“People were killed for practicing it, and others were beaten and mistreated, and yet they continued doing it.” Lío is a regular visitor at the Community Batey where he remains at the forefront of LGBTQ inclusion. “It is music born from suffering and pain,” Villahermosa explains. Centuries later, thanks to the ancestors who fought to hold on to their culture, bomba remains a powerful tool of liberation.įor this reason, Lío Villahermosa, a longtime activist, practitioner, and teacher from Santurce (another working-class neighborhood in San Juan with a rich history in bomba), believes that one should give thanks before entering a batey to honor and remember the context in which bomba was conceived. They celebrated significant social events and sometimes planned acts of rebellion. “Bomba is still alive thanks to the Maroons, because the enslaved were not allowed to play bomba.” Early Maroon settlements were made up of escaped and freed Africans who lived side by side with the Caribbean’s Indigenous people.įor these ancestral communities, the batey was a spiritual and political space where people shared sentiments and strengthened ties. “Due to its seditious nature, bomba has been repressed at all times,” Yesenia explains. For Yesenia Ortiz, it’s remarkable the music survived. The plantation owners soon recognized this as a problem. Bomba’s improvisational rhythm became a common language, a dialogue between drummers and dancers that brought the island’s oppressed people closer together, made them feel more powerful. Enslaved Africans were transported from many different regions, speaking many different languages. I think this is because we have understood that it is the best way to resist.”įirst documented in the seventeenth century, Caribbean bomba emerged in the context of colonialism. “Nowadays, there is a lot of bomba in Puerto Rico. “In the Community Batey, we all find a way to resist with dignity, courage, love, respect, sadness, bravery, and frustration-with all that living in Puerto Rico implies,” Rashelle says. Singers often weave new lyrics into traditional bomba songs to reclaim their African heritage and denounce social issues such as gender violence, government corruption, and the colonial status of Puerto Rico. These gatherings serve to promote political awareness. “Connecting with this space, Friday to Friday, heals us, makes us feel we belong, makes us feel stronger.” “That’s what creates community.” In the batey, Rashelle found exactly what she needed to feel complete and safe. “It’s the music, the sound of the drum, the beating of the heart, the feeling of belonging,” Rashelle says. Through bomba, which developed four centuries ago among the island’s enslaved Africans as a means for resistance, resilience, and self-expression, the group has built a community with a powerful sense of purpose. Photo by Arturo Donate, Flickr Creative Commons The spot is known as the Community Batey of La Plaza del Negro. In this working-class neighborhood, community leaders-including Keyla Baez, Yesenia Ortiz, Rashelle Burns, and Manny, who prefers not to use his last name-gather each Friday with other residents to organize a batey, a space where people sing, play, and dance bomba, the oldest genre of the Afro-Puerto Rican musical tradition. There, it is not difficult to meet residents who proudly say they were born, raised, and will grow old in La Perla. More than a neighborhood, La Perla is a strong and unified community. More recently, the rich have coveted its beautiful location, but La Perla is not for sale. Next to it, you will most likely encounter signs announcing the sale of expensive historic houses that have never been ours.Īt the edge of Old San Juan, outside the tall city walls that stand beside the sea, you will encounter La Perla, a barrio of colorful houses connected by steep cement staircases. If you walk through the streets of Old San Juan, you will probably come across the phrase Viva Puerto Rico Libre (Freedom for Puerto Rico) graffitied onto the wall of some Spanish colonial building from the sixteenth century.
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