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Volume 37Spring-Summer

2011

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Central Park Rumba is an internationally known music evenI first heard about it in Mexico City in 1980, described ingreat detail by Cesar Sandoval, a drummer who had lived inNew York and frequented the rumba circle in the 1970s. InSan Diego, Central Park (CP) Rumba had been the rehearscontext for some of the Puerto Rican musicians I knew from

the late 1980s Latin jazz scene. When traveling to Havanato visit my family in the 1990s, rumberos(rumbadrummers) and other musicians asked me if I knew theirrumba friends from Union City, the Bronx, and Central Parkarrived at my first CP Rumba the second week of Septemb1994, my first week living in the city. There in Central Park, was told that rumba was addictive. I got hooked! I became aregular to the scene.
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Return to Table ofContents

Underneath

the shading

branches of

ancient willow

trees, the

rumbas

pulsating

rhythms echo

the soundscape

of New York

Citys Afro-

Latin

diaspora:Puerto Ricans,

Cubans,

Dominicans,

Colombians,

Panamanians,

and every

otherethnicitys

drum-playing

aficionados

ather here.

Traditional rumba, what is known as el complejo de la rumb(the rumba genre), has taught me to understand howperformance, music and dance, sound, and gesture functioas reservoirs of memorythey transmit history, its futureand possible contestation. I am particularly interested inembodiment as a source of knowledge, and rumbaarticulates a repertoire of material, historical, and discursivknowledge through the embodiment of gestures, movemenand sound. Rumba has also taught me that whileperformance is ephemeral, embodiment is not.

Unison: rumba chorus. All photos: Berta Jottar

CP: The Rumba Scene

When the temperature reaches 65 degrees on a Sundayafternoon, the southwest corner of Central Parks rowboatlake becomes the destination of New Yorks rumberos.However, the official rumba season starts on the secondSunday in May, the day of the Cuban Parade, or paradaasits called within the New York Latino/a community. Rumbais an African-based music and dance form of Cuba. Since th
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Discography

Bob, Eddie. 1999.Central Park

Rumba. Berlin:Piranha Musik. CD.

ConjuntoGuaguancMatancero & Papiny sus Rumberos.1954. ConjuntoGuaguancMatancero & Papin

y Sus Rumberos.Havana: AntillaRecords. LP.

Grupo Folklorico deAlberto Zayas.1955. GuaguancAfro-Cubano.Havana: Panart.LP.

Jottar, Berta, withPedro Martnezand Romn Daz.2008. Rumbos dela Rumba/ TheRoutes of Rumba.New York: RoundWhirled. Interactive

CD.

Santamara,Mongo. 1955.Tambores yCantos. LP.

1960s, rumberos have gathered at the lake, originally atBethesda Fountain and more recently at the benches westof the much-photographed Bow Bridge, where they can view

the reflected towers of the Dakota, San Remo, and ElDorado buildings, housing New Yorks rich and famous.Underneath the shading branches of ancient willow trees,

the rumbas pulsating rhythms echo the soundscape of NewYork Citys Afro- Latin diaspora: Puerto Ricans, Cubans,Dominicans, Colombians, Panamanians, and every otherethnicitys drum-playing aficionados gather here. For wellover a century, this idyllic park has provided an egalitarianenvironment, offering tourists from around the world andNew Yorkers of diverse classes and ethnicities theopportunity to share cultural experiences. Part of CentralParks rich and inclusive history, the Central Park Rumbaalso serves as a roadmap for understanding the internal

negotiations constituting New York Citys rumba communityfrom the 1960s through the first decade of the twenty-firstcentury.

Rumba music can be performed using any surface ormaterial: a plastic container, a wood box, or a bench all ser

the purpose. This inventiveness and dexterity is part of thelong history of the African diasporas struggle to maintain it

traditional languages, religions, and instruments, withingenious materials replacing the often forbidden drums. O

a good day, however, Central Park rumberos bring the entirfamily of traditional instrumentation: three tumbadoradrumcommonly known as congas (the tumbador bass drum, the3/2 drum, and the quinto drum), the clave (two woodensticks that maintain the rhythmic base), and the catorguagua(two long wooden sticks that are struck against awood surface to keep the tempo going). Unlike in Cuba, mendominate the rumba scene in the parkunless Beatriz, astrong, tall Boricua grabs the tumbador, her favorite drum.But when the afternoon is at its most musical, Cuban

women take center stage by dancing the guaguancwithTito, El Tao, Humberto, or Hugo.

