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Mapping Latino Caribbean North New Jersey
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Raíces means Roots Raíces Cultural Center is a New Jersey Nonprofit Corporation that works to preserve Puerto Rican, Cuban, and other Caribbean cultures as reflected in music, art, dance, history and the natural arts. Raíces Cultural Center’s principal goal is the investigation, compilation, documentation, preservation, and dissemination of traditional Caribbean culture through art, history, and ecology.

Raíces Cultural Center Folkloric Ensemble. Rumba, batá, bomba, plena, són, comparsa, seis, and aguinaldo are some of the genres the ensemble performs and presents.

Raíces Cultural Center Folkloric Ensemble. Rumba, batá, bomba, plena, són, comparsa, seis, and aguinaldo are some of the genres the ensemble performs and presents.

Gabriel Muñoz & Melodías Borinqueñas amazing performance at the Forum Theatre Cultural Arts Center Saturday, September 22.

Gabriel Muñoz & Melodías Borinqueñas amazing performance at the Forum Theatre Cultural Arts Center Saturday, September 22.

From Raíces Blog: A recent entry about Día de los muertos in November where the community came to Francisco Gómez' home to share cultural traditions from Guyana, Puerto Rico, and Cuba.

From Raíces Blog: A recent entry about Día de los muertos in November where the community came to Francisco Gómez' home to share cultural traditions from Guyana, Puerto Rico, and Cuba.

Raíces means roots. Raíces Cultural Center has put down its roots in the Hub City of New Brunswick, creating a home for the cultural arts and sustainable ecology in Central NJ.

Raíces Cultural Center is a non- profit organization in New Brunswick dedicated to the investigation, celebration, education, and preservation of Caribbean cultures in the northern New Jersey area.

Raíces has many activities. It has an ecology and sustainable practices portion of its programming. This includes gardening and seeding workshops, a seed library, and seed co-op. They also have a Folkloric Music and Dance Ensemble that performs traditional Bomba and Plena and other Caribbean and South American dance traditions. Through dance, folkloric music, history, performances, and sustainable ecology, Raíces seeks to create a harmonious balance with nature while preserving the cultural heritage of Caribbean communities. Raíces also seeks to empower local communities through accessible, affordable cultural programming as well as through dissemination of Caribbean culture through art, history, and ecology. Raíces' Folkloric Ensemble embodies its sense of community, a connection to history and heritage. They perform the folkloric traditions like Rhumba, báta, bomba, plena, són, comparsa, seis, and aguinaldo. They also educate their audiences on the traditions and historical context behind the music. Often these narratives relate to the spiritual indigenous inheritances, the heritage of colonialism, the trans -Atlantic slave trade, and connections to African and Caribbean people in the diaspora.

Raíces expresses love for its community through service, its performances, its sustainable ecology programming, passion for Puerto Rican, Cuban, and all Caribbean cultures.  

Like Puerto Rican music, Puerto Rican spiritual traditions have a myriad of influences. In addition to Catholicism imported from Spain, the tradition of Santeria and a version of Afro -Christian Catholicism combine with Indigenous practices, and a variety of African belief systems. The Puerto Rican heritage, like many Caribbean peoples, is comprised of this array of multiple influences; from the indigenous Taíno people who occupied the island before the conquest by Europeans from Spain, to the Spanish population who devastated the indigenous Taíno, and also from enslaved persons who were brought from Africa. This cultural complexity is amplified when considering that Puerto Ricans are also American citizens, so when they emigrate, they experience cultural tensions from yet another perspective. Art and connection to traditional culture is a way to celebrate and preserve cultural heritage while creating new connections and community cohesion through shared values. 

“Music is a story of survival and determination” says musician Joe Bataán. In many ways, the Folkloric traditions celebrate shared values with a sense of community and in another way, they explain and recount a painful history of colonization and its subsequent political, social and economic unrest. This history is something that can not be forgotten. The history is able to be disseminated through the music.

1.    Romberg, Raquel. “Whose Spirits Are They? The PoliticaEconomy of Syncretism and Authenticity. Journal of Folklore ResearchVol. 35, No. 1, Special Issue: International Rites (Jan. - Apr., 1998), pp. 69-82 

2.    Solis, Ted. "You Shake Your Hips Too Much": Diasporic Values and Hawai'i Puerto Rican Dance Culture" EthnomusicologyVol. 49, No. 1 (2005): pp. 75-119. 

3.  Rivera, Raquel Z., Mamadou Diouf , Ifeoama Kiddow Nwankwo. “New York Bomba: Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and a Bridge Called Haiti”from Rhythms of the Afro-Atlantic World: Rituals and Remembrances. Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2010. 

4.   Román, Reinaldo L. “Scandalous Race: Garveyism, the Bomba, and the Discourse of Blackness in 1920s Puerto Rico”.Caribbean StudiesVol. 31, No. 1, Garveyism and the Universal Negro Association in the Hispanic Caribbean (Jan. - Jun., 2003): pp. 213-259.

5.  Official Tourism Website of New Jersey, Things To Do, VisitNJ.org, https://www.visitnj.org/nj-performing-arts/raices-cultural-center, 2019.

6.Press Release Monmouth County, Newsbrief, News for Monmouth County, https://www.ahherald.com/newsbrief/arts-news/9915-raices-cultural-center-brings-the-spirit-of-the-drum-to-perth-amboy, 2019

7.Raíces Cultural Center, Raíces Cultural Center on Vimeo, Vimeo.com, https://vimeo.com/raicesculturalcenter, 2019.

 

Image Sources(Click to expand)

http://www.raicesculturalcenter.org/raices-cultural-center-ensemble/

http://www.raicesculturalcenter.org/gabriel-munoz-melodias-borinquenas-raices-roots-music-concert-series/

https://i0.wp.com/www.raicesculturalcenter.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Day-of-the-Dead-Celebration-2-11.2.2019.png?w=2004