José Cepeda English Transcription

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

Today is June 17, 2023, my name is Amanda Ortiz and for my research project titled, “Puerto Rican Bomba Fashion: Consumption, Performance and Meaning Making,” I will be interviewing José Cepeda of the Cepeda Brenes family. Thank you for being here José, it is an honor to have you. The purpose of this study is to collect and document information from Puerto Rican Bomberos about their experiences with Bomba and the Bomba dress to understand the deeper meanings and uses of the Bomba folkloric dress in the context of identity, space, and place. Let’s start with the demographic data, as I told you, however comfortable you are with answering. How old are you?

José Cepeda

I am 48 years old, I was born on December 8, 1974.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

Where do you live at the moment?

José Cepeda

Right now, I reside in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

Have you always lived here?

José Cepeda

In Rio Grande? I was born here in this area where we are Villa Palmera. I was born here, my grandparents live here on Progreso Street, now it is called Rafael Cepeda Street. I was born on the next street, which is Muriel Prieto, and I was born and raised here between the two streets. I grew up here until I was almost a teenager, and then we went to Carolina and from Carolina, as an adult I moved to Rio Grande.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

What do you do for a living?

José Cepeda

Well, currently I am dedicated to working for the foundation, the Rafael Cepeda folkloric foundation, which was founded in 1996, where my father presides. Apart from that, I dedicate myself to working on spiritual work in my house.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

What type of education have you completed and where did you complete it?

José Cepeda

I studied social work at Ana G. Méndez University, the old [inaudible], there I did social work.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

What gender do you identify with and what pronouns do you use?

Jose Cepeda

I am a man and my name is José Cepeda and well, people already know me as Chulí…

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

How do you describe your sexuality?

Jose Cepeda

Well, I have my partner…of the same sex.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

So, you are in a relationship…

José Cepeda

I’m in a relationship…

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

Do you have any children?

Jose Cepeda

No, I don’t have children, I do have my current relationship of 18 years.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

Can you tell me a little about your family, how big it is, the dynamics…?

José Cepeda

Well, for me it has been very important, I am the grandson of Rafael Cepeda, the patriarch of Bomba. I am the grandson of Doña Caridad Cepeda Brenes, his wife, a dancer from the town, from Bomba of Humacao, we have these two traditions, both the Cangrejos and the Humaqueña. My father is Jesús Cepeda Brenes and my mother is Sonia Martínez Negrón. I was born in this family of high cultural values. For me, it has been my life. Since I was little, I have been involved with the Bomba drums, the Bomba, the Plena, the festivities of Cruz are, in fact, I have promise of the festivities of Cruz that I learned from my grandfather, from my dad…the practice of spiritualism that I learned here in my grandparents’ house and like that I grew up in this family that during the holidays there was Bomba, at funerals there was Bomba, every time there was Bomba. And also my family brings a tradition and a very great cultural history where our great grandfather came from the town of Loíza and thus they spread in San Juan, Cangrejos, Mayagüez, Ponce, and even my family was also part of the famous expropriations that occurred in what was San Mateo de Cangrejo where the black towns were destroyed and then in 1962 my family settled here in Villa Palmera, they were from the 23rd stop, the old Melilla neighborhood that is where the natatorium and San Juan Park are today. All of those people were removed from that entire area there and they expropriated what was the famous 21 stop and all the black neighborhoods that were here in Santurce.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

And do you and your family have a close dynamic, do you see each other every day or…?

José Cepeda

Yes we maintain a complete dynamic, we keep calling each other, my cousin who is in the United States, here in Puerto Rico we always keep each other, like all families we always have our little things, one on one side, but always, well I can tell you that during my grandpa’s time, he always taught us that even if there were differences on Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Christmas, Turkey Day, everyone was here and no one was mad, you know, sometimes we have had our differences, but sooner or later they heal and we move forward. In the sense, well, me with my sister, well every day we are calling each other, the same with my brother, with dad, uncle Mario, you know we always keep each other, my cousins Mario, Kari, Rafi, Tata, Brenda, you know we always stay in communication one way or another, we are always in communication because we are in the same thing, in one way or another Bomba unites us.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

Do you have any physical disabilities?

José Cepeda

No, thanks to God.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

Can you share your household income immediately?

Jose Cepeda

I have never taken it out, I don’t, I don’t…

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

And you touched on this a little bit, but can you talk a little more on it, do you have any spiritual or religious affiliation?

