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Before the arrival of Columbus and the Spanis, Puerto Rico was peopled by the Taino
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Tribe; they'd called it home and paradise for over a thousand years, having come either
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from the Amazon river basin or maybe from the Colombian Andes before they arrived on the island, we're not
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quite sure yet. Even today, Puerto Rico's culture is a blend of
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Taino, Spanish and African traditions. You can still see the three strands in
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daily Puerto Rican life. In our March episode, we talked about how our music from that part of the nation
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reflects their rich heritage. The lives that America's native peoples led, throughout North America, before
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European contact, are the stuff of dreams in lots of ways and we've got diary
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entries from folks like Captain John smith from the Virginia colony who wrote
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about it. But imagine living in the beauty of the Caribbean, in the organic peaceful way
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that these people lived! Even some of the words we use today, in English and Spanish
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whispered to us of what that lifestyle was like we've got words that stem from the original tenoan language like
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barbacoa barbecue amaca hammock kanoa canoe
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like all native cultures they lived completely in balance with nature
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they farmed only what they needed and they only took as much meat from the land and sea as they required
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the days were warm and so were the waters and the people relaxed and played more than they worked
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the Taino understood god in the natural world they saw all around them
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they had two major gods yakahu and atabay
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and their worship of them reflected their dependence on cassava their staple food
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and fresh water their god was the god of storms
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so imagine living a simple life with your children depending on your gods to bring you everything you needed basking
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under a warm tropical sun and living happy free lives before columbus the Taino lived this way
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for a thousand years
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welcome to ameRican song season 2 episode 23
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Puerto Ricans sing out for justice
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this is a song called salimos veki let's get out of here by phil alavega a
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band from Puerto Rico i'll translate some of the lyrics for you i think it's
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a great way to open this section of today's podcast
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we came out of a crack from a nearby street since then we sleep tossing and turning
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in bed we left a piece of heaven for the rotten apple
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we left the dance the bottle and the deck we came out of a dream
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a saltwater dream we left the trash and the rivers and the combat and the
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piccadille and from fanaticism and soccer games and to the church into the
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pocket we came out of a hole where there is no more water we left a town that we
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silently loved we leave where they meet all caravans we came out of a mountain
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with spikes on the feet we came out of a forest of sugar and coffee we went away
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from the center and the heat in the machismo and we traded love for conformity and we went away from
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coriander and the frying pan and a wave that runs backwards let's get out of
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here from the side of the road let's get out of here from this lost paradise
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let's get out of here from the privileged pearl and the associated shadow from the envy of the Caribbean
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away from island stupidity to feel undervalued for being from here and so
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we went out barefoot and so we learned unintentionally to eat the s's when we
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speak and that's all there is to know we are the ones who sing with their tongues
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tied we are the ones who buy coca-cola and mavi we are from the tribe that is
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lost in its country looking at life through the rear-view mirror from song
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to song learning with taste and we don't believe in dictionaries or in religious
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tracts not even in the happy patriotism with wine glasses lifted making toasts
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let's get out of here this is not where we want to be let's get out of here i'll
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tell you easily let's get out of here from love on the beach and cement houses
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let the teardrops fall we live to survive we live to survive we
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live to survive we live to survive we left the kiss of our forgotten goddess
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so what is this song about you guys when the us took control of Puerto Rico
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its island economy morphed into a consumer market big time agribusiness took hold and
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sugar and coffee plantations replaced native forests and so did big industries like battery
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manufacturers and textile firms and along with that came chemical spills
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heavy metal sewage spills coal ash contamination all of that
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worked together to pollute Puerto Rico's water and bleach its coral reef more recently you can also add long droughts
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brought on by climate change to hasten deforestation and beach erosion
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and it's no wonder they're singing let's get out of here i mean imagine having to
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live like that in our march episode we talked about the jones act
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alarm made during the wilson presidency the chief goal of that act was to help the u.s shipping industry recover after
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world war one and it also annexed Puerto Rico and it gave citizenship to everyone living
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there u.s citizenship started major migration to the u.s mainland
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at first Puerto Ricans settled into east coast cities like New York and later
