Audio
Salsa Stories 101
Transcript
0:21 Hermán Luis Chávez: Buenos días y welcome to Oíste?, a National Park Service podcast. I’m Hermán Luis Chávez…
0:29 Melissa Hurtado: … and I’m Melissa Hurtado. In the Oíste? podcast, we explore salsa stories of Afro Latin music in the United States through interviews and conversations.
0:38 Hermán Luis Chávez: In today’s episode, Salsa Stories 101, we’ll tell you all about Oíste, which is not only a podcast, but also three other exciting projects about salsa culture.
0:52 Melissa Hurtado: We'll also be talking about salsa stories, both the ones we’ve come to know and love, and our own memories of salsa.
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1:09 Hermán Luis Chávez: We're finally here! This project has been a long time coming. But what even is Oíste? If you're listening to us now, you've probably stumbled upon the rest of our projects too. But just in case you haven't, Oíste: Listening to the Salsa Stories of Afro Latin Music is a digital interactive multimedia project. It connects to topics of the past, present, and future by exploring stories of salsa’s Afro Latin roots, understanding its role in US history, and highlighting its impacts on society today.
1:45 Melissa Hurtado: We suggest you start off with reading Lo Necesario: Introducing Oíste?, which gives you an overview of salsa music and how it's related to US history while summarizing the content found in the rest of our projects. This is a great one to read, especially if you're low on time.
2:02 Hermán Luis Chávez: For those curious about the people, places and stories across salsa culture, experience Pathways Through Salsa, which blazes trails through themes and questions to help you think deeply about how salsa histories relate to you and the world.
2:19 Melissa Hurtado: Salsa is also the objects that people use. You can learn more about them, from instruments to posters to even Celia Cruz’s dress, by browsing Materiales, our online salsa exhibit.
2:32 Hermán Luis Chávez: And of course, we've got this podcast season right here with six exciting episodes with and about some people who contribute to salsa.
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2:47 Melissa Hurtado: Now you know about Oíste?, and how a big part of this project is stories about salsa. When we say salsa, we’re talking about music, dance, and community, but what do we mean by stories? This is a big question, but it’s one that helps us understand what we're doing in Oíste?.
3:07 Hermán Luis Chávez: A part of stories is who has the power to tell them. Stories shape history, so who tells those stories and how they tell them matters.
3:17 Melissa Hurtado: When it comes to salsa, stories are documented not only through the songs that tell us about histories, but also in smaller communities that have come together in living rooms, restaurants, and clubs to remember celebrate and imagine together.
3:30 Hermán Luis Chávez: What this tells us is that stories that make up history are also personal, and that personal aspect matters. It means that I have my own salsa stories, so does Melissa, and so do you. All have this is salsa history.
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3:55 Melissa Hurtado: My salsa story is about healing my inner child. My first sort of recollection of salsa ever was definitely when I was living in Colombia. And Christmastime in Colombia is pretty crazy. Everybody goes out in the streets, going to different people's houses and eating. And when I think back on that memory and that landscape, the soundtrack to that memory is salsa. And if you can visualize: like imagine you're me—little me—walking through the streets, and on each side you see people's doors and they're fully open, like welcome to come in. The whole street sort of playing music from like one boombox or whatever, or speaker. So that's a really early memory of mine. And when I think back on it, I definitely took it for granted, didn't know how beautiful that was, and how inviting the sounds were. Specifically in this time, I think these sounds are a way to kind of escape your reality and celebrate in the moment.
5:04 Hermán Luis Chávez: I really like that about being able to stay more in the moment. The idea that salsa allows us to experience the present more.
5:16 Melissa Hurtado: Not only is it a soundtrack of holiday times, but it's also a soundtrack to my mom cleaning at like 7am on Saturday mornings. I remember her like waking up super early—a lot of salsa was played. And this was like pre like Spotify and like Apple Music and stuff. So I'm like, “is she playing it on YouTube, or Pandora, like how is she finding these tracks?” I'm not really sure. It’s so funny that the soundtrack is like—yes, something that you listen to in community, but it's also something you listen to clean. And I think a lot of people can kind of relate to that as well.
5:55 Hermán Luis Chávez: There's something about Latina moms and Pandora radio at eight o'clock in the morning. Yeah, I've definitely shared that experience, Melissa, and I think a lot of people have too. For me, I think coming out as a gender queer person makes it really hard to feel the same way as I did back then as like a little “boy” with salsa music, because now it's a little harder for me to dance with people and feel comfortable about it. Because people are coming from all sorts of different backgrounds when it comes to salsa, and many of us kind of only know one way to dance it in terms of the role that you take. So yeah, I think for me, salsa is also like, about asking the question, “where do I fit in? Right? Where, where exactly like do I fit in?” But you know, the good thing is, is that salsa has been somewhere with that question.
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6:58 Melissa Hurtado: Well, we know salsa is complicated and there's a lot of stories, but together we're recognising the diversities of all of the stories and places that have connections to salsa.
7:09 Hermán Luis Chávez: And always remember, these are just a few things to get us started. You can discover so much more about salsa on the National Park Service website and throughout your community.
7:20 Melissa Hurtado: Thank you and gracias for listening to Oíste? I'm Melissa
7:26 Hermán Luis Chávez … and I'm Hermán. to learn more about Oíste?, American Latino Heritage, and Telling All Americans Stories at the National Park Service, please visit nps.gov/subjects/TellingAllAmericansStories.
7:40 Melissa Hurtado: Tune in to the next episode for a conversation with a National Park Service employee about their own salsa stories in Episode 2: A Park Ranger's Salsa Memories.
7:51 Hermán Luis Chávez: Hasta pronto!
Description
Oíste? Listening to the Stories of Afro Latin Music documents salsa stories in diverse ways including an online exhibit, explorations into salsa history, and this podcast. In Episode 1: Salsa Stories 101, Hermán and Melissa explain the elements of the Oíste? Project, discuss why salsa stories are important, and share a few of our very own salsa stories. (Music © No Más - La Banda)
Credit
National Park Service
Date Created
07/28/2023
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