José Cepeda

I practice spiritualism, I have dedicated myself to spiritualism practically since I was very young, I have dedicated myself to trying spiritualism. I had the opportunity to practice other religions in the Caribbean such as Santeria, Haitian voodoo, which I also know, Palo Mayombe and I have gone, everything, perhaps everything in the cultural part of getting to know the traditions that in one way or another identify us, our black traditions, it has been very important to me. When I know Santería and it is something that I always tell people, when I know Santería, I see how there has been, within Santería, they always maintain a memory of ancestors and that cultural clash between Cuba and Puerto Rico led me to approach my grandfather in the part of saying to my grandfather, “what about our ancestors?” Because, grandpa always talked to us about people who were in Bomba and through the Cruz festivities I knew a lot about this family and then, well, that’s when grandpa starts talking to me about the whole story and I start to get interested in everything that had to do with Bomba in Puerto Rico, the Bomba practitioners, the time that grandfather was in Mayagüez, Ponce, I sat with grandfather, in fact, grandfather died in my house. I was the one who took care of him until the last days of his life, in 1997, on July 21, he passed away, and so did Grandma Caridad. Grandma died on February 25, ’94, but it was very interesting, at least for me, to sit with them and have them tell me all those stories and then once grandpa passed away, when we opened grandpa’s notebooks, we found almost 80, 90 notebooks where grandmother left written his experiences and what, and the stories that the elders told him, and then there he talked about stories of San Juan, Cangrejos, Loíza, Arroyos, Guayama, Cataño, Ponce, Mayagüez, Cayey, Aibonito… Bomba in places where one would not imagine there was a Bomba because there has always been an association between the black race and the Bomba, but when they talk to you about the mountains you sort of say, “well, on the coasts,” no, there was Bomba in the mountains as well and the important thing is that my grandfather, these names, in Caguas, the names of the places. And one of the stories that I tell people today is that, in the notebooks, grandpa is talking about a Bomba dance in the town of Salinas, in a neighborhood called Florida, and I call Julie La Porte, like I told you about Guayama, and I said, “Julie, do you know about this neighborhood?” and Julie tells me, “no.” Then Julie calls a friend of hers who is a historian, Salinas, Santa Isabel, one of those two towns, and she, and the woman, tells her, “that was a neighborhood that existed here for many years but it is a black neighborhood. ” Today what remains is a gas station and some train tracks. But it was a neighborhood that perhaps if grandfather had not mentioned it in the notebooks we would not have, we would not have known it existed. And it just so happens that Luigi Texidor was born there, the singer from, from the Ponceña area… from, from Ponce.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

Wow.

José Cepeda

And Luigi Texidor’s parents were Bomba’s godparents. They made Bomba in that town, Florida, in that Florida community.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

So cool! Wow. Well thanks for sharing about your demographic data. Well now I’m going to be asking you some questions about your Puerto Rican identity…what does being Puerto Rican mean to you?