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Miami where mostly they were stuck in the bottom end of the labor market working as domestic workers and
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manufacturing jobs back in the old days when we still had those in america remember manufacturing
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jobs and maintenance industries officials in New York were concerned that the Puerto
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Rican migrants were not well prepared for the major life adjustments that they had to make they came here with very few job
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prospects and just a little smattering of English so as a result when in 1976 the u.s
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commission on civil rights published a standard of living report that parsed the data out by ethnicity and country of
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origin it showed that Puerto Ricans were having the hardest time economically of
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any group living in the nation quote from that report poverty and unemployment it said is more
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severe for Puerto Ricans than any other ethnic group in the united states end
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quote and if it wasn't for the jobs though Puerto Ricans would have probably preferred to stay back in Puerto Rico
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in those days the environmental issues were not what they've become and so when they came they didn't see themselves as
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immigrants coming to start new lives and with the intent of settling into the ameRican dream you see for the most part
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the goal was that they were going to make as much money as they could and then go back home to Puerto Rico someday
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but the jobs that they got when they got here were not really that much to write home about either
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conditions were harsh in all capital letters harsh
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they worked in the worst environments and they got the least paid doing jobs like domestic work
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servants in hotels in the meat packing industry
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baking and hard industrial work in the clothing electrical and furniture assembly industries
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now petey thomas the Puerto Rican and cuban author he wrote about the immigrant experience in
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his book down these mean streets and he said quote in writing down these mean
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streets it was my hope that exposure of such conditions in the ghetto would have
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led to their improvement but 30 years later the sad truth is that people caught in the ghettos have not made much
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progress and in fact have they moved backwards in many respects the social safety net
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is a lot weaker now unfortunately it's the same old mean
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streets only worse now here's petey thomas reciting his
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performance piece softly Puerto Ricans you're not alone let's take a listen
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so very Puerto Ricans dug into the political machine and the major political parties on their part pretty
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much ignored them but if you don't have representation you don't get the things that your
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community needs so the Puerto Ricans themselves took to the streets in protest
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in places like philadelphia and Chicago and New York Puerto Ricans protested the
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conditions in the city slums and eventually things got better for
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them at least stateside but not as much back on the island
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think about how even as recent as the year 2017 and hurRicane maria
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trump at the time said he didn't quote want to spend another single dollar
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on the island end quote
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meanwhile Puerto Ricans remained as they pushed past New York or Florida
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and they settled into what's now become the Rust Belt like Buffalo and Cleveland and Detroit and you can
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hear their love for their island home in poems like tirauka
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homeland by the Puerto Rican poet vergilio davila this version of it comes
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from the library of congress recorded in 1939 and part of a collection of field
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recordings commissioned by the smithsonian institute and again i'm going to translate a few of the lyrics for you
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from my parents was the cradle and she holds my deepest affection i
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would never trade this land where i had the privilege of being born
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for anywhere else
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between the late 40s and the early 60s trovaldores or cuban troubadours revived
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a 19th century folk music style of ballads the music combined british rock
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brazilian bossa nova Spanish pop and some elements of Latin ameRican folklore
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in the music the lyrics caught the flavor of the tines with songs about socialism and injustice
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sexism colonialism racism and a bunch of other isms
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although new songs were inspired by ameRican protest artists like bob dylan
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and joan baez nueva trova criticized the us foreign policy and
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their aggression towards Latin ameRican countries on the other hand
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the beatles chilean revivalist violetaparra uruguayan singer songwriter
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daniel vicliati and the catalan protest singer tuan manuel serrat also
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influenced the movement and its singers so by the time of the fall of the soviet
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union nuevra started to fade lyrics of those songs which had felt
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relevant in the 60s and 70s now felt redundant and irrelevant
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but the movement had reminded the world again about the profound role that music can play in the way people think about
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what's going on in society and politics and making issues known to
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the entire world milanese known as the bomb dylan of cuba was
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possibly the most important performer in the category foreign singer milanese has stayed the
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most connected with her traditional roots of cuban music still you can definitely hear his other
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influences which range from brazilian music to blues his themes also range
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from gritty political anthems to lush love songs a lot of young radicals mad about the
