Audio
A Park Ranger's Salsa Memories
Transcript
0:20 Hermán Luis Chávez: Buenos días y welcome to Oíste?, a National Park Service podcast. I’m Hermán Luis Chávez…
0:27 Melissa Hurtado: … and I’m Melissa Hurtado. In the Oíste? podcast, we explore the salsa stories of Afro Latin music in the United States through interviews and conversations.
0:38 Hermán Luis Chávez: In today's episode, space in place, a conversation with Park Service salseros, we'll be looking within.
0:41 Melissa Hurtado: We’ll be listening to Daniel Agudelo’s salsa stories. Daniel is the Nike Missile Site Coordinator at Everglades National Park.
0:49 Hermán Luis Chávez: Together, we’ll discover how documenting salsa stories contributes to the preservation of Salsa history since many historical accounts still live in people’s memories rather than history books.
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1:11 Hermán Luis Chávez: On August 25 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the act that created the National Park Service. Its mission is to preserve unimpaired natural and cultural resources and values of the national park system for the enjoyment, education and inspiration of this and future generations. The Park Service cooperates with partners to extend the benefits of Natural and Cultural Resource Conservation and outdoor recreation throughout this country and the world.
1:39 Melissa Hurtado: Because the National Park Service is a land stewardship agency, all of the stories we tell are place based in some way. But what are place connections? Place connections are the cultural resources such as buildings, sites and objects that are in some way linked to a National Park Service Unit or program.
1:58 Hermán Luis Chávez: The Park Service is dedicated to telling all Americans’ stories through these place connections, including Latino heritage stories. The National Park Service initially focused on Spanish colonial history, but today, the Park Service is exploring ways to tell these stories that represents the broader contributions of Latinos in our nation. Telling Latino stories for the enjoyment, education and inspiration of this and future generations is an important part of the National Park Service's mission.
2:26 Melissa Hurtado: So today, we can think about different ways the National Park Service helps communities preserve salsa history. One example is Casa Amadeo in New York City, the oldest running record store in the US. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places because someone cared enough about preserving it to document and nominate it.
2:47 Hermán Luis Chávez: During the Bronx fires in the 1970s and other perilous times, Casa Amadeo stood as a beacon of light for Newyoricans and other Latinos. Mike Amadeo, composer, musician and community historian cultivated a space where musicians and community members felt that they could reconnect with our culture through music. Casa Amadeo, along with other record stores around the country grew into key spaces for salsa.
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3:22 Hermán Luis Chávez: Let's welcome Daniel Agudelo, who is the Nike Missile Site coordinator at Everglades National Park. Daniel started off as an intern for the park service through different organizations such as the Student Conservation Association and the American Conservation Experience. He is committed to bringing institutional change by creating welcoming and diverse environments and programs such as leading tours in Spanish.
3:44 Melissa Hurtado: Bienvenido! Thank you so much for agreeing to speak with us. We're very excited to hear your stories, your connections to salsa, and everything else you have to say today. How are you doing today, Danny?
5:57 Daniel Agudelo: I'm doing great. Good morning or good afternoon to Herman and to you, Miss Melissa.
4:03 Melissa Hurtado: Tell us a little bit about what you do, your experiences with the Park Service and what it means to be Latino, specifically Colombian American in the workforce.
4:14 Daniel Agudelo: Sure. So I am living my dream as an interpretive park ranger at Everglades National Park. I do about eight different types of guided programs. But what I tend to focus the most is this historic Nike Missile base, which was active throughout the Cold War. It was constructed in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis. So I tend to oversee an award-winning volunteer program, I'm proud to say, because the volunteer program won most outstanding volunteer program in the southeast United States, for the National Park Service. I really enjoy what I'm doing as an educator, you know, and it has also allowed me to appreciate my own home, I noticed the subtleties in the beauty of South Florida. I'll give it to the park that it's allowed me to learn a lot about myself. And it has made me actually feel more proud of my heritage.
5:13 Hermán Luis Chávez: That's so amazing to hear. And, you know, you mentioned, you know, this relationship to getting to know yourself better through the Park Service, and the really strong connection that endures with South Florida. So have you brought in aspects of your Latino heritage into the work that you've done? Like, what does it look like to use your cultural knowledge and cultural competency in the work that you do?
