Welcome And Bianca’s Roots

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Carry On Friends, the Caribbean American Experience. And I'm excited for my guest today, Bianca. Welcome to Carry On Friends. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:14

I'm doing good. Thank you so much, Carrie Ann, for inviting me to the show. I'm excited to chat with you.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

I'm excited to chat with you too. So why don't you go ahead and tell the audience a little bit about who you are, Caribbean country you represent, and a little bit about the work you do?

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Yeah, so um I hail from Jersey City, New Jersey, um, of Boricua Roots. So I very much identify as Puerto Rican, Caribbean. And then, of course, coming from a mixed heritage, I identify as African descendant and indigenous descendant. I'm in part of those diasporas. I am a cultural preserver worker, um, an artist of Afro-Puerto Rican folk traditions, Bombay plena, an eternal student of all things culture. And um, I'm also a fellow podcaster and uh studied broadcasting. And I work for the Caribbean Cultural Center, African Diaspora Institute right now. I'm the director of communications and new media there. I've been there for three years, just shy of three years. And it's been part of my incredible cultural learning experience and ability to affirm my identity while applying, you know, my professional skills. So that's a little, a little about me in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Now, even in that little bit, you said a lot. So

What The Caribbean Cultural Center Does

SPEAKER_01 1:39

let's talk about the Caribbean Cultural Center and maybe talk a little bit about that for those who are not familiar with it.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Yeah. So the Caribbean Cultural Center, African Diaspora Institute, is nearly 50 years old, based out of East Harlem, New York. It is a center that is dedicated to advancing cultural equity, racial and social justice for African descending communities everywhere through arts and culture. So what that looks like is we put together programming, virtual, online exhibitions, conversations, symposiums, travel experiences, all centered in advancing racial and social justice and cultural equity. And what that looks like is a reclamation of our African ancestry and our heritage, a reclaiming of the knowledge and traditions, belief systems, ways of eating, ways of practicing wellness, ways of carrying out musical traditions. We center all of the work in those, in those pieces and in reclaiming those pieces to affirm identity and to kind of reconnect with the heritage and the culture that colonization and enslavement attempted to strip away any race. Um, yet our ancestors preserved it and passed it on. And it's our responsibility to just anchor ourselves in that and use it as a tool for advancement.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Now, I love what you're saying. And I want you to define a couple of things because before we get deeper into this, I just want to define cultural equity.

Cultural Equity Explained With Real Stakes

SPEAKER_01 3:23

What is that? Why does it matter? Why is that important?

SPEAKER_00 3:26

That's a really good question. Um, and I and I think it's super important to define this. Cultural equity can mean so many things. So I'm just gonna use um one or two examples to try to break this down. One, when we look at our history as Caribbeans, as African descendants, as a diaspora, right? Which is the dispersal of a people um outside of their homeland. When we look at our history, modern history and hundreds of years past, what we see was a deliberate attempt systemically through enslavement, through uh systemic oppression to uh strip away culture, an example. In Puerto Rico, up until you know very recent in the 1900s, and you know, I don't want to give an exact date, but I think something like the 1950s, practicing bomba, which is Afro-Puerto Rican music, was illegal. It was prohibited, it was not allowed. That is not cultural equity. That means that my culture does not have the right to be practiced and to be retained. So when we talk about cultural equity, we're talking about being able to ensure that a people have access to their own culture and can practice that culture without obstacles, without systemic obstacles. The other way to look at cultural equity is when we look at institutions, right? And we know that cultural institutions are nonprofit organizations, oftentimes, not all the time, but when we look at the ecosystem of nonprofit cultural institutions, and we look at the funding models behind them. Which cultural institutions are getting what kind of funding? How much, right? And so is there equity in that? Are we seeing a common thread of cultural institutions that represent one culture versus another getting better funding or getting more access to funding, right? So that's a little bit about what we're talking about when we talk about cultural equity.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Thank you for defining that. I think that is important as we ground the conversation. And cultural equity then plays into this idea of cultural preservation, then, because um, as you pointed out, if the Caribbean Cultural Center and other um nonprofit Caribbean arts or performing arts organization aren't getting their funding, and part of those um efforts is to preserve culture, then we are at risk of losing said culture. Exactly. So um, I I completely get it.