José Cepeda

Well, for me, being Puerto Rican is being me. Why do I tell you, because perhaps being born in a family that always taught us to value our culture, in one way or another they have also taught us to be Puerto Rican, to be Boricua, to be Borincano as my grandfather said, and that is part of our tradition of being born in this family. I tell you, for example, even the foods, you know, it was very normal that my grandmother Caridad, who was a tremendous cook, my grandmother Caridad would make you rice and beans and put two alcapurrias on the plate, or she would make you rice and beans some pumpkin pancakes, she would fry you some sweet potatoes, you know, rice with, white rice and red beans and bananas on the side, that was something very typical in this whole area, listening to them talk to you about history, loving being Puerto Rican because we have received impacts from the United States constantly trying to change our idiosyncrasy, which is the reality of the case, but we have had resistance, and even more so my family who have maintained our traditions since time immemorial, this is resistance, this is maintaining our culture, saying we are Puerto Ricans, maintaining our festivities of Cruz, the festivities of Three Kings, the typical things that in one way or another unite us as a people and we continue forward because in San Sebastián there are the same people who are PNP, who are Popular, who are Independentists…everyone is in San Sebastián, but San Sebastián is a national holiday, which identifies us. No one is there, I am this, I am that, that day we are all Puerto Ricans. When Tito won, we are all Puerto Ricans, Denis won, we are Puerto Ricans, you know it is something that they cannot remove from us, so that people know. And more so in the tradition of our family, which has been very important, although we, since it is a large family, there is a diversity of religions, of beliefs, but everything that unites us in folklore has been very important for us and this is part of our lives. My grandparents raised us in the Catholic Church and that did not stop my grandmother from being a spiritualist, and grandfather also practiced it, because it was part of their tradition, theirs as such and also their grandparents’ but always this part of Bomba was part of what united us as a family in our, in all our traditions and being Puerto Rican for me is being what we are and moving forward so that tradition, our food, everything that unites us as Puerto Ricans is not lost, our folklore, the dances, our language, which we have tried and Spanglish continues trying to be but we continue fighting against that… and I believe that we have the opportunity to improve and be better human beings more and more but without losing who we are, which is our tradition and I have felt happy because I have been able to lead many of my friends to understand what Bomba is, what plena is, and what it is to be Puerto Rican. You know how to identify, that this is ours and we have to know it, you know and even if it is in one way or another when we go to United States, we have realized that we share with other countries how they take out their flag and they put it in your face, you know, and a lot happened to us with the Mexicans, you know, and I’m talking to you, I’m talking to you about this one specifically because they are countries that have clashed in traditions. For example, right now there is a festival called the Latin American festival, everyone was in this festival except Puerto Rico, because like us we have the political situation with the United States and we are not part of it. But we have had the opportunity that they are already communicating with us, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and to the extent that we can, because obviously our life is very different from theirs, they do cultural exchanges, we have to pay, we have to live, sometimes it is difficult for us to perhaps take a trip for a week or two weeks and not have them pay us because we have our bills to pay in Puerto Rico, unlike perhaps them who, culturally, they pay them so that they can carry their traditions and have real exchanges with other countries, and those are part of the things that we find, as I told you Mexico, because the Mexicans say, “you are Americans, or you”…no, no, no, no, no, we are Puerto Ricans, you know, and I don’t feel American, I feel Puerto Rican, I mean North American, because we are all Americans because we live in the Americas…I feel Puerto Rican, and you are Mexican and not me. I’ve gotten myself into that… I had a situation in New York with a Colombian woman who was on a cultural exchange and she came and said, “no, because you Puerto Ricans get everything, oh for sure” and these are situations that happen, it’s not that one has anything against them. Let me tell you today in, in the [inaudible] and religion is part of my goddaughters, but at that moment I was like, “no, she didn’t”… the second time she came back to me with the topic I told her, “sit down, I’m going to tell you the history of Puerto Rico so that you understand why ignorance leads us to think that they gave us everything, and they don’t give us anything.” When I sat her down, she said, “I apologize,” and I said, “No, I’m guiding you”…things like that happen to us constantly and when we go on cultural exchanges, for example with Cuba, we had one, an exchange in 1998, it was called Cuba and Puerto Rico, a bird with two wings, and at first it was a little difficult to enter, in, in, well they have their policy and they saw that we were not what they imagined because they said that they saw it difficult for us to have the political situation that we had and to preserve a tradition. That is why Bomba is resistance and the Bomba has been resistance since the time of slavery, since we began to arrive here, until today it is still resistance.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

And you are active in your Bomba participation right now?

Jose Cepeda

Yeah.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

And what is your role?

Jose Cepeda

I dedicate myself to dancing, I do choir, I sing, I have a problem with my motor system, that’s why I don’t play, because if I’m playing my motor system, I, no, I’m honest, my motor system, I can tell you, I recognize Sica, the Yuba, the Danué, the Cunyà, everything, but me playing it? I lose the rhythm.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

When was the first time you got involved with the Bomba?

José Cepeda

Well, I was born here, I can tell you that all my life I was born hearing the drums, the songs, but yes, the first time I publicly went out to dance was in ’84, in 1984, it has been like a few, maybe 40 years, around there, more or less, but… but it was more or less at that stage that I started to participate with the family, but always, since always, we danced here because the rehearsals were held here, the activities were done, and watching grandpa dance. I saw my grandfather dancing and that was, I was like that, my grandmother dancing, my uncles, my aunt Petra, my uncle Perucho, Roberto, you know that was, and something very curious was that they all had a very peculiar style of dancing. they. And that always caught my attention and being there with them was something else. It was like part of rice and beans, it was the Bomba in our family.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

And how often do you participate in the Bomba nowadays?