5:39 Daniel Agudelo: Yes! So I have been able to connect with people of all walks of life, and from all corners of the world, in helping them share my experiences, my wisdom, you know, through the guided program that I do. But also it's just being there, you know, present, right, you have to fill in this space that historically wasn't there, you know, and the fact that you have this local person from the local area that National Parks speaks volumes. It is very powerful for me, because there's kids, you know, that are from the area who come to the park, and they see someone who looks like them, you know, and that allows them to realize that this can be a realistic career, you know. It is very, off putting, if you go to a park, and you don't see people from from that local area, you know. So where are these local people? So the fact that I have that opportunity to be, quote, unquote, a, a representative of my community, is very rewarding, very humbling for me as well, especially the fact that I am Colombian American. We talk about how rare Florida Panthers are, but how rare is it to see a Latino in the green and grey, or let alone a Colombian American in that nature there, you know. So, how I present myself, and the actions that I do, oftentimes, weigh a bit more than other people who are of other Latino nationalities, because of the fact that there's not too many Colombian Americans out there in the current sense, but you'd think that this pressure would get to you. But on the contrary, you know, it makes you want to continue, I guess, paving a trail - paving the path for future Colombian Americans to do a job like a park ranger.
7:45 Hermán Luis Chávez: That's so amazing to hear. This, like sense of community I think is so important in in the work that also means that we are connecting ourselves to other people to the work that we do and everything. And I think that resonates a lot with me as a like a Bolivian American as well. It's really this sense of understanding that, like these backgrounds, that you don't think that you can have a relationship with these different things like it's true, you actually can. And I feel like it's kind of similar with salsa, you know, that coming from all of these different places, and having these different senses of community, I think are also built through the way that we've experienced specifically salsa together. So, to talk more about that, can you tell us about your experiences, memories and connections that you have with salsa music, what it means to you, and if there are any spaces, I mean, you've talked about community so much, if there are any, you know, places that really resonate with this salsa experience that you've had.
8:42 Daniel Agudelo: Sure. Well, I am Colombian, so that means coffee and salsa run through my veins, and that is the reason why I am the way I am. But salsa means home. It means passion. It means warmth. You know, in every family party or New Year's, you know, you will hear salsa music, and I was always dancing, you know, since I was young, and oftentimes I tended to be the only young person that was dancing. Being a young boy came to my advantage because then that allowed you to be able to dance with a lot of these older ladies that you know wouldn’t have the opportunity to dance with men. A little personal anecdote that I wanted to share with you guys a few years ago, maybe when I was eight, or nine. So a lot of years ago, we were in the New Years, and I was dancing with my great aunt, we were dancing the night away, and we were sweating and sweating and sweating. And well, long story short, she ended up getting a cold, because as she had left the party, she was sweating in the cold weather got to her. You know, so it's just interesting and funny how, you know, salsa provides that connection, that platform. And salsa, even though salsa, every country is unique and different in its own right, there is still a lot of similarities, you know, and salsa is something that allows for a lot more Latinos of different nationalities to feel a bit more connected. And to share something part of everyone's heritage.
10:25 Melissa Hurtado: That's, first of all, it's such a beautiful story and the fact that you were able to connect with sort of older folks of your family through dance, because I know, sometimes it's hard to just have conversations or even connect with like the younger people of your family, but you were able to bridge that gap through music. I'm just really glad that you were able to tell us that story and the memories with salsa. Do you have any specific like public spaces, for example, in Miami, where you've gone out to dance salsa, or has it mostly been in like family, homes and spaces.
11:03 Daniel Agudelo: So it's been both in family and friend’s places, but it has also been in a public venue. So, Little Havana is an area that is a hotspot, you have the famous Ball and Chain, you have the Latino Walk of Fame as well. So I remember dancing the night away, let's say with college friends that came to visit me from Michigan or from elsewhere, showing them a piece of my culture. Everyone feels connected with music, you don't have to understand the language to enjoy and appreciate the music, you know, you can enjoy the beats of it, you can enjoy the instruments of it as well. So I think salsa is a very, very, very unique, very, very, very powerful type of movement, for sure.
