Notes From A Native Daughter

This one is for Hostos Community College, the South Bronx, and Puerto Rico. Thank you to the Congressman.

For those of you who don’t know, Bobby Sanabria is a master percussionist and musician. Straight from his bio, “drummer, percussionist, composer, arranger, recording artist, producer, filmmaker, conductor, educator, activist, multi-cultural warrior and multiple Grammy nominee.” Boom. Or as Ricans would say on the street, “una jodienda.” Bobby has a benefit concert on October 23rd at the old Village Gate, now (le) poisson rouge where Salsa met Jazz every Monday night for years. The talk with Bobby ended up being a four-part mini-series but I’m sharing the first two. He goes off and gives the full line up of the band and mixes it all with a history lesson on music, the New York music scene when he was growing up, and just a general sense of the times and music and his love for it. Also on the talk is Elena Martínez, veteran and senior folklorist, researcher, writer and overall cultural guardian. Love her. I don’t have much else to say other than take a listen. History. Diaspora. Latin Music. Puerto Rican

For those of you who don’t know, Bobby Sanabria is a master percussionist and musician. Straight from his bio, “drummer, percussionist, composer, arranger, recording artist, producer, filmmaker, conductor, educator, activist, multi-cultural warrior and multiple Grammy nominee.” Boom. Or as Ricans would say on the street, “una jodienda.” Bobby has a benefit concert on October 23rd at the old Village Gate, now (le) poisson rouge where Salsa met Jazz every Monday night for years. The talk with Bobby ended up being a four-part mini-series but I’m sharing the first two. He goes off and gives the full line up of the band and mixes it all with a history lesson on music, the New York music scene when he was growing up, and just a general sense of the times and music and his love for it. Also on the talk is Elena Martínez, veteran and senior folklorist, researcher, writer and overall cultural guardian. Love her. I don’t have much else to say other than take a listen. History. Diaspora. Latin Music. Puerto Rican

Episode 72 | Uptown Manhattan has Rhina Valentin. For the past 11-years she has given creatives here a platform to be heard and seen from her weekly Friday show on Bronxnet, OPEN. Maybe this is why she is called La Reina del Barrio. She is from El Barrio, but the “Queen” part we didn’t get to talk about that part. Nonetheless, in this episode La Reina del Barrio talks about motherhood, moving cross country, coming back, OPEN Bronxnet, her new variety show, Maria, and going at it with bravado and dignity. Thank you Rhina Valentin for a lovely conversation. Sol #LaReinaDelBarrio #RhinaValentin #BronxNet #OPEN #ElBarro #TheBronx #Art

María Relief Effort Initiative: Yaraní del Valle is fierce. I’ve seen her sing her heart out. Etched in my mind. A unique interpreter she is. Bella. It is no coincidence that Yaraní, alongside Lady Onion, Aris Mejias, Lady Lanchonete, Isabel Gandía, and artist-activist Jeca Rodriguez created the EcoKit duffle initiative, Puerto Rico Eco Kit. The backstory of how the three of us are connected is a nice mini story. But, the skinny is the lesson. And that is, the diaspora network is threaded and spreads out pretty far. People working together from all over and partnering with coalitions on the island, creating efforts, sending gestures, and operating in what Yara calls a “stork” system effort. All the while an emerging and unofficial, “new order” ripples. Yara is a source and a force. Listen to her. She has a lot to say, not only about EcoKit but about who-where-how, the network she operates in is working. EcoKit Puerto Rico Aris Mejias Isabel Gandía Jeca Rodriguez Yaraní Del Valle ISER Caribe Borrowed

Pete Miranda is one of the sweetest, coolest, funniest cats around. I've known him years from working in the Latin music circuit. For those of you who don't know who he is, Pete is a legend. Really. New York City and diaspora history in full glory. Here is a Boricua from Manatí who ended up playing with the Machito and Tito Puente orchestras. Pete is a natural storyteller and his candidness is beautiful. All total he spoke pretty much without interruption for over two hours. I edited a five-part mini-series of Pete, and here are the first two. They say music heals...so, here it is, no music, just talk, but good enough to bring a smile to your face.

Pete Miranda is one of the sweetest, coolest, funniest cats around. I've known him years from working in the Latin music circuit. For those of you who don't know who he is, Pete is a legend. Really. New York City and diaspora history in full glory. Here is a Boricua from Manatí who ended up playing with the Machito and Tito Puente orchestras. Pete is a natural storyteller and his candidness is beautiful. All total he spoke pretty much without interruption for over two hours. I edited a five-part mini-series of Pete, and here are the first two. They say music heals...so, here it is, no music, just talk, but good enough to bring a smile to your face.