The Central Park Rumba is above all a communitys familygathering, with hours of socializing, eating, and making newconnections on the grassy area uphill from the benches,where a variety of pan-Caribbean drinks and foods are


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. .Roots. New York:Prestige. LP.

. 1958.Yamb: MongoSantamara y Sus

Ritmos AfroCubanos.Germany: GlobeStyle. LP.

Valdes, Carlos.1968. Patato yTotto. New York:Verve Records. LP.

WORKS CITED

shared and vended. The benches where drummers sitbecome a stage, and the incline of the grassy area producea natural amphitheater where those who are socializing canhear the sound of the drums and singers perfectly. Theareas acoustics have been analyzed by seasoned singerslike Manuel El Llanero Martnez Olivera, who have dealt wi

the inconveniences of singing in an open and humid space:As a singer, one has to project the voice towards the grasotherwise, if sent to the opposite direction, the voice getslost through the lake (1996).

As soon as a dominant singer like El Llanero, AlfredoPescao Daz, Ren Rosales, or Abe Rodrguez arrives at thcircle, a call-and-response interaction begins between thesinger and the spontaneous chorus made up of anybodyinterested in participating. As the rumba crescendos, peop

who are congregated in the area walk more quickly towardthe circle, incorporating themselves into the rumba. Therumba is on! Se form la rumba, caballero!


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Aragn, Alexis. July2000. Personalinterview by BertaJottar. Videorecording.

Balln, Paula. January

2011. Telephoneinterview by BertaJottar. Recording.

Brown, Humberto.June 2001. Personalinterview by BertaJottar. Videorecording.

. June 2009.Personal interview byBerta Jottar. Videorecording.

Carpentier, Alejo.1993. La Msica enCuba. Mexico City:Fondo de CulturaEconomica.

Daz, Alfredo. January2011. Personalinterview by BertaJottar. Videorecording.

Flores Valentin deHostos, Elio Luis.September 2001.Personal interview byBerta Jottar. Videorecording.

Guerra, Jess. June2009. Personalinterview by BertaJottar. Videorecording.

Jottar, Berta. 2011.Central Park Rumba:

Left to right: Eddy Rodrguez (tumbador), Jess Tito

Sandoval (quinto drum), and Sado Iwao (3/2 drum).

Traditional Cuban Rumba

Rumba is a social event set to polyrhythmic music played onpercussive instruments; it is a cultural practice constituted

via the embodiment of sound, music, movement, and gestuwithin a call-and-response structure. It evolved in thenineteenth-century ports of Havana and Matanzas, duringlunchtime gatherings of stevedores and sugarcane workersThey entertained themselves by playing their respective

traditional rhythms on sonorous boxesoften made from thwood of catfish or candle boxesusing two spoons for theclave. Rumba is a manifestation of transculturation, whatFernando Ortz identified as the dialectic process of culturagive-and-take that two or more ethnic groups experience in


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Nuyorican HybridIdentity and the Returnto African Roots.Centro Journal of theCenter for PuertoRican Studies1:forthcoming.

Lpez, Ren. 1976.Drumming in the NewYork Puerto RicanCommunity: APersonal Account. InBlack People and TheirCulture: SelectedWritings from theAfrican Diaspora,1069. Ed. BerniceReagon, Rosie L.

Hooks, and LinnShapiro. Washington,DC: Festival ofAmerican Folklife.

Martnez Olivera,Manuel. 1996.Personal interview byBerta Jottar. Videorecording.

Moore, Robin D. 1997.NationalizingBlackness.Afrocubanismo and

their forced or willing encounter once deterritorializedoutside their native lands. Ortzs theory of transculturationacknowledges the colonized populations capacity forcreative response. Rather than passively accepting materiafrom the dominant society (assimilation), they have thepotential to transform these new elements into their own(Ortz 1963). Rumba is the creation of a new form, asynthesis of the ethnic encounter among the Yoruba(Nigeria), Bant (Congo), and Carabal (Nigeria and SoutherCameroon) created in the slave system of Spanishcolonialism. According to Alejo Carpentier, rumba was thefirst modern musical form of the Cuban nation (1993).