11:55 Melissa Hurtado: I really appreciate you giving us your insights with that. And I just kind of want to talk about the power of place and bring it back to just aspects and conversations of the National Park Service, as well as your connections with it. So you mentioned in a previous interview, that the National Park Service as an institution is making serious efforts to look more like America, and that the most successful efforts to improve diversity often come from the bottom up. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?
12:29 Daniel Agudelo: Of course! You know, so if you want to build a movement, a coalition, you have to start from the bottom, right, because by being in the frontlines, that allows you to help gain supporters. You need the supporters for this movement to be a successful. This movement that I'm talking about is making the parks - making public lands more accessible. So if you see more Rangers that are in the front line, that connect with the visitors that look different, you know, that have different aspirations, or that came from different backgrounds, you know, that richness and diversity allows for people to want to come back, or it offers people from the local community to feel more comfortable to go visit because then they'll feel more connected. I am a big supporter of those initiatives. If it weren't for these initiatives, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place. So I am eternally grateful at the fact that, you know, the Park Service allowed me to have these experiences because a lot of Latinos wouldn't have this experience. You know, sometimes you have low social economic status, or sometimes your career interests lay elsewhere. You have pressures, social pressures, societal pressures, you know, so the fact that you have this opportunity offers a good way for people to learn, for people to try things out, for people to wet their feet.
14:05 Melissa Hurtado: I completely agree. I think when initiatives programs are tried out by what you know, what we call frontline workers, or people working directly with the community, you're able to sort of test the waters to see what for example, what is more engaging. Thank you so much for the work that you do. I've heard such great initiatives come from Everglades National Park from Nike Missile Site and just your interpretation efforts as well.
14:32 Daniel Agudelo: Yes, you're totally right. You know, all of these initiatives do help ripple out, you know, and then the park starts to see, you know, these effects. And I'll give you guys a little personal story. Well, when I was a wee little baby, seasonal Ranger, I took it upon myself to do a Spanish lead guided walk, right. I am fluent in French. And it's funny how I use more French than Spanish at Everglades National Park. You're in South Florida, you'd expect to have visitors that speak Spanish. No, you know, so I said, well, gee, how can I make the park more accessible? Well, let me create this Spanish led guided walk. And I thought it was going to be easy. I thought it was going to be, you know, copying and pasting my English program script on Google Translate and translating it. But it wasn't that easy. Now, when I did this program, I said, well, how can I bring in this audience that I want, you know, I want people to know that you don't need to speak English to enjoy Everglades National Park, you know, so the audience that I wanted, wouldn't have been the audience that would have checked regularly on the social media of the National Park. So I said, let me reach out to the newspaper, and the Hojera to advertise this. I mean, they were able to advertise this program, you know, because different audiences do different things, whether they listen to the radio, you know, or you have Caracol, or you have these other famous Spanish radios, or you have the newspapers you have Telemundo. Univision, you know, so you can't you know, it's different, you know, people think, you know, it's all a monolith. But it is not a monolith, you have to really kind of dive in and see the type of audience you want, and how you interact with them. Well, I got my publication out in Hojera, then I did my program. I had about 25 people show up, which was successful in its own right, you know, whether I had one person, 25 people, or 500 people. I did my due diligence, which was to provide information out there, you know, and it worked. Because I had a family, a Venezuelan family, who were recent immigrants, to Miami from Venezuela. And they had known about the Everglades. They had seen documentaries of the Everglades on National Geographic in Venezuela, and they were so excited. But they swore that they needed to speak English, to enjoy the park. So they were going to wait until their young son turned of age so that then the young son can guide them through the National Park. Well, they were reading the Hojera, and they read this article that said, wow, Everglades National Park is advertising this free Spanish lead walk... I want to sign up. And so then they go out. And they tell me this story. And I say, wow, well, that was the mission. Mission completed, you know, the fact that people now know that you don't have to speak a certain language to enjoy something is just so powerful. And that, again, ties in with the whole salsa movement. You know, sometimes you don't have to speak the language to enjoy something that can be universal, you know. So that is a nice little personal story that I wanted to share with you guys. Hopefully, that, you know, can be tied in with this whole salsa movement. You know, because it's true. A lot of people are hesitant, or people don't do research, or people don't feel connected, when in reality is a lot more stuff that can get you connected. And salsa. Universal. Being out in these parks. Universal. These spaces of community where you can interact with people of all different walks of life and all different nationalities is awesome. You know, so you have your dancing stage, walking these trails, or dancing the night away, in Ball and Chain or these other salsa clubs.
