does not exist. I feel as if many Asians live in fear and have a hard time finding a way to cope with authorities in mind. We live in constant anxiety and in our whole circle and bubble, but salsa was something the Latino community used to cope and that is honestly inspiring and also, admirable.
catherinetum1999
December 24, 2017 — 1:29 pm
I thought it was interesting how you used your own personal experience that you wrote for your Writing class to bring light to the identity struggles people have had throughout history. It was cool to learn about how salsa was something that helped the Latino community come together and cope with what was going on at the time.