Abstract:
This project looks at the intersection between race, national identity, and music within my film, BOMPLÉ, and a récit stemming from an ethnographic encounter during the production process of BOMPLÉ. The film shows the powerful and sonically immersive worlds of Bomba and Plena, two Afro Puerto Rican music genres, and how they evolved from their racialized, highly stigmatized past through the diaspora of Puerto Ricans to North Philadelphia. Through sensory filmmaking and collaborative practices, BOMPLÉ grapples with conversations of racial politics, national identity and diasporic pride. The récit seeks to converse with BOMPLÉ by looking at Bomba as conductor of a constructed, mixed-raced Puerto Rican sense of belonging for islanders living in the diaspora, in a city like Philadelphia. Through a detailed ethnographic vignette, supported by ethnomusicology and personal reflection, the article ultimately grounds itself in the questions, what does it mean to be Puerto Rican; how is Puertoricanness being exhibited and reimagined through Bomba; and how has the blackness of Bomba persisted over time?
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/