18:32 Melissa Hurtado: Yeah, wow, what an impactful story Danny, I think what you're doing is so impactful for families of people, and not to mention the way that you're actually you're getting the information out there. Because you're right, it's not a monolith. A lot of people don't necessarily go to social media to get their news. As you know, a lot of older Latino folk go to the News, the news is always playing right. It's that's sort of their own way of social media. So I really appreciate you looking beyond ways of communication. And it kind of brings me to my next question of interpretation. And so, the National Park Service interprets Latino stories and heritage. How do you envision the National Park Service telling more Latino stories that stray away from reducing it to one single narrative or identity?
19:24 Daniel Agudelo: Yes, so for starters, there should be maybe regional, let's say, offices, where these regional offices then take into consideration the diversity of the Latino culture within that specific region. You know, because if you say, there's only one area in the country that will specialize in Latino culture, then most of it is going to be the majority of Latinos. So having regional offices, I think make a bit more sense than just having one central office, you know, because then that can reduce this whole monolithic perspective, that the Latino is just one type of group.
20:11 Hermán Luis Chávez: Absolutely. I think that these recommendations that you're making, and the stories that you've told us as well, I think it really reveals this concept that even though the quote unquote Latino community has a lot of things that we might be able to share in terms of cultural experiences, we also each have our own stories, and you never know what representation or storytelling on and all these other things can mean for people from different communities when they see that and they realize that there is more available to them. So on that note, what steps do you think the NPS can take to preserve and interpret salsa history kind of within this frame?
20:54 Daniel Agudelo: Of course, well, the first thing is, is to accept that salsa history is US history. Right? Once you have that accepted, you know, as a fact, then you can start moving on. US history is salsa history. I think that more and more and more people are accepting salsa, more people appreciate it, understand what salsa is and the movement of salsa.
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21:31 Melissa Hurtado: Thank you so much to Daniel for sharing his stories and connections to salsa with us, as well as his experience with the National Park Service.
21:40 Hermán Luis Chávez: Today, we asked Daniel to share what preserving salsa history looks like to him. And here is our key takeaway. Salsa history is US history. And that point is so important. So I'm going to say it one more time: Salsa history is US history.
21:59 Melissa Hurtado: We hope to continue this conversation on a national level to keep preserving and interpreting salsa history for enjoyment, education and inspiration of this and future generations. I don't know about you Herman, but personally, I think it would be really interesting to explore the Mariel boatlift and later musical connections to salsa and culture in Miami. I feel like this could easily be connected to some places within the South River Drive Historic District, which was actually listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
22:32 Hermán Luis Chávez: That's such a great example, Melissa, I think this tells us all that we can spend some time thinking to ourselves: what salsa stories do you think should be told on a national level?
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22:53 Melissa Hurtado: Thank you and gracias for listening to us. I'm Melissa…
22:58 Hermán Luis Chávez: …and I'm Hermán. To learn more about Oiste, American Latino heritage, and telling all Americans’ stories at the National Park Service, please visit nps.gov/subjects/tellingallamericansstories
23:13 Melissa Hurtado: and tune in to our next episode, “Bailando Juntas: Salsa Dancing Beyond the Binary,” where we will talk to two dancers on what it means to reframe gender and salsa dancing.
23:25 Hermán Luis Chávez: Hasta Pronto!
Description
Documenting salsa stories contributes to the preservation of Salsa history since many historical accounts still live in people’s memories rather than history books. In Episode 2: A Park Ranger’s Salsa Memories, Daniel Agudelo shares what it's like to work for the NPS, tell us some of his salsa stories, and gives us some insight into what salsa preservation can look like through the NPS. (Music © No Más - La Banda)
Date Created
07/28/2023
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