Afrofuturism Beyond Wakanda

SPEAKER_01 6:17

So one of the things that was really drew me to you is this idea of Afrofuturism. And I think that's another big word. I'm like, I don't know, Afrofuturism. A lot of times I hear it referred to when people are talking about Black Panther and Wakanda and all of this. So, what is Afrofuturism and what is Afrofuturism as it pertains to Caribbean traditions, which is something that it's it's important to you, or I hope I got that right.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

No, for sure. So this is this is a fun word. Um, and I'm gonna try my best to break it down. First, I want to start with saying I am no expert in the theory or study of Afrofuturism. And there are certainly folks who are cultural theorists who who are delving very deep into concepts and themes around Afrofuturism. But I am learning, and I've had the privilege of learning um through the Caribbean Cultural Center, African Diaspora Institute, which I also want to just point out, we say Gavi for short, because it's a it's a full name. Um, so I have been learning through my work at Gavi and through my exploration of Afro-Puerto Rican traditions, in particular through Bomba and by extension, Afro-Caribbean traditions, in particular music. Um, what I have been learning is that one is we have this term Afrofuturism now. This is language that we have, and that's pretty recent. But when we break down the concept, Afrofuturism, as I understand it, as I have learned, is very circular. And what do I mean by that? We are talking about envisioning a future, being creative with our imagination that traces back to African retentions and traditions. So it's back to what I was saying earlier, which is Afrofuturism ties directly into the reclamation of what has been lost, a return to teachings of our African ancestry. Those teachings, again, were deliberately disrupted and cut off from being passed on, or we're passed on, but we're passed on in in ways that couldn't be uplifted, couldn't be talked about. And now we're getting the language to talk about these things. So when we talk about Afrofuturism, we're looking to the future, but we're using the past in order to envision a more liberated future. So uh January 1st was Haitian Independence Day, right? And I'm very much thinking about what that has meant in terms of a revolution, a rebellion by enslaved people, right, against their oppressors. In order to do that, they had to dare to envision a future that expanded beyond their present reality. That was Afrofuturism. Every rebellion, both indigenous and enslaved Africans, was a future that was being envisioned beyond their present reality. When we move further, we look at the civil rights movement. Again, we're envisioning a future that expands beyond the borders of what is the present reality. So when I think about Afrofuturism, and I and I want to be clear, I do consider myself African descendant and part of the diaspora, but I also do not live the black experience, right? And so it is really important to name that as well because there's intersectionality in all of our identities. But we are, in my point of view, we are seeing a system that is a sliding scale of injustices. And that scale also depends on color, right? So to tie it all together is when we talk about decolonization, which we all need to talk about, in my opinion, as people of color, when we talk and Caribbean folk, we need to talk about decolonization. And Afrofuturism is a necessary tool in that because when we can return to those ways and those traditions and we can imagine what a future looks like when those oppressions do not exist or when we have been able to undo them, then we can see a liberated future.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

So, based on what you're saying, it feels like this is me paraphrasing, and this is me in my understanding of what you just said. It feels like Afrofuturism is seeing our future the way we envision it for ourselves without external dictation of what that future should be. Or it may be influenced by it, but it's for the history of most Afro people's lives, our future has not been determined by us. It's been other people deciding our future for us. Okay. All right. Yeah, it's that that's that's a little bit more time. I'm glad.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

If I can,

AfriBembe And A Future-World Play

SPEAKER_00 11:34

if I can share an example, um, and this is really quick. At Gabi recently, we held a festival in August. And the theme of that festival, the festival is called Afri Bembe. And the concept of the festival is to anchor ourselves in the tied connection across the entire global African diaspora, right? It's a pan-African festival. Um, it's a it's a time to come together and highlight how we have cultural differences that are beautiful but are anchored in one common thread, right? Which is what has been carried on and retained through our African ancestry from Africa. And this year the theme was Afrofuturism. In the festival, we had an excerpt performance of a play called In the Valley of Coming Forth, which was produced and conceptualized by Dr. Herukuti, an amazing artist, who created a play, an Afrofuturist play, that envisioned a world in 2169, post-apocalyptic, in which the main character is on a journey to save their child from the neocolonialism and white supremacy that has in fact destroyed the world, right? So that is a beautiful example and is a phenomenal play. Um, I I don't have any information for when it will be uh put on again, but uh a beautiful example of how creatives are envisioning the future past the current reality, right? And tying in that sci-fi piece that you were talking about earlier. So I felt really connected to that play because um, well, at first I did it. At first I was like, I don't know, but this is my learning journey, right? When it comes to Afrofuturism. A lot of it has been through um the work that I do at Ghali. And it and one of the examples is this uh summer festival and working with um the artist Dr. Heru Kuti to put on the play. And when I was reading his materials and really diving into it and understanding, I said, you know, this is performance and this is a work of art, but this is what is necessary in order to really be creative and bring into real life, into practice, uh a reenvisioned future. So I just wanted to give that one example and tie it back because yes, it's true. Like the Wakanda Forever is part of that Afrofuturism theory and expression. Um, but there's a bigger reason for that because we need these kind of creative tools to say, wait a minute, there's things that can be applied in the right now. Like we do need to save our children from neocolonialism.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