Rosalba Rolón is an actress, dramaturge, writer, producer, lyricist, grant writer, mentor, leader, and the world is a better place because she is in it. God is my witness. Like so many, soon after María passed the questions became, what can we do to help? And thousands have activated to do just that, help. There are numerous and beautiful initiatives and coalitions taking root all over the land, far beyond the island and the island itself. In the midst of so much chaos and shady dealings, the domino effect of consequences continues. But the efforts don’t stop. Pregones/PRTT’s Hurricane María Relief Drive for Artists is one of those beautiful gestures. For the month of October, the theater will campaign to provide $500 micro-grants to theater, music, dance, visual and literary arts practitioners in Puerto Rico. The drive will put emergency cash in the hands of artists with whom Pregones/PRTT has had a history of exchange and collaboration, and who are also invited to identify subsequent micro-grant recipi

Episode 67 is the great Howard Jordan - he's a perfect match for today's times and Puerto Ricans. Fierce and gracious both, the Mayor of San Juan. It appears true the administrations don't care if we die. It is so grotesque and real, it's unbelievable. So much so that you don’t believe it at first. Rats working behind the scenes, colluding, arguing, imposing bureaucratic paperwork before humanitarian urgency, lying, confusing the people, letting them rot so to speak. But then you see it, and it is nauseating. Words don’t come easy. I’m tense, irritable, working very hard to stay the course, sifting through emails and feeds looking for stuff, reading what is being said. I think all Puerto Ricans are adapting to everything being different. This Cheat Sheet keeps changing but it’s still made to help people. And, although I cannot foresee what the future holds in terms of people's behavior and their accountability to projects, in the whole I know people here are decent and they want to work hard. So go at it kn

Dad sent me this video back in March. Danny en Collores... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWhTLcis5T4 If you are Puerto Rican then you know El Valle de Collores by Puerto Rican poet Luis LLornés Torres. Mrs. Higuera, one of my school's Spanish teacher from Cuba, assigned us to memorize el Valle De Collores for Spanish class. We had to stand in front of the room and recite out loud. I loved it, and her, Mrs. Higuera, and the poem. Dad, here so proud of Puerto Rico's bounty. Todo es diferente hoy. Everything is different today. María was ferocious to her, la Verde Luz. But, after a knock out it's back up again, one step at a time, one day at a time. Defeat is humbling. I'm not saying Puerto Rico is defeated. Because it isn't, but the storm beat it so. Puerto Rico te amo. You are not alone. With a heavy heart and in full awareness and solidarity with all the towns, countries, and people suffering around world. #PuertoRico #BorinquenVive

Going indie as a designer was not in her plans. Necessity came knocking and she took her sewing skills and put them into action creating Skin Onion in 2012. Lady Onion, as I now call her, is also an actress and appears in the upcoming (October 26) Puerto Rican film Sol de Media Noche, starring opposite Pedro Capó. Though we talk about the film a little bit in this conversation, our exchange centers more on her clothing experiment turned brand. I love that when necessity and desperation knocked at her door she made something of it. Her garments are soft, flexible, purposeful, and timeless. Young, beautiful, and committed Lady Onion is just like her wearable expressions soft, flexible, and purposeful. #skinonion #arismejias #sewing #clothingdesign #soldemedianoche #nfand

Episode 64 | Five small community-based arts organizations: BronxArtSpace, Dominican York Proyecto GRAFICA, En Foco, Inc., Literary Freedom Project, and Puerto Rican Institute for Development of the Arts make up the Urban Arts Cooperative - UAC. Bill Aguado, is spearheading the endeavor. Bill’s career is ample deep. This beautiful article by David González of The New York Times says it best. The crux of UAC is “to build a financially viable alternative to the existing local arts council and institute strategies for arts support that does not rely on the traditional 501(c) nonprofit model while meeting accountability standards set by funders.” Press Release 7|10|17. The synthesis of the message is to assess and empower present and future artists, particularly those who reside in The Bronx, Harlem, and Washington Heights. UAC received seed funding from the New York City Cultural Agenda Fund in The New York Community Trust. Bill and Ron Kavanaugh, of the Literary Freedom Project, are welcoming like-mi

Episode 63: In the eye of the beholder. Photography. Silence. Song of Myself. A worldwide network and a one stop shop for creatives and media producers. Visura. For better or for others (her own words). Her purpose. A beauty. Family.

