Let me take it back to 1994.
I was in the seventh grade and, at the time, my mom took our family to her first barrio in Santo Domingo almost annually. Los Mina felt like a time out from the hustle and bustle of New York City. Rectangular houses no taller than two stories, dusty roads with their not run parallel, and roosters telling us the time characterize my imagination of the place. The slowest, soulful bachatas would play from the durable radio, still around from the 1950s. My grandaunt wondered whether her American-raised kids wanted mangú with salchichón or frosted flakes (yes, an alternate brand) for breakfast. We were still in poverty, but the matriarchs knew to feed each other nevertheless.
In the summer, my grandfather or uncles would drive to any of the nearest beaches so the sun would add a darker coat on our skins. In the winter, we had a full 12 days of Christmas, streets shut down for days on end with people eating and dancing in the streets. On the flight home, I’d come back bearing gifts like iron cups or dulce that I’d enjoy for days after.
When we flew back home, I’d carry those memories with me until the next trip. This narrative was common among my fellow Dominicans, many of whom still had houses there. The pilgrimages kept the culture alive in new contexts wherever two or more Dominicans were gathered.
Unfortunately, that’s not often enough to be fully seen as having “culture.” In the seventh grade, my Spanish teacher of Spanish background asked us to write a mini-biography about our family. In my first round of questions, my mother responded enthusiastically. I couldn’t stop taking notes about the pride she felt about the obstacles she overcame to get from Santo Domingo to Miami to New York City. My first draft seemed to go well enough. We then had a second round of questions, to which my mother had a harder time responding. She not only felt ill on the due date, but seemed to evade details for her inquisitive child.
I pieced together what I could, but it wasn’t enough.
A few days later, my Spanish teacher decided to correct the name of the barrio I knew well. Strike one. He then told the class that I lost ten points for not completing the assignment to his liking. Strike two. Now, as an educator, I don’t even recall him following up privately to address his concerns pre- or post-humiliation. Strike three.
Degrading one of his best students wasn’t enough. He also had to take a swipe at the culture. I’ve been out on the culture of “Spanish” skeptically since.
That nonsense sat with me for decades, especially in times when my people weren’t seen as enough. But the communities we grew up in, the foods we ate, and the people who carried this culture said otherwise. That includes the legendary singer Rubby Peréz.
When you’re Dominican, there isn’t a party you’ve been to in the last half-century that didn’t feature Rubby Peréz’s tenor. So when many of us woke up to the horrific news out of Santo Domingo, we instantly remembered everything from the hot apartments with the rickety floors or the large community halls hosting the baby shower, birthday party, or other rite of passage. Peréz along with a list of Dominican artists from the 1970s to the 1990’s solidified an era of signature music with connective melodies, poetic lyrics, and attention to artistry.
But he and the now hundreds of people who died that day leave behind stories and the people who remember. For people hearing the news sans this context, it’s sad amidst our current societal malaise. For people who share this connective tissue, we feel these deaths viscerally. My friends and former students have been sharing photos and stories over the last two weeks. I’m seeing videos of Peréz’s last performances or him dropping by people’s houses. Elders are sharing the times they went to a significant performance of his. It’s not uncommon for famous Dominican folks to be one or two degrees from other folks we know.
For Dominicans, Peréz’s music felt like an anchor, whose music connects people of a shared experience across times and spaces. When “Buscando Tus Besos” or “Volveré” comes on, we know what to do, where to go, how to move ourselves.
Over the years, I’ve struggled over issues of culture and identity because of my personal and educational journey navigating my own. Of course, we can’t let our nostalgia mask some of the murkier parts. Post-tragedy, people see the disparity between wealthy citizens who’ve been able to properly bury their dead after the Jet Set tragedy while others are still scrounging for funds. Some Dominicans have also named a fascist and xenophobic thread among the people that doesn’t feel familiar to longtime residents and the Dominican diaspora more generally. It feels pernicious to see both the elevation of darker-skinned Dominicans like Peréz take center stage when anti-Blackness still lingers among us.
And none of this makes our culture any less than the cultures that get exalted as “better” across the world.
In a time when people want to restrict and narrow cultural norms through anti-truth laws, many of us hold steadfast to the ties that bind us. At their best, these ties ground us in the best version of ourselves so we have anchors while we sail out there. Whatever there means for you or us.
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