I mean, your response is letting me go down a whole different path. I didn't intend on going down. So let's go. So let me

TikTok, Stigma, And Intergenerational Culture

SPEAKER_01 14:50

just, all right. It may be, it may be connected. Um, another aspect of your bio and the work that you do is um traditional folkloric Caribbean dance and music. And it often feels like in a world of TikTok dances and all these other things, those things don't have a place in modern society. And so, you know, born and raised in Jamaica for, you know, the earlier years of my life and knowing that that was part of the tradition, but that was pre-technology. So in a post-technology world, where is the space for that? And how does that play a part in um cultural preservation? Because it feels like I'm I'm sure to young kids, it feels like that's old folks' business. So, where does that play a role in the here and now and the future?

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Yeah. I think what is beautiful about the world of TikTok and Instagram is that it gives us an opportunity to use those tools to expose our young people to these traditions. Because just because we're participating in what is folk or traditional music doesn't mean that we can't also bring in technological tools in those practices, right? So there's the one I think what I have been noticing is that oftentimes folks will reach out to me and be like, hey, you know, my my daughter saw, you know, this video on Instagram of somebody dancing bomba, a child her age dancing bomba, and she's really interested. I know that you dance bomb, where can I like expose her to it in real life? And so there's this beauty in in that, in being able to use the tools to show young people that they have a place in it. And I think that's really important is to be able to bring in really all of the generations, because there's a good chunk of our folks who are my elders who did not have access to this traditional music because it was highly stigmatized and it was really kept in and protected in certain families, in certain neighborhoods, in certain towns. And so if you were not kind of born and raised in it, your access was incredibly limited, right? Like I mentioned earlier, this music was prohibited, it was illegal. And then after that, it was stigmatized, right? And I've had this conversation with my mom, actually, who was like, you know, I didn't really know much about Bomba in order to be able to pass it on. Because when I grew up, I understood it as you don't do that, like almost black magic, you know? And through my experience, she has been able to experience it and experience the healing that has come from it. She shares a story with me of having gone to one of my rehearsals when I was um with Segunda Kimbamba, the group that I'm a part of. We traveled to Puerto Rico in 2019 to participate in two festivals, one of which was Encuentro de Tambores. Background is that um pretty much the entire island of folks who practice Bomba come together for this one festival to present their area. And as part of the diaspora, we traveled and participated in it as well. My mom comes to the rehearsal uh reluctantly. She goes like, I don't want to be here, I got things to do, and sits, watches us rehearse, and she when she retells me the story, she said, you know, something just I felt it from from my feet up and from my head down. I felt this overwhelming feeling as it was happening. And when I left, I felt cleansed, I felt lighter. And and to me that was magical. Right. So to bring it back to your question, I think that it's not only about the youth. And I actually feel like there's an opportunity with the youth because of these tools, and because they don't necessarily have the stigmas or the old ways of thinking to more easily pass on the traditions. And just as importantly, we should work on some of our elders who don't quite get it. And we can find these ways to open them up to the experience. And the other thing I'll say about the the young people is in bringing them in and in using these tools to expose them, you know, that's all good and well, but we also need to be those of us that are aware and mindful that cultural preservation and passing of traditions is important and it is, it's identity affirming. Um, and we have folks who risk their lives in order to preserve it. And so we should honor that. We need intentionality. And so one of the points that that I like to make around that is when we're raising our children or our nieces and our nephews and our godchildren, what are the experiences that we are trying to give them? Right. We just passed the holidays, right? And so, what did I see a lot of? There was a lot of taking children to the Macy's Day parade in New York. There was taking them to a holiday festive train with pictures with Santa. That's all good and well. But are you being as intentional about bringing them to a cultural experience where they get to learn about their history, about who they are, where they come from? Because you need to know where you come from in order to know where you're going. So the tools are there, but also we need that intentionality in order to bring people, young people in.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Every time you say something, it's like a long list of things that I'm just like, oh my gosh. All right. So um I agree that um there's a bit lost in translation from old to new. For instance, um, growing up in Jamaica, there was this pantomime, and people are like, what is a pantomime called Bruckins? And I'm like, if you talk to anyone else about it, they're like, what is that? But um I just wanted to back up a little bit. And if you could briefly define Bumba, um, just give a description. My um sister show, um Strictly Facts, I also produced that. We did an episode on the history of Puerto Rico and Bomba. So I will link that for the audience, but in your words, just a brief description of Bumba for the audience. And then, of course, audience, I got you. I'll put the link to Strictly Facts so you can learn a little bit more about it there.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Yeah.

