Engaging Citizenship through Musical Communities: Three Different Approaches in Puerto Rican Music
Chair(s): Juan Eduardo Wolf (University of Oregon,), Hugo R. Viera-Vargas (Universidad Albizu, PR), Jaime O. Bofill-Calero (Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico)
Following Kay Shelemay’s call to approach the idea of community “in action” (2011), this panel explores how musical practices shape communities into groups that espouse an ideology that may inspire political action. We consider three cases in which we do not assume a community’s characteristics but illustrate how different genres and features of music associated with Puerto Rico point to different ways of identifying (Brubaker 2006), whether on a local, national, or diasporic level. In turn, drawing upon Martin Stokes’s recent theoretical discussions about music and citizenship (2023), we demonstrate how these ways of identifying suggest an ideal type of musical citizenship, whether that be in the form of affective belonging, neoliberal resistance, or decolonizing efforts. The first paper examines how Los Pleneros de la 23 Abajo, a renowned plena ensemble deeply rooted in their neighborhood, employed their musical practices to unite local residents into a community of resistance against the threat of displacement posed by planning policies prioritizing industrial development. The second paper offers the example of how the use of Taíno musical and lyric imagery in nueva canción, música urbana, and Neo-Taino movement attempts to invoke a broader community of indigeneity of the Américas to provoke widespread decolonial action. The final paper scrutinizes how community affect for a local version within the national drum-based bomba practice was revitalized through diasporic experiences. Each of these studies contributes to the growing discussion of how different versions of citizenship can be promoted through the process of creating musical communities.
Presentations in the Session
Los Pleneros de la 23 Abajo: Music, Community and Resistance
Hugo R. Viera-Vargas
Universidad Albizu, PR
This presentation examines how the socio-musical performances of Los Pleneros de la 23 Abajo during their formative years in the 1970s served a dual function that exemplifies Shelemay's (2011) theorization of musical communities and Stokes’ (2023) conceptualization of musical citizenship. On one hand, their music expressed discontent and resistance against the displacement of communities surrounding the Martín Peña water channel. On the other hand, it laid the foundation for what can be called “musical citizenship,” demonstrating how musical practices can generate spaces for citizen participation that combine the political with the affective. Drawing on the concept of music as both agent and image of citizenship, this case study analyzes how Los Pleneros de la 23 Abajo's musical practices not only represent forms of resistance and enable a fragmented yet collective identity but also develop emotional and affective dimensions of participatory citizenship through shared musical experiences. The study is grounded upon an in-depth interview with Roberto Cipreni, the group’s composer and director; an analysis of the lyrics from the group’s original repertoire, which demonstrate a strong political commitment; and archival research on the community presentations of Los Pleneros de la 23 Abajo. This analysis reveals how the expressiveness of plena served as a mechanism to cultivate a socio-political awareness and articulate an affective, cultural citizenship that, in addition to resistance, generates new avenues for civic involvement, political acknowledgment, and social transformation.
Reimagining the Taino Past: Music, Indigeneity, and Colonialism in Puerto Rico
Jaime O. Bofill-Calero
Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico
In this paper I will analyze significant examples of Puerto Rican music inspired by the Taíno, the first inhabitants of the island. To compare and contrast the political and artistic motivations behind this indigenous-inspired music, I draw upon the work of other scholars who examine composers’ use of indigeneity in art and popular music (Madrid 2010), explore popular music as a form of resistance (Quintero 2006), and critique the Eurocentric values underlying modernity (Mignolo 2011). I pay specific attention to the socially engaged nueva canción of Roy Brown, the defiant música urbana of Residente and the revivalist efforts of the Neo-taino. I will argue these musics, as “musical reconstructions,” connect Puerto Ricans to their ancestral past and serve as sonic portals through which they create a community with a broader Indigenous identity in Latin America. Ultimately, I will explore the ways in which imagined Taíno music has shaped present notions of Puerto Rico’s indigeneity (Ochoa 2016) and its relationship to colonization, resurgent Indigenous epistemologies, the natural world, the Anthropocene (Bofill Calero 2019), and the mystical dimensions of life. This research provides an alternate lens from which to re-envision Puerto Rico’s past and ongoing colonial history, a topic that has been largely neglected in academic research.
Building a Local Community in the Homeland through Diasporic Experiences: the case of bomba mayagüezana
Juan Eduardo Wolf
University of Oregon
In 2001, Félix Alduén Caballery appeared on the television documentary, Raíces, an installment of the well-known Banco Popular Christmas specials. Raíces specifically focused on the related but distinct Afro-Puerto Rican national genres of bomba and plena. Alduén’s appearance established him as the key representative of bomba from the western city of Mayagüez, a historical center of bomba practice, but one that had not received as much attention as other regions of the island. Alduen’s performance, together with his subsequent album release, helped foster a community of both descent and affinity (Shelemay 2011) through the revitalization of bomba in Mayagüez, complete with defining subgenres and claims to a unique style.The lack of detail in the documentary implied that Alduén played bomba mayagüezana continuously since his youth, when he actually spent decades living in New York. At least one interviewee claimed that, prior to leaving for New York, Alduén was primarily a plena performer, and that he learned many of the skills that he would later use in bomba performance by playing in informal rumbas in Central Park. In this paper, I examine the formation and legacy of this legendary bomba figure, focusing on his time in New York through interviews and archival data. My intent here is to explore how Alduen’s family’s heritage plus his personal experiences in New York worked to revitalize Mayagüez’s bomba community. My findings resonate with the literature that insists that diasporic experiences can be key to community building in locations back in the homeland.
