PLENA can be HOPEful

PLENA can be HOPEful
Euphoria is what I felt last night, not the kind you feel when you are on E, or that felt by the tina girls but just general happiness and out of all places I felt it at Tufts. Yes, Tufts my alma mater a place I probably never felt that way during the four years I was there. Well maybe that is a stretch but you get the picture. I felt as if I were out of Tufts for a second in such a comfortable place, where I saw my Latino/as and surprising a lot of the blanquitos (dancing off beat of course) and they were sober! A band called Yerba Buena was playing at Hotung, my favorite buffalo chicken sub place...yumm...Actually Ceci and Iris used to work there, and boy was the food better when it was free. Anyhow this band Yerba Buena plays PLENA music, hmmm, now what is PLENA? Well when I was introduced to PLENA, it stood for Padres Latinos Educando Nuestro Amigos, and well it was a failure. I heard all about it but never saw it, it was supposed to be an HIV education program for adults/parents, but like I said it was supposed to be. The program was named after the style of music in order to recreate familiarity with the Latino/a community mostly of Puerto Rican and Dominican decent (but that would be too much to ask afterall it is your job to recruit and work if you are getting paid rather than book flights and hotel rooms). For those of you who know me now know why this episode is called PLENA without the HOPE. PLENA was so beyond HOPEful it wasn't funny. The energy in that room was off the walls, the white frat boys, the white dread head girls, the stiff white ballroom dancers dancing a 2 step dance with a weird salsa-cha-cha-cha beat, white kids who simply came because it was a class assignment to write about it, this vibrant petite woman who seemed like she was made of elastic on that dance floor (and she happened to be a professor), latino men who actually got on the dance floor to prove to the white boys that they can do more than grind to reggaeton, and of course my sexy Latinas who moved their hips better than Ricky Martin nowadays. That room was full of PLENA, "an important genre of folk music in Puerto Rico and typically associated with coastal regions of the island. Like the corrido in Mexico, the plena is a narrative song that details the pains and ironies of people and life in their communities." It was a simple beat, like Ciara's 1, 2-step except you need to feel it. I guess the white kids can always claim they feel it. Hey I give them credit for standing up and dancing, I was not about to go stand up and look like that sketchy alum who hangs around and starts dancing with the freshmen girls (because that is what you know all guys should do, especially if you are Latino). I would have gotten up to dance if the really hott bass player would have pulled me from the crowd, but alas he did not, his loss. So yes this music that you feel (PLENA) was amazing, it was something you just needed to clap or tap your feet to, and kind of bob your head a little bit also, if you can actually do both. People have enough trouble rubbing their stomach and tapping their head as it is. It made you want to have a guiro in your hand and just stroke it. Another thing you can defintely feel and hear is the African influence, the percussion the shells shaking, the drums make from wood and some kind of hide. The beat mostly reminded me of natural geographics episode or something, on the learning channel. You know the shows where the white British or Aussie (same shit) explorer exploits the "uncivilized" in exchange for some chewing gum. Well that music they play in the background is exactly what it reminded me of, yea I have been guilty of watching those shows. The drums beating, the dancing, the percussion getting faster, feeling your heart beat faster and faster but not being scared. This is what took me to another level. I was removed from Tufts, from Boston, but I wasn't quite in New York, I was just in my own little place smiling tapping my feet, swaying my head, and clapping my hands, wondering how many of the folks in that room knew and appreciated the Africanness of the music, and the people. I saw such great potential in PLENA, I was HOPEful in PLENA.