The rumba genre has three variants: the rumba yamb, theguaguanc, and the columbia. The yamb, the oldest andmost cadenced form, is a couples dance of mimetic moves

The female dancer is the center of attention, and it is mostperformed in theatrical contexts. The guaguanc is adynamic and erotic couples dance based on playfulcompetition between the two dancers. Its maincharacteristic, the vacunao(vaccination), is a pelvic thrustperformed by the male dancer toward the female indicatingsexual possession. The columbia is the rumba from thecountryside of Union de Reyes. Although there are

testimonies about the existence of women dancers, likeAndrea Baro (Orovio 1994), its contemporary performance

is predominantly male. Dexterity and competition betweenthe soloist dancers are its central characteristics; dancersmust demonstrate total corporeal control.


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Havana, 19201940.Pittsburgh: Universityof Pittsburgh Press.

Orovio, Helio. 1994. LaConga, La Rumba:Columbia, Yamb y

Guaguanc. Santiagode Cuba: EditorialOriente.

Ortz, Fernando. 1963(1991). ContrapunteoCubano Del Tabaco yEl Azcar. Ed.Pensamiento Cubano.Havana: Editorialies deCiencias Sociales.

Portes, Alejandro, andAlex Stepick. 1993.City on Edge: TheTransformation ofMiami. Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress.

Sanabria, Felix.September 1998.

Personal interview byBerta Jottar. Videorecording.

Santana, Luis. July2009. Personalinterview by BertaJottar. Videorecording.

Berta Jottaris anindependent artist-scholar. She beganto document rumbamusic in New Yorkin 1994, earning her

Tao La Onda dancing the rumba columbia, with TitoSandoval on the quinto drum.

Rumba: Rules and Protocols

The rumba community has established rules and protocolsacross time that govern rumbas music, sound, gestures,dance, and song. Above all, the clave reigns. It is the fixedpulse of the music that defines the correctness of the genrAs Alexis Aragn explained, I am the prisoner of clave, I
mailto:[email protected]


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. .New YorkUniversitysDepartment ofPerformanceStudies. Sheproduced a rumba

recording, Rumbosde la Rumba/ TheRoutes of Rumba(2008), with PedroMartnez andRomn Daz,created a videoinstallation in 2009about Central ParkRumba under the

Giulianiadministration, andis currentlyproducing adocumentary aboutthe history of CentralPark Rumba. Bertathanks Paula Ballnfor her editorialadvice.

New York FolkloreSociety

P.O. Box 764Schenectady, NY

12301518/346-7008

Fax 518/346-6617

[email protected]

cannot do anything outside of it (2000). The claves rhythmis the musics spinal cordwhat holds together the entireensemble. Every sound, gesture, and song must be in theproper musical relationship to the clave. Essentially,understanding the clave is what constitutes a rumbero/aand sets these musicians apart from those who sing on thewrong side of clave or dance and play music outside of it.

To be a rumbero/a is to be a part of and participant in anacoustic community, with its own secular, religious, andspiritual understanding of sound and gesture. Halting orinterrupting the rumba by suddenly leaving a drum or notfinishing a song is particularly disrespectful. Not allrumbero/a are active practitioners of Afro-Cuban religionsbut those whose skills are respected understand the multiplayers of ancient traditions that must be acknowledged

within the rumbas circle. The rumba can be performed onany surface, but the sound of the drum must be respectedfor its historic religious and spiritual significance. Here aresome voices from Central Park Rumba:

You enter CP, and its as if you have just enteredAfro-descendant territory. The drums define theentrance. Its as if you are entering Eleguas space.

You have permission to enter, and the drums arewelcoming you. . . . Our drums are part of us. We

speak through our drums, and they speak throughus. We are Africa, in all its entirety. (Brown 2009)

Via the sound of the drum, I put myself in touch withmy ancestorsand that is a recognition of myself,my identity, what I am, and where I come from.(Santana 2009)

When you play the drum, youre invoking all thosebeings who gave us the culture that we have today,

and a good rumba cleanses the soul, the heart, andthe spirit. (Guerra 2009)

The drum was the first creation of a vehicle toexpress yourself outside of your body: it represents

the heartbeat. . . . The drum has taken me so manyplaces; Ive made money from it, Ive met people. Its
mailto:[email protected]


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like a spaceship. (Flores Valentin de Hostos 2001)

The power of the drumits power of convocationreverberates across a history of prohibition. Its sound is acall that gathers the masses for religious, cultural, and at

times rebellious purposes. In the nineteenthcentury UnitedStates, drumming became the sound of revolt, prohibited bslave laws called the Black Codes. Decades later, Prohibitioera legislation forbade the use of drum sets and other jazzinstruments, and in the mid-1990s, Mayor Rudolph Giulianiquality of life campaign attempted to eradicate the publicuse of Afro-descendant drums using unreasonable noise andisorderly conduct statutes.

