“I hated it, when my parents would listen to all that horrible music” said the young woman in my office; after asking me where I was from and telling me where her parents were from in Puerto Rico, another small mountain town. When she mentioned the town, I said: “Jíbaros como yo.” Her Christmas at home -music, food, dance-, and then her remark, said without any concern as to how I felt about those glorious centuries old décimas and controversias o cadenas or La Calandria, La Alondra, Chuito, Ramito. She was my student, majoring in education and languages, and I consciously, politely, and academically suggested to her to take a course on fundamentals of music. It was obvious she needed to start from ground zero; was not ready to read about 19th Century Espronceda and the history of Jíbaro music; a content she needed to master later on, if she planned to teach in her own old community: the South Bronx.
(from the book in .pdf, My Bilingual New York, June 2019)
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