June 19 2010

Almost a year went by without an instrument in the booth for me. I found this tragic since I listen to countless men and women share stories about how music was introduced into their lives. For some people, the songs they listened to as children played as much a role in the shaping of their identity as their grandfather’s dichos, their mother’s cooking or their father’s migration. This doesn’t shock me. Yet eleven months passed before a single person introduced music into my booth. Above, two participants weave storytelling with music. A serenade of “Las Mañanitas”, “Las Adelitas”, and what they referred to as the “Chicano Power Anthem”, “Volver, Volver”, echoed throughout the room.