Yaileen Baez-Giron
English 110
March 29, 2016
The Queen of Salsa vs Cuba
Celia Cruz was born Celia Caridad Cruz Alfonso on October 21, 1925, in a working-class neighborhood of Havana, Cuba. She began singing professionally on Cuban radio and in nightclubs in the late 1940s while studying music theory and voice at a music academy in Havana from 1947 to 1950. In 1950, she began singing with the popular Cuban orchestra La Sonora Matancera. Over the next 15 years, they collaborate had many hit singles, which raised Celia to the top and she performed diverse Afro-Cuban music throughout the Caribbean, South America, and the U.S.
While Celia’s career was placing her as one of the best singers on the island, the Cuban revolution was also beginning.
They basically wore this mask to hide who they really was. The white society saw African American as basically an outsider and as people that were way below them. So many of these people got so a custom to society seeing them in that way that they sort of developed a “double consciousness”. What this mean is that to the world they act a certain way because it the “right” then to do, but at home or places where they can’t be judge they be who they really are. Du Bois states that we should fight back this “Double Consciousness” and just be who we were born to be. Good things come out when we act like the person that we are. We see this a lot during Celia Cruz career. Field Castro was trying to emerge her in this “double consciousness” idea but telling her who she had to be and what to say to the outside world. He wanted to control her very little step but she didn’t give in. The day that she left to Mexico and decided to never return to the island was the first day that she decided to fight back this “double consciousness” idea and just be herself. She didn’t want to do things she wasn’t comfortable, let alone be force to be someone she wasn’t. The day she sang “In Case of No Return” was the day she took of her mask and let the world see her true
Selena began performing at an early age. Selena’s father, Abraham, became her manager and Los Dinos became her backing band. In 1983 she made her recording debut after appearing on the popular radio show of L. A. deejay Johnnie Canales. Her first records were recorded in Spanish and she sang the words phonetically.2 After her music began to catch on, she began learning Spanish formally and by the time of her death, she was fluent in the language.
Celia, A Slave by Melton McLaurin tells a true story of a female slave who was sexually exploited by her master and the trial she faced as a result. At the young age of fourteen, Celia was brought to Callaway County under her new master, Robert Newsom. Celia later murdered Newsom, in an act of self-defense, and was placed on a trial challenging the institute of slavery and the moral beliefs of anyone involved with slavery in the South. The short life of the young Celia revealed a slave girl who had pushed beyond the ideal limit of a system that denied her humanity and threatened to erode the base of the antebellum southern society.
Many Cubans in exile, such as my neighbor, Roca Beiro, a professional caterer whom I had the opportunity to interview, informed me that many Cubans have cut down on the starches they consume and that they try to follow a healthier diet. Due to the lack of time in their day to day life, many buy products, such as black beans, because preparing them from scratch is very time consuming. In addition, Cubans have added more salads to their diet, use less sauces, and prepare fewer potajes (stews). They have also adapted more American foods into their daily life since their children are exposed to them at school and through their acquaintance with endless chains of fast food restaurants in their communities. For example, breakfast in Cuba usually consists of café con leche and tostada (coffee with milk and Cuban toast).
In The Soul of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois talks about the struggles that the African Americans faced in the twentieth century. Du Bois mentions the conflict that concepts such as the “double consciousness” (or duality), “the veil” and the “color-line” posed for Black Americans. In his book he says that African Americans struggle with a double consciousness. He explicates that African American are forced to adopt two separate identities. First they are black, and that identity pertains to the color of their skin, the second identity is the American identity. However, he continues that the American identity is tainted because it is that if being American now but were slaves first. In other words, the double consciousness is saying that black people
Du Bois’s concepts many African American suffered racial discrimination at the hand of White-America. They were lead to believe they were not equal to their White counterparts merely based on the color of their skin. W.E.B Du Bois outline his concept that addressed the division of cultures. He called this division color-lines. Color-lines that also made it difficult for blacks see themselves as anything other than the way they were portrayed by white-America. We learned the term “Veils” a “physical demarcation of difference from whiteness as they attempt to be both American and African in a white Society, where one identity is less equal than the other”. W.E.B. Du Bois spoke of the “road of the double consciousness produced by wearing the veil the split identity of Black” has helped to further oppress African-American and their belief for equality”. Both terms “veil and double-counsciousness designed to affect the African-American Identity in a negative way. My essay not only addressed black-American and the effects of discrimination. I included other groups affected by discrimination such as Hispanic, Asians, gays, non-Christians, the elderly, and even women. Last I compared a movement recently created to combat discrimination against
This double-consciousness creates a veil in which an individual is isolated from the rest of the world. It traps a person into a certain view of life, which does not allow them to see differently but only allows them to see themselves through the eyes of what other think or see of them. African Americans have been affected by the veil in the sense that it makes them feel inferior and secluded from the rest of society. It keeps them from becoming fully conscious of themselves. They see themselves as how they are perceived by the white community. As Du Bois has pointed out in his book, “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line” (Pg. 13). The issue black’s face in the south are the prejudices of white society. The white society does not want blacks to be at the same level as them. They want blacks to be inferior to them as they were when they were subject to slavery because that is what they are used to. Whites do not like the change where blacks are free to decide their own life so they take action to create obstacles for blacks. In turn blacks fear this change to improve and decide their own life’s because of the consequences that would be imposed onto them for their decisions in life. For example, blacks feared getting educated because they would then be