Chilean filmmaker Fernando Guzzoni is a poet. His film Jesús is a powerful coming of age film with a different bent. Inspired by a true event Fernando writes to slash your viser off your face. Jesús is raw, real, beautiful, and devastating. This is the story about boy that mirrors the Chile of today and the cities we all live in. Fernando is a profound thinker and cares about a lot of things. In this work he etches a journey of tragedy all wrapped up in free love, innocence, immaturity, base behavior, repentance, treason, defeat. He doesn’t make it pretty, but he does bring us his voice with respect and courage. Theatrical roll-out of Jesús begins September 1 in New York and follows a DVD/VOD on September 19. See his other two works, La Colorina and Carne de Perro (Dog Flesh). #FernandoGuzzoni #Jesus #LaColorina #DogFlesh CinemaTropical #NFAND

I have spent most of this summer editing. Listening again, to all the people I spoke with this past year and who make up the Hostos Community College community. I spent another chunk of time editing interviews with people close to Evelina López Antonetty, the Puerto Rican leader who established United Bronx Parents. And I’ve devoted another slot of time to just reading history and pondering how all these voices fit in the context of today. I begin a whole new weekly share in the form of a radio hour segment, the first week of September, when Hostos Community College officially sets off on celebrating its 50th Anniversary, for the College’s internal and external community. I’m on the hot seat and feeling it. And there’s more but for now, Kim Sanabria. Something about her sincerity, her cadence, her serenity, and her story, just gripped me. For those of you who’ve seen me these past few months, I’m sad these days. I may not look it, but I am. Fortunately, people like Kim send me off to the sphere of op

This is episode 60. One of the awesome things about doing this podcast/program for the past sixty-weeks has been the chance to speak with and listen to a lot of wonderful people. It’s kept me present to the fact that there is a lot of goodness despite all the social and political parasites and white supremacists, here and abroad, who with their ignorant and retrograde intellect, insist on bringing us all to the precipice of death. One of those good people is Melissa Rendler-García. She has been working in advocacy and policy of public health for over 20-years at a global scale. From the heart of the Amazon to Romania to Afghanistan to Central and South America, Melissa has worked on issues from malaria to cancer. Her main service, to support government ministries and agencies like the Union for International Cancer Control in bringing global attention for funding to pandemics and preventable diseases like cervical cancer, affecting poor and developing nations. In this episode, she talks about her journey

Talk about real. Manny Vega is super real. Legit all the way. All the way. Praise the Lord. Before recording our conversation Manny showed me this spectacular book he’s been working on for 4-years. It’s a fantastical sight of black ink drawings over brown paper. The light blue leather bound of the book, a little less than a meter in size, has about 80 pages, each one a drawn world filled with life flushed in nuance and inspired by the act of surrendering. As he tells it, to surrender is to trust in your angels, your madrina, the Gods, and the ancestors. Each second of creative action is trust in surrendering. Not surrendering as meek, but surrendering to the most high in silence and pure expression of sincere enthusiasm. Manny is enthusiastic for the action of creating in the moment - one drawing is an 8-hour stretch. Here and there is a state of being. He let me take one picture from the book and it turned out to be the chameleon. Fancy that. Look at him in the branch, knowing the right hue will

In a few words. Here in this share, George Emilio Sanchez talks about being committed to social justice and its fusion with the creative arts. At a time when the relevance of the Humanities is being questioned, George gets doing it and from its very fringes. He teaches not just at Staten Island College helping to spread good, but throughout a wide network. Best advice he can give, “Listen, listen, listen…”

I’ve been thinking about Math lately. The course that we must all take and that many of us, later in young adult life think it’s useless, only it isn’t. In many ways it’s true, the saying, youth is wasted on the young. But I digress. Dr. C is all heart-and-soul. I hope you catch that when you listen to his share in this episode 57. He’s from Poland and teaches mathematics at Hostos. For him, mathematics is about the “spirit of generalization.” He’s serious as hell and he makes sense. I say Hostos is lucky to have him. This past week I went on the deep end of memory lane recalling how hard Math had been for me during my elementary and middle school days until I got to Algebra. Until then, I thought I was utterly incapable of understanding numbers, I suffered a lot because of it. And though that’s a different story, the realization that I wasn’t a dunce dawned on me when I took to Algebra and realized I understood numbers and counting from the experiential setting of being a dancer. Dancing in synchronicit

Have you ever gone under water searching for silence? Do you focus on staying under a bit longer to think and to feel the peace? Or, do you grow desperate and go for air? Are you thankful you can come up for air? Do you go out there and live? For Rosary Solimanto going down under was not a choice. She was living her life and suddenly, she was thrown into the water to drown. She could see the light, the outside world, but something larger than her kept under desperate for air, for life. I think somewhere in her crucifixion Rosary found a place of stillness and silence - that place where you can go to fetch that thing that just might save your life. That, there, is such a lonely journey… But she ferociously set herself free and came up for air to live, and she’s taking on the healthcare industry with performance (Dead without Health Care, Alive, The Patient) with sculptures (Weight, Cripple, Trigeminal Neuralgia), by building a new health care narrative, and working to debunk the image of the wheelchair fr