José Cepeda

Practically, right now when we have the activities, I am in the activities. Outside of activities, well, I go, maybe I can tell you on and off on weekends but, you know, I keep…on the move. Going to the dances, many times I don’t go to dance or participate, there are other people playing and I go and I am part of what is happening and, and the friendships that I have been developing within the Bomba. Many new people have arrived and one starts developing this chemistry, you know, for me there are important people like Melanie Maldonado as I told you from PROPA, Julie la Porte from Guayama, Jamie Pérez in Mayagüez, you know, Maribella Burgos in Loíza, you know, and one begins to develop these friendships and these groups and obviously Maribella has a series of people in one’s group like Hipolo, Verónica, you know, that are part of, and one makes them part of the family because the reality of the case is that the Bomba was a community, Bomba always said that this was the same feeling, the same pain, you know, what they experienced was Bomba.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

What Bomba region are you from?

José Cepeda

We are from San Mateo de Cangrejo, better known as Santurce.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

And usually when you participate in the Bomba are they Bombazos, are they presentations, have you participated in resistance, in what contexts of Bomba do you…

José Cepeda

In all of them, in everything because we have been in the, obviously we always carry the stage show preserving the traditions, they have been able to be taken to the stage,we have been able to take those traditions from the very old dances. Also in the Bomba activities that we used to call the Bomba dances are now the Bombazos, we have also been part of that and we have been part of the resistance. Yes, today resistance, when they talk to you about Bomba, there has been another type of resistance, but the Bomba continues to be resistance, because we have continued to maintain a tradition with all the attacks we have received, we have maintained a tradition and we continue to fight for the rights of black people, because it is one of the things that we have to talk about, the rights that we have had to continue working on and still listen to people who tell you that this is black music or that this is witchcraft, well, it’s kind of difficult… a while ago last year they dedicated the week of Puerto Ricanness to the family, and there were teachers, teachers from the education system, from the mountain, who recriminated the department of education and even wrote on Facebook, saying that they did not understand why they were dedicating it to the Cepeda family, there was not, there was not enough information for them to take it to the students, that they had no knowledge, we are talking about teachers from the education department, writing. At one point there was even a semi-shock because they went so far as to say that there was institutional racism in the department of education, up to that point it came all because they dedicated a week to us. And there were still schools that the following year dedicated it to an archaeologist and somehow they rededicated it to schools that had no knowledge, those are the things that happen when we perhaps have this participation of other countries dominating our culture, or ours, or our traditions. How are you going to tell me that in the department of education, which are supposed to be the ones educating us, tell us that they are dedicating it to a black family…you know, why? We are in this century we are still fighting for something that we were not supposed to be fighting for but we are still there.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

Do you have any of the many Bomba rhythms that identify you more than others?

Jose Cepeda

Surely the Yuba…

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

the Yuba?

José Cepeda

The Yuba, the Yuba is a six by eight… it is a rhythm where there is a lot of feeling expressed, but for me, it was the, it was the dance that I did with my grandparents, with my grandparents, with my sister Julia, my uncle Lando, Perucho, may he rest in peace, my aunt Petra, my cousin Tata, was a dance, it was something very familiar and always for me that dance, that rhythm always fills me with energy because it was what I danced with my grandparents and the, that, that rhythmic where one can express the feeling of what the Bomba is, that leads you to, to feel, perhaps these energies that fill you spiritually within what the Yuba is for me, you know, it is one of the rhythms that completely fill me, but apart from the Yuba, also the Cuembe, a swinging rhythm, that is, I love that style too. Those are the two rhythms that I love the most. Those two rhythms, Cuembe, if it were up to me I would be listening to Cuembe and Yuba all the time.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

All the time.

José Cepeda

I say without underestimating the rest, wow! But the Cuembe and the Yuba is what it is…sacho.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

Well, thank you for sharing those experiences. Now I’m going to be asking you more about clothing.

Jose Cepeda

Let’s go.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

When participating in the Bomba when you dance, when you sing, or any other role, what clothing and accessories do you typically wear?

Jose Cepeda

Well, normally I got used to wearing white clothes, the overcoat, the white pants, the shirt, the overcoat, and the Bomba handkerchief, or the handkerchief that was used, was the clothing that we men wore, and we were using, obviously, when there were the Bomba dances…in the street, or here or in rehearsals then with the clothes we had was what we did it with, just like when we go to activities, but we have always used that clothing, because my grandfather always taught us that Bomba was something elegant, that when one was going to perform, or one was going to do Bomba, one always had to be elegant to present the Bomba and the hat was part of the typical clothing, not just of the clothing that was used at the beginning of the 1900s, which was what was being used.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

What material are the blouse and hat usually made of?

Jose Cepeda

Well, right now, right now the hat is used from, it is made from the palm, that’s what the hat is used for, they normally call it the Panama hat and the fabric used is cotton fabric.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

And where do you get this clothing from? Do you make them? Does someone else make them?