What Bomba Is And How It Heals

SPEAKER_00 21:58

So I am a student. Uh And I continue to learn about Bomba every day. And I want to say that up front because we are talking about a tradition that is 400 plus years old, right? And so I can spend a decade learning about it, but I still got 390. Um bomba is Puerto Rico's African music, right? So it is it is born on the island, um, but it is absolutely our tradition and our retention of African traditions. There is elements in there that you can see uh Taino indigenous retentions, um, and there's a lot of intersectionality between the two, in that Taino is also practiced in drum circles. Um, the word bate, which is used in bomba, is a Taino word, and the Maraca is a Taino instrument. But I say all of that to not erase, but those contributions are important to name. But bomba is without question Puerto Rico's black African ancestry. That's what the tradition is. And it is a drum music, it is a call and response music uh for me and for most people that I know in the space. Uh, it is a sacred music, it is a healing music, it is an act and a tradition of resistance, and it is incredibly powerful. The actual dynamic is that you have these drums that are originally made out of barrels, like rum barrels. Um, that was the material that was available to our ancestors, and so in in full creativity, they they made drums out of what they had. Um and you have one drum in particular. I think that this is like the highlight piece of Bumba music, but every element is absolutely necessary in order to create what what we all love and feel. One drum, one drummer, um, is responsible for communicating with one dancer, typically. In some places, there's two dancers, they're they dance in pairs. And the other drummers are responsible for holding the bass rhythm. And then there's a uh person playing what we call kwa, which is responsible for the timing. And then we have the singer who usually carries the maraca, and they're responsible for the tempo and the call and response of the song. All of these elements are absolutely necessary. It's like not one is more important than the other. Um, but what we're often taken by is the dynamic between the drummer and the dancer. And that dynamic is that unlike music in the way that we dancing right now, where the music plays, we dance to the beat, the dancer is creating music with his or her body and her movements. And so there is a language there, and it can be very nuanced. And there is an exchange happening, but it's happening so they're so in sync with one another that it looks like they're happening in the same moment in time. But what's really happening is that the dancer is utilizing the drummer to create music. And the drummer is interpreting these movements to create music. And so it can be very powerful when a dancer and a drummer just like lock in and sync up. And for someone who doesn't really know, it's almost like which one's coming first. Is it the drummer or the dancer? Um, and and so in a nutshell, that that is that is boom.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Thank you for explaining that. And I think in your explanation, you you said this a couple times, and this is coming off the heels of another conversation I had with someone. It's like, even though it's part of our culture, it's okay not knowing it fully and completely. And it's part of the experience or the journey is getting reacquainted to that which we A, we're either first not exposed to, or B, we're getting reacquainted with. And C, applying all of that in this new age that we're in, and how to practice that in this new age that we're in. My husband and I talk about how we grew up in Jamaica, going to primary school and the things we learned, and how while some of those things are really important, they they wouldn't quite work exactly the same way today, but they're pieces that we can interpret. So thank you for you know, just always being mindful that you're still learning and we're all always learning, even if it's part of our culture and it's part of what you said, right? Which is this cultural equity, affirming identity, and cultural preservation. And I think the audience, the carry-on friends audience, understands that in how important that is. But as we wrap up, how is this collectively important for all of us, not just for a Caribbean or Caribbean American audience? Like, what is the collective importance of this? And what would you love to see in the future as we move towards the change? So it's, yeah, in theory, I get why we're preserving culture, but like, what is the result of that? And why should we all be moving and creating our own little, you know, spheres of what Afrofuturism could look like? Because you said it starts in the creative process first. We have to imagine it, right? Even this idea of technology, a lot of this was imagined on probably Star Trek or some other movie that we now see in real life. And so that was something that really stuck out to me is that a lot of what we're seeing in technology were all imagined in these sci-fi movies. And that's part of a creative process. So I would love for you, you know, as we wrap up to talk about how important the creative process is to envisioning the future that we not only want but need for the newer generation that exists now and future generations, because I think that is just so important. Um, and I think the cultural equity and the affirming of identity is important for us to even begin to imagine a creative output for the future of what we should be. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that and you know what your work is in the future and galvanizing the community towards that.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