The Politics of Sound

Within the rumba circle, the foundation of the rumberosacoustic and kinesthetic interactions is based in part onreligious affiliations, because Afro-Cuban religious traditionsare embedded in rumbas traditional musical form. Lessexperienced or culturally disconnected drummers are oftenunaware of these subtleties and overtly or covertlydisrespected for their ignorance. In more sophisticatedrumba circles, however, the rhythms or songs of the variouAfro-Cuban religions coexist, but cannot be mixed. Alfredo

Daz explained, No se pueden mezclar los tratados, y losconceptos religiosos de lo que significa cada cosa, cadareligion, cada espacio. Son los patrones que se convierten eprotocolos(2011). [The different religious concepts and

treaties cannot be mixed, what each thing means, eachreligion, each space. These are the patterns that transforminto the protocols.]

Because the meaning of sound is diverse, the understandinof sound becomes a type of cultural politic. For instance, th

relationship of the Abaku society (a religious brotherhood Carabal origin) toward sound differs from that of the YorubRegla de Osha practice or the Palo traditions from theCongo. Within these three religions, the sound of the drum sacred, but each religious group has its own rhythms, and

the religious connotations and functions of sound andgender-specific activity differ for each group. Sound has


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specific functions within the consecrations and religiousceremonies. If for the Abaku, the sound of the kuedrum

the voice of God, for the followers of Palo Monte, the soundof the guataca(spade) is what calls the spirits of theancestors. The diverse significance, meaning, and attributesof these sounds are revealed but rarely discussed within thrumbas circle, which is essentially secular.

Rumbas Coded Gestures

Because rumba is the secular synthesis of different Africanreligious traditions rhythms and movements, thesignificance of its performance is highly coded. Althoughrumba is a secular practice, there are particular gestures

that serve as religious and secular signs of approval among

the rumba participants. The touching of a performersforehead with the tip of ones fingers means bendicin(blessing you and your art), as well as artistic approval.Gestures also function at the kinesthetic and sonorousregister. Singers and musicians enter the rumba circle byusing their index finger to ask permission of those executing

the music or song. A singer cannot enter the musicalconversation until the performing singer has completed hisor her theme. In the same way, the percussionist must askfor the drum to be able to enter the musical conversation.

Asking for permission to enter the rumba circle in any of itsmanifestations (music, song, dance) assumes that theindividual has the skills to sustain the ongoing conversation.Thus, artistic competitiondemonstrating lyrical and physicdexterityis a central element among performers. Butcompetition also assumes another layer of signification, thaof the puya:an indirect gesture saying, I am better than

you. The puya assumes an attitude of artistic superiority.When the puya between individuals is the result of

preexisting conflict, it becomes a provocation.

The significanceof gesture iscentral torumbas dance.For instance, the


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Silent protest by Leon Felipe duringthe Giuliani administration.

rumbaguaguanc, afertility danceperformed by acouple, mimics

the gestures of arooster followinga hen. The malecannot touch thefemale, but heperforms the

vacunao in anevident or hiddenfashion. The

vacunao becomesa sign of

competition andseduction,trickiness, andplayfulness.Dancing, thefemale mustprotect herself bycovering herparts with herhands or a

handkerchief. Thewinning dancer,male or female,continues dancingwith the nextcompetitor.

The symbolism of gesture functions only by following theprotocols. Musicians, dancers, and singers should not

randomly mix the different rumba styles or African traditionembedded within the rumba. For instance, the columbiadancer should not include the gestures of the all-maleAbaku religious society of the Carabal. Although thecolumbia and the Abaku are two male practices, it is amistake to combine or confuse the two as part of thecolumbia tradition, which is of Congolese origin.


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Rumbas Routes

New York City is the second home of rumba, in both itstraditional and commercial manifestations. In the 1920s,

rumba de salon(known as rhumba) became an internationphenomenon in the Havana, New York, and Paris cabaretcircuits. These glamorous cabarets entertained patrons wit

traditional conjuntos, performing sonor guarachamusic.These so-called rhumbas were sanitized arrangements of

traditional rumba lyrics (for example, Maria de la O), rumbchoreographies, and rumba uniforms. The popularity of thesconjuntos eventually led to the rhumba crazethe Afro-Cubanismo aesthetic movement (Moore 1997).