Jose Cepeda

Well, right now we buy clothes in stores, in men’s clothing, because when we go into women’s clothing, now Walmart is making them, which is…

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

We will talk about that in a bit…

José Cepeda

…difficult, but, at least, in women’s clothing, then we go back to the times when my aunt, my great-aunt Isabel Cepeda was a seamstress, as I was telling you, the Cangrejera economy, because here the women of Cangrejo were free black women, therefore they were cooks, seamstresses, they washed and had different jobs, just like the men who said they were artisans for their jobs. Therefore, here they did their sewing for the Bomba. At that time they talked a lot about the jacket. The jackets were the… shirts they used that were…long sleeved, they had like a skirt or some, some type of apron because depending on where the woman worked was the formation of the jacket, because the cooks here had the aprons, which are the famous aprons in Bomba’s costumes, because they were cooking, the ones who were seamstresses had them on the sides because they were sewing, and that’s the thing about the outfit: it was two pieces. The skirts were very wide, at least in Cangrejo, the skirts were wide because they sewed their own clothes. In other areas of Puerto Rico, it will be up to everyone to talk about them. The clothes were more collected because they were those given to them by the settlers or they inherited from their masters, many of them. Not here, here they sewed the clothes and made their skirts wide, big and had different styles.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

And your family then, you buy them from seamstresses, the clothes that you use for dances…

José Cepeda

Well, in the case of the Bomba, of the women, my aunt Isabel, as I told you, used to sew them in the 40s and 50s for her grandfather’s group. In fact, there are, I was going to stop and show you, there are some shirts that she made that were, the ones for men, that were kind of puffy with flowers, which was the one that the men wore, that one was sewn by aunt Isabel, my grandfather’s sister. She made the overcoat, because it was the clothing that men wore at that time, and women’s dresses. She created, she made the dresses with the, the complete dress with the petticoat, white, which were the dresses as they say gala but there was also the jacket one, because some Bomba dresses that you see, they have, are puffy, they are French style, which has an influence from the islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Curacao, which also entered the island here and a little from the Haitian part. Those dresses like that puffy, the three-quarter length ones, that was part of the dresses that were made for women, so the little buttons were made here unlike the jacket that was worn, and all those clothes were used in that time. So what happens, another of the things that happened a lot was, the old women say, that at the Bomba dances, they wore things, like Ponchela, Ñeña, Matilde, grandmother Caridad’s mother, Petrojila Brenes, they wore, they went to the Bomba dances, they carried a little bundle where they brought another petticoat and they wore another skirt, because they danced and changed their clothes, because it was like something very important that their clothing changed. They showed up with their fabrics and those…those skirts with, they were like “prints” of flowers, they got to wear those a lot because on several occasions they were given Bomba dances by the older people here in Cangrejos and they would get their skirts with the violet print, and something very important is that depending on the area where they were they put on their clothes, as you can see that Loíza has its colors, well Cangrejos had its colors, red and violet, those were like the colors that, yellow, were identified in this area. So, they had that type of clothing. Also, there is my aunt Petra, who learned from Titi Isabel, my aunt Petra learned and she did sewing, and my godmother, Kety K Culta, was also there, my uncle Modesto’s wife who also made Bomba dress and they kept making the dresses because it was the style for us to do it and it was always as a family. It was very rare for us to use someone from outside if we had them within the family, as there were the family seamstresses and some of the costumes, some of the clothes were also sewn, we used to make the Carnival costumes, and my aunt Petra made them, because my aunt was a seamstress. You know, and here at least I have found old people from Cangrejo who tell you that their grandmothers and mothers made gingham skirts, you know, grandmother talked a lot about English denim fabric, she talked about denim fabric from Ireland, which are the fabrics that have the prints, all those fabrics were used in the Bomba, in the past. They used it because they had their wardrobe, but they also did their dances which were their Bomba dances and for them it was very elegant to use these dresses for, for special events and when their events came, they made their costumes because there were specific parties that were the Cruz parties that lasted 9 days. On the 9th day of the Cruz parties, a cape dance was held. In that cape dance they made some very pretty decorated scarves that the woman gave to the man who wanted to cape or fall in love with or whatever, she gave him that capia, which was a long cloth and the man put it on and they crossed a handkerchief and it was the way of saying that they were taken. And then those dances were done with Bomba, because that was what was in that tradition, at that time. Then, well, then the groups of more movement began and things changed, but the scarves are part of the Bomba, that’s why many women in their Bomba dresses, tied them around their waists, they put a large scarf on their shoulders because when there was the Bomba dance, when you danced with a woman who was not your wife, you gave her the scarf with her husband’s permission to dance with you. The only ones who held hands while dancing were those who were married or were courting each other, if not you offered them a handkerchief, because there were women who were good dancers, for example, from Cangrejo, a dancer came from Mayagüez… And, and then there was this exchange, but with the respect of friendship because you also didn’t go to her to ask for it, you asked her husband and then you presented him with the handkerchief and everything was with the handkerchief because there was that elegance with its protocol in the old days of Bomba and all that meant that the clothes, the making of the handkerchiefs, those handkerchiefs were decorated, they were attached to the handkerchief because it was something that you danced with affection, with love for a certain person who you gave it to. And there were, in fact, there was a lady here who passed away who kept hers and there are couples who got married today, they are still together and those handkerchiefs were part of the Bomba dress both for the woman as well as the gentleman, then the gentleman tied his handkerchief here in, in the, in the neck and if he went with his wife, he would combine with the colors of his wife’s gingham dress. If it was red, yellow, blue and it was part of the clothing, that’s why grandfather talks about this fabric from Ireland or the, or the gingham that is the square fabric, and that’s why in the, in fact, he explains it and the book that I told you that my dad did, there are also explanations in this book that my dad, Jesús Cepeda, did together with Lima Sánchez, they talk to you, they tell you a little about it and they have a QR code so that one can see part of that tradition of the Bomba clothing.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