It is important that the culture is thoroughly researched so that it can be portrayed accurately. The historical context in which the culture is being described can affect the way the audience relates to the topic (Hall 272-273). The narrator tells the audience how his feelings towards his grandparents changed after he realized the truth about the world he lived in. The mistreatment of Africans and African Americans because of their skin color is shown throughout the novel. Even though some of the acts against them in the novel were horrendous, they were wronged far worse in the past. “I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed at myself for having at one time been ashamed. About eighty-five years ago they were told that they were free, united with others of our country in everything pertaining to the common good, and, in everything social, separate from the fingers of the hand. And they believed it. They exulted it. They stayed in their place, worked hard, and brought up my father to do the same” (Ellison 15). This novel takes places in the 1930’s and so the time period that narrator could be speaking about is the end of the civil war. The civil war ended slavery and made all African Americans free. Eighty-five years ago they were led to believe that they were just as free and would be treated as the whites had. They were told that they were equal with the whites when it came “the common good” and “everything social.” The dominant culture lied to them because it knew that if it made the African Americans feel welcome and feel part of the group, that it could manipulate them into acting how it wanted them to. African Americans wanted to show that they were equal to their white counter parts so they did exactly as they were told and made sure that they never fell out of line. It was
Female singers in Cuba were not very popular, especially ones of afro-cuban descent. Regardless they got someone to sign them and their first song got played on the radio. They soon became a huge hit in Cuba and began touring at first in just Cuba but then moved throughout Latin America. Throughout the fifties they enjoyed their fame, but it came to an end in 1959 when the Communist Party took control of Cuba. La Sonora Matancera, while touring in Mexico decided to leave Cuba for good and moved to the United States. After that she only toured in the United
Du Bois’ concept of “double consciousness,” Fanon asserts that the Black people’s psyches are deformed by Whites’ anti-Black racism. The defamation of blackness, as it is set forth in the colonial structure, constitutes a cumulative trauma that severely affects the self. It is a “projective” racial identity that ascribes all negative and inferior aspects onto the Black skin. In order to escape the zone of nonbeing, into which Black people are forced by White projections, Black people often try to escape that lot by acting White, aspiring to live up to standards that are impossible to achieve, turning the internalized self-hatred against themselves and other people of color. This alienation from self and one’s heritage needs to be reversed. The process of disalienation is long and painful; it is a constant struggle. While Fanon’s assessment of the situation in Black Skin, White Masks left entailed the hope that reconciliation and healing between Blacks and Whites was achievable, he later changed his outlook in so far that he realized that the colonizers’ psychological warfare would forever impede it, and along with it, the natives’ chance to reclaim their
In the nineteenth century, slaves were afforded very few, if any, civil rights and freedoms, often being treated very cruelly. Although the abusive treatment of slaves was not unusual, the act of a slave protecting themselves against a master was. In the book Celia, A Slave, McLaurin recounts the trial of a female slave who was charged, convicted, and later executed for the crime of murdering her master in 1855. The author provides evidence for her argument through analyzation of documents gathered from Callaway County, Missouri, and the area surrounding, during the mid-nineteenth century. As the circumstances of Celia’s case were unique, in the fact that she had violently retaliated, the debate arose as to whether she was afforded rights to
middle of paper ... ... To prevent any altercation, African Americans had to wear a mask that allowed them to smile "with torn and bleeding hearts" and "mouth. myriad subtleties" (4-5). Today, everyone is entitled to equal opportunities in the US.
Everyone is raised within a culture with a set of customs and morals handed down by those generations before them. Most individual’s view and experience identity in different ways. During history, different ethnic groups have struggled with finding their place within society. In the mid-nineteen hundreds, African Americans faced a great deal of political and social discrimination based on the tone of their skin. After the Civil Rights Movement, many African Americans no longer wanted to be identified by their African American lifestyle, so they began to practice African culture by taking on African hairdos, African-influenced clothing, and adopting African names. By turning away from their roots, many African Americans embraced a culture that was not inherited, thus putting behind the unique and significant characteristics of their own inherited culture. Therefore, in an African American society, a search for self identity is a pervasive theme.
" The Souls of Black Folk", is a collection of autobiographical and historical essays contains many vast themes. There is the theme of souls and their attainment of consciousness, the theme of double consciousness and the duality and bifurcation of black life and culture. One of Dubious the most outstanding themes is the idea of "the veil." The veil provides a connection between the fourteen seemingly independent essays that make up "The Souls of Black Folk". Mentioned at least once in most of the essays, it means that, "the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second sight in this American world, -a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others”. The veil seems to be a metaphor for the separation and invisibility of black life and existence in America. It is also a major reoccurring theme in many books written about black life in America.
The Concept of the veil has been a significant symbol of clearly differentiating from the whites, in aspects of political, economical and social prospects. Durkheim explained symbol as “something that stands for something else”(pg. 135). It is a symbol that calls up shared notions and values. In the example of the Blacks in the south, the veil symbolized an “iron curtain” separating the two races, separation and invisibility, of the black and white. The veil had previously been worn because of previous traditions demanding a clear separation of the sexes. The veil is seen as a social barrier to prevent the “others”, black African Americans, from surpassing into the clean and pure white world. Nonetheless Du bois also states, that its possible for one to, lift up the veil when one wishes, and he can also exist in a region on neither side, white nor black, which shows Du bois’ many different meaning and function with the symbol of the veil.
...re, Robin D, (2006) Music and Revolution: Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba. University of California Press: New York