By 1950, prestigious rumberos had arrived in New York aspart of the musical cross-fertilization between the U.S.,Puerto Rico, and Cuba. The legendary Rodrguez brothers,Arsenio, Enrique, and Raul; Cndido Camero; LucianoChano Pozo; Carlos Patato Valdes; Ramn MongoSantamara; Eugenio Totco Arango; Armando Peraza;Francisco Aguabella; and Julito Collazo figure as centralcontributors to the U.S. professional jazz scene. Many of

these rumberosCollazo, in particular participated inbuilding New Yorks Afro-Cuban religious community. It was

in the private homes where Santera and Palo Monteceremonies took place that traditional rumba flourished.

During the 1950s, traditional rumba knowledge spread inNew York through the recordings of these rumberos and thpublic rumbas spontaneously breaking out in the parks andon the street corners and beaches of East Harlem, theBronx, and Brooklyn the barrios the Puerto Rican, Cuban,and African American communities shared. By the 1960s,Paula Balln, Felix Sanabria, and Bobby Sanabria remembe

a drum fever articulating a cultural pride that was part ofthe civil rights and black power movements. Central Parkwas not exempt; it had become a central location wherefirst-generation Nuyoricans (Puerto Ricans born in New

York), Dominican Yorks (Dominicans born in New York), andother Afro-descendants met at the rhythm of the drum.


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1960s and 70s: CP Rumba and the Return to Roots

In the early 1960s, Central Park was one of the mosteffervescent musical contexts in New York City, and theperformance of rumba music in the park brought together

generation of young African Americans, Jews, andNuyoricans born in the 1950s. Although the parkssurrounding barrios had their own Afrocentric drummingcircles, Central Park created a social space in which youngpeople from different racial, ethnic, class, and religiousbackgrounds freely congregated and showed off theirmusical skills. Paula Balln remembers the scene:

On Sunday, CP became a different place; from theband shell, to the fountain, to the lake, the park had a

totally racially mixed crowd. In the Hispaniccommunity, people worked six days a week, soSunday was truly unique with their presence. CP wasalso a perfect example of a New Yorkstyle anarchyat its bestthe most artistic and freelove, music,movement. It was a kind of stage for rebelliousnessfor people to be out there. . . . The rumbarepresented a perfect place where you couldinteract racially in an acceptable environment. It wasa demilitarized zone for a whole generation that was

part of the civil rights movement, but needed placeswhere we could interact without being under thescrutiny of the family we came from. . . . CP belonged

to the people of New York, and on Sunday theowners came to check out their property. (2011)

For many Nuyoricans, the tumbadora drum had a significanrole in the formulation of their identity. Central Park was aplace touched by the civil rights movement, thedemonstrations against the Vietnam War, and an era of

Puerto Rican ethnic pride typified by both the rise of theYoung Lords and the Puerto Rican independence movemenNuyoricans brought their transistor radios to Central Park,synchronized to Felipe Lucianos radio show Latin Roots,broadcasting salsa tunes critical of Puerto Ricos colonialstatus. Indeed, Lucianos project mirrored his generationsgrowth of critical and colonial consciousness, while


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reclaiming African contributions to Puerto Rican culture.Drumming was the galvanizing event for young Nuyoricansand African Americans, as Elio Luis Flores Valentin deHostos told me in 1999:

In the 70s, there was a cultural revolution in thiscountry. Everyone was going back to their roots, andplaying drums in the street and the park was part of

that expression, to express your roots and be proudof them. There was a time in our community when

you couldnt express any kind of black influencebecause people would discriminate against you.People didnt want to be discriminated against andwere ashamed of their country music, because theydidnt want to be labeled as ignorant country hicks.