And you had mentioned about how Walmart is now selling Bomba skirts. Do you think some Bomba styles are more authentic than others depending on what material, who is distributing them, who is creating them…

Jose Cepeda

Are you talking to me about the styles or the clothes?

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

of clothes.

José Cepeda

About the clothes, well, the clothes, what we talk about ancestral clothes or the clothes that our ancestors wore, these suits were their daily clothes, they had the elegant ones for dancing, so time changes. But I, personally, am against Walmart selling those clothes, because Walmart is selling what they understand and are doing business, but you can’t compare, when I saw the Bomba dress at Walmart, lept looking at it, you know, so they have clothes, including jibara music, I don’t know if you also saw the country music, what you say, but the truth is that they are looking for the money, you know, a little handkerchief there brand, brand, brand, a shirt, you know, then what happens if you look at the jibaro clothes that they use, it is the clothes that Argentines wear. If you look at the dress that they are selling, supposedly a Bomba dress, has nothing to do with Bomba. Bomba, if you look at it, it has the whole style of the costume they wear in Panama, you know it has nothing to do with the cultural costume, at least if they made it the folkloric one, they’ll likely do it, likely. The plena dress is long, when the plena dress has always supposed to be knee-length and a little more because well, but no, no, they are not typical costumes. But, who will… they sell it then for a Puerto Rican week that the teachers call you that you know that here, it is more than, in that week that they dress the children in, thank God they are no longer, they are no longer dressing them as slaves, because in the old days all the children, when considering the African part, the Africans were slaves, so like, okay, we know what history is, we can’t erase it, they arrived enslaved, but the Africans were not slaves all the time. You know the European stained African history. They were kings and they were well in their country, and they brought them, okay, but you have to evolve that story, you know not everything black you have to see tied in chains because they didn’t ask them to bring them. You know, and that is part of the story that as long as we continue telling it the way the Europeans are telling it, we are going to continue failing, because we do not praise the black contribution in Puerto Rico, because they did not make Morro, that was black blood that died there. Just like the constructions around Puerto Rico were made by black hands. We’re still figuring out the baquiné. The painting of the baquiné, many paintings by Francisco Oller that were lost, the respect of lamb, his sisters, it was not until two or three years that the sisters were talking about him, because they did not have the courage that he did, being black, San Mateo de Cangrejo, his sisters were also educators and were not given the courage until a few years ago. You know, how many years have passed? 400? 500 years and we are still fighting to recognize and give value to the black community in Puerto Rico? Bomba is resistance. We continue resisting and we continue playing Bomba and we will continue until the end, and that is part of what we have as a family and as I say my grandfather, there are writings from the 54’s that we have found in, at the beginning of the century, 1903, 1910, 20, 30, trying to get the Bomba banned in all of San Juan, in all of Santurce, everything that is Cangrejo, they banned the Bomba, here in modern San Juan, here that area where the [inaudible] is, they imprisoned everyone in a Bomba dance who was playing Bomba. There is a law in the San Juan town hall where they are telling you that anyone who played Bomba, Cuá, maraca, danced, or sang Bomba could go to prison. How do you think that people could maintain a culture when suddenly they are being expropriated, they put them in Lloren, they bring them to cry and they tell them, “in Lloren you can’t play Bomba, you can’t have a Cruz party, you can’t light candles to your saints, you can’t do this, you can’t do that”… you know you have us prisoners, you are taking people out of their entire home and you are putting them in one, in an area where you can’t do this, that, the other, they can’t have chickens, they can’t have this…people who used to have chickens, because they fed on those eggs, they planted crops, well then? How far will we go? And in one way or another the Bomba was also affected by that. Because you are taking those people out of there and you bring them here and tell them, “here you can’t play Bomba.” So if you play Bomba you go to prison. And that is in the writings of the historical archive of Puerto Rico. What happens is that many people are unaware that in 1954 and 1958 there were two reports in the newspaper of the world and one in the impartial one where my grandfather, Rafael Cepeda, is telling the government that is creating the Institute of Culture, don’t forget about Bomba. The headline says, “Rafael Cepeda fights to ensure that Bomba does not disappear.” You know, my grandfather did that and he kept fighting and he kept trying to fight so that the Bomba would not end and in one way or another he passed it on to my uncles, to my dad, and they continued this fight, you know and how they had to continue to this day, fighting, and battling and still today, one is defending a legacy, today, 2023, we are fighting and defending this legacy. We, our generations, the children of my cousins, continue to maintain Bomba, my cousin has a school in Florida, my sister is in California, my other cousin is in Boston, but we continue fighting because out there it is a matter of against the empire and with everything that is there within the empire, because there are different communities. At least in California my sister has had the opportunity that her school is not simply from, they are not just Puerto Rican, it has others, it has people from Honduras, it has people from Panama, it has people from the LGBTQ community, you know, my sister has tried to make a community, because they are the minority fighting, because if we do not unite, we will not be able to continue fighting and maintaining our culture because lately, we do not resemble American history, social work here in the 50s, 60s, some tried to conduct studies about American families, and it was not practically at the end of the 60s, beginning of the 70s, that they had to change the university books and start studying the families of Colombia, the Dominican Republic, because it is that we do not have idiosyncrasies like them, never and never, but we continue to battle. We continue resisting.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