A couple pieces here, right? And

Why Preservation Matters For Everyone

SPEAKER_00 28:44

I'll try to be brief because I know we're wrapping up. The one, why is cultural preservation important beyond the communities that are preserving their culture, right? And I think it's critical because there's a lot of imbalance in our society, right? And some of us are living the short end of the stick of that imbalance, yet we are one society. And so we have a lot of imbalance because we have so many people who have been disconnected from who they are, from their history, from their ancestry. And to move in this world, to me, is nothing more important than knowing who you are, because that's how you move, because you know who you are, you know where you're going. And so it's critical, I think, for the betterment of the entirety of society. It's not fair for some people to know who and where they come from. And for another, when we talk about our young people, for our young people to just be up in the air about it, almost as if they just popped up into life just now, just popped up into society while their counterpart can trace back to 17th, 18th century, right? And knows their entire lineage, right? Um, that's imbalance. So that's one, and that's why it's important, and that's why cultural equity is important because again, back to that funding, what culture are we funding when we're funding um cultural preservation? The other piece is in terms of us as a community holding space, when I think about the Caribbean community in particular, I think about the fact that we we are essentially one. And there's so many ways in which we have separated from one another. And when we go back to our culture, when we go to deep diving into our history, we're able to find one another. We're able to see each other, right? And then that has real-time effects in the world today. And when we teach our young people that, we eliminate the ideas in their mind that I'm Puerto Rican, so I don't really get along with Dominicans, or I have nothing in common with Jamaicans, or Haiti and us, we're not the same. We're different, right? We eliminate that because we start to realize that there's cultural differences, there's nuances, and there's distinctions, and that's beautiful. But why are those distinctions there? Because we come from a common root, and we were able to preserve them in these different types of ways. But it's a common root. And so for us to really be able to advance what is solidarity and intersectionality, you have to go into culture and cultural preservation.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

I love that. Um, you mentioned the separation, and I'm like, that's a whole other episode. But uh it's important to call out because that's the work of this show, Strictly Facts, and you know, the other shows on the breadfruit media, that the Caribbean was the first real experiment on um colonialism and imperialism and I just got chosen and slavery. It's really the lab and that the successes, you know, in quotes of that lab was taken to North America. So that's a whole other conversation, but this is why this is important. And, you know, this idea of affirming your identity is because it's the way I can stand tall, and all the other Jamaicans and the other Caribbean people could walk into this world because they know who they are. And so even if, and I and I just want to point out this to the audience, even if it's not someone else stealing the culture, that affirmation of identity might get lost because I've moved here from Jamaica almost 30 years now. My kids live here. So the the connection that um biblical core to the country is very different from mine. And so the affirmation of identity is the same for them, but it takes on a very different way. So even though you're describing affirmation of identity in a in one way, it it applies in different ways once we have generations that are not connected to the home country the same way. So I really want the audience to take away that the cultural equity and the affirmation of identity applies to us differently than it applies to our children, but it's also critically important for the preservation of our culture and the overall holistic affirmation of our culture and identity. That's right. So I really, really, really thank you for coming on the podcast and opening this new window of our conversation that we should have and keep in mind. And then in this affirmation of identity, how do we then go out in the world and plant seeds, you know, to continue or cultivate our culture in new ways? So I really, really appreciate this conversation. I really do. And we may have to bring you back on in the future around Caribbean American Heritage Month and all these other things, because I just think it's a necessary conversation. So why don't you tell the community of friends where they could find you, interact with you, and stay connected with you?

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Yeah, absolutely. Um, two places. I am on Instagram as Bianca Velez. Um, and I'm also on Instagram as Cultura Lovers. So culture, but with an A instead of an E, lovers, and both uh Biancavelez.com and Culturalovers.com.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Bianca. And as I love to say at the end of every episode, which by the way is part of my preservation of culture because it's a very Jamaican saying, it is walk good. And walk good was a term that the elders used when someone came to visit their home and they were leaving. A lot of them weren't driving cars, you know, they were walking wherever home, and they would say walk good, which was a way of saying be careful, right? And so until the next time I see you, be careful in going home and in whatever you do. So that that still applies with cars or whatever. So it's like it said a good night or bye-bye. They said walk good. Hello. Yes. So for the last gosh, however many years I've been doing the podcast since 2015, I end the show with walk good. So thank you for grounding this episode in the preservation of culture. So um, walk good.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Thank you so much, Carrie Ann, and thank you for holding space. It's important what you're doing here.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

Thank you.