Indeed, the erasure of Puerto Ricos African presence waspart of a larger and complicated history of Spanish andUnited States colonialism. Although the recordings of Cortij

y su Combo had been central in the development of PuertoRican pride and race consciousness, these were not

traditional bombaand plenarecordings; the recordings oftraditional AfroPuerto Rican music were just unavailable.The availability of rumba recordings produced in Havana anNew York by Cuban rumberos, however, allowed these younNuyoricans to engage in their own search and

experimentation with their African roots. This generationstudied the available recordings, including Alberto ZayasGuaguanc Afro-Cubano(1955), and Mongo SantamarasTambores y Cantos(1955) and Yamb: Mongo Santamaray Sus Ritmos Afro Cubanos(1958). Santamaras recordswere the first to explain the different rhythms and theirhistory and significance. Moreover, the isolation of therhythm sections in some of these recordings provided bothmodels for learning their execution . . . [and] an impetus to

their dissemination (Lpez 1976, 1068). But two New

York City productions became seminal to this generationsacquisition of rumba knowledge: Mongo Santamaras AfroRoots(1958) and Patato y Totco(1968). According to FelSanabria, both became national hymns for this Nuyoricangeneration, which continued the tradition of improving theirrumba skills in their homes and in Central Park (1998). ForNuyoricans, rumbas familiar antecedents served as a


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source to express their identification with Africa; theperformance of rumba as roots became their articulation oan Afro-Boricua identity (Jottar 2011).

By the late 1970s, the rumba scene migrated to its presenlocation in Central Park, near Bow Bridge. Some of themusicians who gathered there had already established theiown rumba ensembles. The Rumberos All Stars rehearsedat Central Park what made them popular, their rumbabreaks (cierres), inspired by the record Papn y SusRumberos(1954). Felix Sanabria, Eddie Bob, Eddy and AbRodrguez, Alberto Serrano, Kenneth Burney, Morty andMark Sanders, Paula Balln, and Jess Tito Sandoval weramong the core rumba group in Central Park. Theycultivated the form and embraced a decisive wave ofrumberos arriving in the city, the Marielitos.

1980s: The Mariel Rule

The 1980 arrival of the Mariel boatlift to the U.S. had atremendous repercussion in CP Rumbas sound and racialpolitics. The boatlift brought 125,000 Cuban exiles to U.S.

territory. As a type of punishment against the U.S. economiand cultural embargo, Fidel Castro permitted a massdeparture of inmates from jails and mental institutions and

large number of political dissidents and gays. Unlike theirCuban counterparts in Miami, the Marielitos were black,working class (Portes and Stepick 1993), and included asubstantial number of rumberos, Abakuses, Santeros, andPaleros. If the United States economic embargo againstCuba had severed the musical exchange between the twocountries, the Marielitos arrival in the New Yorkmetropolitan area revitalized the practice of Afro-Cubanreligious and musical traditions, marking a new era inCentral Parks rumba sound and protocols.

The Marielbroughtrumberos to New

York who alreadyhad a name in


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,Tao La Onda,Enrique KikiChavalonga,Daniel Ponce,

XomaraRodrguez,

Roberto Bolaos,and AlbertoMorgan. But twoMarielitos

transformed therumba andSantera scene inNew York:Orlando PuntillaRios and Manuel

El LlaneroMartnez Olivera.Puntilla

transformed theexisting Regla deOsha communityby teaching hisdeep knowledgeof the sacredbatdrums.

Hugo Torres dancing the rumbacolumbia.

The young generation of Nuyoricans and African AmericansEddy Rodrguez, Kenneth Burney, Abe Rodrguez, FelixSanabria, and othersbecame his direct disciples andcollaborators. El Llanero had a tremendous impact in CentrPark.He introduced the idea of un rumberocompleto, acomplete rumbero who dominates the entire genre; he cousing, play the drum, and dance. He established the rule of

clave and a new repertoire of songs combining Spanish,Yoruba, and Kikongo lyrics. More importantly, he opened thspace for female singers, like Paula Balln and others, whobegan to participate in the rumba circle. Kiki introduceddance back into the scene with highly acrobatic anddangerous choreographies. The fertile collaboration betweeEl Llanero, Paula Balln, Felix Sanabria, Abe Rodriguez, JuanBamboo Vega, Roberto Borrel, Juan Curba Dreke, and


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Enrique Dreke launched two folkloric ensembles in the early1980s: Chevere Macn Chevere (1980) and LosAfortunados (1985).