When you put on the clothes, when you go to sing or dance, what feelings do you experience when you wear those clothes?

José Cepeda

Look, for me, as I was telling you, apart from maintaining this tradition, for us this is something very spiritual, it is a very special communication with our ancestors and when those drums sound, one enters into a spiritual communication. When you put on your clothes, for me putting on my Bomba hat is putting on my crown. And it is to represent my family, to represent Rafael Cepeda, to represent Jesús Cepeda, Mario Cepeda, my family’s fight for us. And that is part of what you show when you put on your clothes, you get dressed, my sister, when you put her on she starts, “I’m going to put a few little bows on it,” when you come to see she puts a hundred bows on her skirt, because that’s like grandpa said, that’s the elegance of the Bomba dancer, those women when they lift their skirts and their skirts have their bows, well made, they show their petticoats, you know their elegance, the drum, everything that is part of Bomba, Bomba heals. Bomba is life, that energy that you are doing is what you are communicating to that audience that is watching you, and once you are maintaining your tradition, you know in, in our dances, in our songs, in our drums, everything we are representing what is being Puerto Rican, having our tradition, telling the people, “we are here, we are for you, we are fighting and we continue fighting.” And at a given moment, feeling our ancestors present…for us it is everything, and putting on, I will say it again, putting on your hat, when you put on your hat, it is putting on your crown. Getting dressed, feeling like you’re doing it and that moment, I can tell you that whenever we do a presentation, and I’ve been dancing or whatever, that part of feeling my roots, my grandfather, my family present, that for me it is something very important, you know that, I am very pro-family, and I am very pro-family and I tell you again the Cepeda label, it is the Cepeda label…cool and all, but I feel proud. And as I tell everyone, I feel proud that everyone says look, I am Ramírez, I am Ayala, I am this, I am Rivera, Torres, well I am proud to be Cepeda and to be Cangrejero, you know and it’s not a matter of arrgance, I’m sure I have it, and I have to have it, but it’s part of family unification, it’s our traditions, it’s seeing my grandfather, at that moment, it’s seeing my grandmother, it’s feeling my family, look we were, maybe three years ago, at the hammock festival in San Sebastián, and my aunt Petra was the last show she did, we were there, and she, we finished doing our show and my aunt Petra tells us, “I want to stay because I want to see Pirulo,” it was her birthday, we sang birthday to her that day, I want to see Pirulo, and we “since we are in San Sebastián, let’s go to San Juan,” well… Well, she stayed and even went upstairs to see Pirulo because she had his walker. She went up to see her Pirulo, she was there with Pirulo, she went up with Pirulo, down here in Sullivan I met her, when she arrived from San Sebastián we met in Sullivan, we bought chicken, “oh tití blah blah blah blah”… and we agreed to see each other the other week because my dad was traveling and then we are waiting for dad to come to have a party…to celebrate the show we had done and pay for the show, well look, on Saturday my aunt had a heart attack, that was a bastion of the family, a devastating attack, Pirulo says that when they called him, because they wanted him to play at the funeral, he says that he grabbed his children and hugged them and cried because he said, “this woman was with me last week and was on the stage and now they are calling me to tell me that she died?” You know, what importance it is for us to climb on a stage when our family has practically died with their boots on the platform, we have been the pillars, they have carried this and everything that my grandparents have taught us, well it is something great, it is to feel that presence constantly on the stage and off the stage, because I’m going to tell you something, it’s my dad lifting the drums is not the same as someone else doing it, you know, or well, my other uncles have passed away, and my uncle who was Chichito and my uncle Carlos, but it is not the same my dad singing, my uncle Mario singing, you know this family environment is something else, and maybe well I am going to tell you a lot about this because we do not, we don’t have the need to leave here, because everything about us has been here…the clothes, the sewing, the clothing, everything has been here, the carnival clothes, everything has been in the family.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