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way the us likes to butt into other countries business in Latin america see
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him as the spokesperson for anti-imperialism although he's hardly made a dent in the
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u.s music industry except among Latin ameRican expats milanese sells out all
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his shows in the Caribbean in Spain italy and Latin america and this is his
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song yo vila or i saw a child bleed
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written in protest to the bombing of vietnam and a loose translation of one of the
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verses would go like this i saw the blood of a child flow i have seen a child under a dark sky
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shouting to the future when you have to arrive and while other parents
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other children under an open sky they sing about things that should not happen
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all the while the music was influencing singer-songwriters elsewhere in the Caribbean
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separated from cuba by haiti and the dominican republic Puerto Rican singers
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like roy brown antonio caban ballet and the group haciendo punto and notre son
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found fame for themselves of course the issues that informed nueva trova in
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Puerto Rico were unique for instance since 1935 the u.s has used the tiny
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island of vieques a dot on the map to the east of the main island
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for military training but you see the problem is vieques has people living on it and uncle sam was
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using live rounds and radioactive bombs civilians were killed
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and those that lived are sick vieques has illness rates for diabetes
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heart disease and cancer that far exceed anywhere else in Puerto Rico
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in the 1970s whenever there was a big protest rally in Puerto Rico you could find roy brown guitar in hand
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lending his voice to the movement regardless of the personal toll it took on him
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this is what he's written about those years quote the hippies
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vietnam war 20 year olds and not knowing who i was
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Puerto Rico is a small island without a history worth singing about and so blessed the people followed and pursued
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me they said i was a terrorist and they wanted to fight the governor my friend was in jail because he didn't want to
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fight asians my mom died and i was living with rats my father and brother
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wouldn't speak to me i was fired from my job at the university end quote
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but going through all that he still managed to put out three excellent albums in less than five years this is
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his song el negrito bonito the nice little black boy i'll translate the first verse for you
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the nice little black boy is going to san juan looking for work
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looking for more bread he doesn't really know what he's going to do but this thing he knows
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he is not going back to pick sugar cane in the flare fighting with nothing without knowing
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why
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for nearly 50 years haciendo punto and notroson has been a vital force in
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Nueva Trova music their roots were originally in Puerto Rico's underground
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all five members playing in different bands audiences who heard their early gigs and clubs located in the lattea
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neighborhood of san genman received them warmly and it was here that they worked out the arrangements and the
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compositions that became their first album which is now considered a classic in Puerto Rico in 11 years they recorded
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14 albums and they created a huge following in Puerto Rico in the dominican republic cuba mexico and
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cities in the united states where they've got large Hispanic populations
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reformed again in the 90s playing concerts in san juan and they remain active today even
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and Puerto Rican musicians have also made a major mark in the ameRican music market too and i mean mass market
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and across many genres from pop to rap to jazz and everything in between a short and absolutely incomplete list of
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Puerto Rican artists that have become household names would have to include Ricky Martin from
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was one of those songs that seemed to be just everywhere for a while around the turn of the century
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singer guitarist Jose Feliciano his biggest songs were light my fire and
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Feliz Navidad but overall he's released 50, count them, 50
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albums since first arriving on the scene in 1962. jose who has created a signature sound
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and a position in music as an innovative crossover artist with soul folk and rock influences
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fuel injected with Latin rhythm and he's remained successful throughout his career he's won multiple Grammys and
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he's got a star on the Hollywood walk of fame rappers Daddy Yankee, Nikki Jam
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are all Puerto Rican as well
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Latins have made important cultural contributions in the Americas since the
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very beginning their culture is woven into the fabric of our nation and they have a right to
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share in the promise of our country just like every other group that's come to call it home
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to think of mexicans or Puerto Ricans as anything less than fully equal with any other group here is to ignore the facts
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of history only somebody really ignorant would make that mistake
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i hope you've enjoyed this episode you can dig deeper into the themes that we've been talking about when you visit
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the podcast's Facebook fan page just go to ameRican song podcast on Facebook
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you'll find interesting links to the research i did this month and you'll learn more about some of the artists
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that we talked about today until next time everybody hasta pronto
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take care y'all
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