The Marielitos African ancestry challenged the popularbelief that Cubans were mostly white, upper-middle class,and antirevolutionarya conservative discourse promoted bMiami Cubans whose identity relies on their condition asexiled victims of the Communist regime. Being black, manyrumberos of the Mariel generation acknowledge the CubanRevolutions egalitarian project of racial inclusion, whichincluded eradicating the rampant illiteracy among Cubaspoor (and mostly black) population that Fulgencio Batistasdictatorship had promoted. The Revolution alsoinstitutionalized Afro-Cuban folklore with the 1962 foundingof the influential dance ensemble Conjunto Folklrico

Nacional de Cuba, which celebrates the contributions of AfrCuban culture to the nation. With the arrival of the Mariel inCentral Park, la rumba no era como ayer[the rumba wasno longer like yesterdays].

1990s: One Rumba, Two Exoduses

While CP Rumba had been the locus of Nuyoricanexperimentation and identity formation during the 1960s

and 70s, by the 1990s, CP Rumba had been claimed byCuban rumberos, not only from the Mariel, but also from th1994 balsero(raft people) immigration. The balseros, thesecond largest wave of Cuban immigrants to reach theUnited States, shifted the sound and spiritual interactions oCP Rumba. The balsero exodus brought a young generationof Afro-Cuban rumberos who had grown up under therevolutionary regime, including many from the Abaku revivmovement of the 1990s. Under the Revolutions atheistregime, the Marielitos experienced marginalization of Afro-

Cuban religious practices, but with the economic depressioof the 1990s Cuban Special Period, the governmentpromoted Afro-Cuban cultureincluding officially sanctionedperformances of rumba, Santera, Palo Monte, and Abakufolkloreas a central part of a new tourist economy.

By the late 1990s, CP Rumba had become the site where


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Abakus from both migrations recognized each otherthrough their coded gestures and rhythms. Within therumba circle, balseros like Hugo Torres would spontaneousintroduce the gestures of the Abaku iremes, masqueradefigures representative of the ancestors. Only those initiatedinto the religion would understand the layered significance ohis choreography, replying with particular Abaku rhythmicpatterns and in their Carabal ritual language. With thebalseros, the rumba circle became a space of Abakusociality, making evident a series of historical genealogiesarticulated in sound and movement.

During the second half of the 1990s, the CP Rumba alsoexperienced a series of challenges as part of New York Cityongoing process of privatization under the Giulianiadministration. Under his zero tolerance initiative, CP

rumberos were caught between the rubrics of visualdisorder and unreasonable noise. The re-Cubanization ofCP Rumba by the Mariel and balsero generations coincidedwith the citys establishment of the Central ParkConservancy and its effort to re-white Central Park. Zero

tolerance was the only way to regain control of thisunmanageable anarchy by rebuilding the park and puttingpeople back where they belong, Paula Balln observed withdismay (2011). Indeed, the Giuliani administration dissolved

the rumba scene for two consecutive years. Beginning in

1995, rumberos were fined, and their drums wereconstantly confiscated under unreasonable noise anddisorderly conduct ordinances.

By the year 2000, the zero tolerance regime had galvanizethe rumba community. United in their struggle against thepolice presence in their rumba, some rumberos allowed thepolice to arrest them; others created walking rumbas to ex

the park. Although the rumba community could not keep upwith the drum confiscations, it never gave up its established

location. For two consecutive years, people stopped bringintheir drums to Central Park but continued their rumbas acapellaor used plastic containers and coolers as theirdrums. Others created photo and painting exhibits in thesame area where the musicians had gathered. Boom boxessubstituted for the tumbadora drums, amplifying the newesrumba records. The rumba continued as a cultural


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celebration without the actual drums. As Humberto Brownstated, Even if the police physically take our drums away, obodies are our percussion. We reproduce rumba with orwithout the official drum. We have proven after five hundre

years that it does not matter how much they repress thedrums, the drums always resist, always survive, and willalways be. We are like our drums (2001).

Under the zero tolerance campaign, people no longeridentified by their country of origin; when the police arrived,people unified and identified as Afro-Latinos. But like magic,on the first summer Sunday under the Bloombergadministration, the rumberos returned with their drums toCentral Park. Although Central Park continues its restoratioprocess, fencing the rumba community out of its traditionalocation, the rumba is heard every summer at the benches

located between Bow Bridge and Cherry Hill. Now a newgeneration of Afro-Latinas are entering the rumba circle assingers and dancers, challenging the Parks dominant malepresence. The rumba continues in New York City.

From Central Park Rumba with Love! by Berta Jottar waspublished in VoicesVol. 37, Spring-Summer 2011. Voicesi

the membership magazine of the New York Folklore SocietTo become a subscriber,join the New York Folklore Society

now.

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