AH I’M LATE POSTING ONCE AGAIN, I mean what’s new all these assignments am I right.

ANYWAYS this post is going to be about the salsa museum we visited you can probably tell from the title. So as all of you know I myself am latina, and salsa is a big component of our culture. However, it wasn’t until recently that I started realizing that many of my favorite salsa songs have a deeper meaning behind them. For example, the song Rebelion by Joe Arroyo talks about Hispanics in slavery in the 1600’s. He goes into depth talking about the violence darker women faced and how many of his people were in chains like he likes to say esclavitud perpetua or perpetual slavery. Know I know many of you may be thinking “Yina those are some very harsh words how did you not notice it?” Well you see my friends this is the most upbeat song I know to date so I never genuinely listened to the lyrics I just assumed it was a happy song.

When we went to the salsa and rhythm exhibition this concept was only further instilled in me, people were using music to express their emotions and discuss social issues.

  This is picture explaining what I’ve mentioned above, the reason I took a picture of the Spanish version rather than the English version was that prior to this I’ve never seen a description at a museum in Spanish. When I saw this I felt represented, I felt proud. English is not my native language so seeing Spanish being used when I got made fun of as a child for speaking it touched me.

Oh, boy was I even more excited when I saw the Celia Cruz display, Celia Cruz is an icon to Hispanics worldwide. Unfortunately, in Latin media 99% of famous people are of paler complexion, however, Celia Cruz changed this connotation when she became famous. It’s important to have numerous representations in media of ethnic groups because some tend to be overlooked such as the Afro-Caribbean group. I was anticipating seeing her shoes which the readings mentioned would be there and when I saw them I fangirled and started singing “La Negra Tiene Tumbao”. Celia Cruz has played a huge role in my life, not only is her music the usual Saturday cleaning song but whenever I was feeling down my mom would play “La Vida es un Carnaval”. This song is about how life is amazing despite the downs and its upbeat rhythm and my moms sing-a-long would always cheer me up.

Lastly one of my favorite aspects of the trip was the physical trip to the museum. Being greeted by locals saying “welcome to el barrio” made me feel like I was at the mecca of culture. The barrio’s pride in their heritage is admirable, it was a beautiful and fun experience.

– xoxo Yina