And my last question for you is, does your participation in Bomba and your use of the Bomba dress influence your daily living style?

José Cepeda

Well, let me tell you…there are moments when one puts on one’s Bomba clothes and makes one’s presentations and everything and that is part of what we are doing, apart from that, I want you to know that I can be in my house cooking, I can be bathing, and at the moment I am there and at the moment you see me pan tun pa dancing and at the moment I say, “well, one goes crazy and one dances,” and one day I tell my cousin, Uncle Mario’s son, Rafaelito, I say, “Hey Rafael,” speaking like that I say, “I’m at home sometimes cooking or I’m taking a bath or I’m just like on my trip like I say and all of the sudden I start pran tu pa tan pa tu tu pan and I say, “damn” Rafaelito starts to laugh and tells me, “damn, cousin I thought I was crazy,” Oh…” cousin I thought I was crazy, but it happens to me too” And I imagine that my uncle Mario sometimes starts singing, things come out inspired, or dad is like that, that my dad is a composer too and at the moment a song comes out or he takes the drum this doesn’t just influence daily living, this is our daily living, you know, I tell you, sometimes I’m cooking and I say, “damn, grandma did this, this,” sometimes I get and grandma does that and grandma the other thing, I’m sure it influences, my uncle makes a maraca, my dad is a drum maker… dad, in history as always, as I told you at the beginning, their story was lived, it was not told, they lived that sacrifice, they saw grandfather, you know, and I didn’t, I was born in ’64, but they have been pulling since the 50’s, and grandfather since 1908. It was the part of grandma Caridad’s family that also came from Humacao preserving Bomba, you know. It is our root and you know it is part of what is going to develop us within the Bomba and today well, there is a lot of evolution and it is cool because nothing remains static but I do believe that we must learn the tradition and the culture, because when we climb up and go outside we are representing Puerto Rico, and you stop being you to be Puerto Rico, and that flag, grandfather always told us, “that is the flag that covers us, it is the flag that carries us and that is what moves us,” I agree with changes and evolutions, you know, one of the first evolutions we had in history with Rafael Cortijo and Ismael Rivera, how they took the raw Bomba and put it into music and in the 50s it was a success all around the world starting with “El Bombon de Elena” which was written by grandfather Rafael as well as Juan José and many more numbers, but I also think that for one to maintain the tradition and know it well in order to be able to evolve, well then, there we are, we have to work on that and today we can be talking about the mix of genres, within Bomba there is a regional mix and what is from Loíza is used in Ponce, they use it in Mayagüez, it is used in Cangrejo, you know, and there have been so many mixtures that perhaps many of the youth in their ignorance, wanting to do something, something different have brought it and then you lose saying that you are from, from Ponce, you dance from Mayagüez because in the past, my grandfather, grandfather, just because the couple went out to the dance, you already knew which town they were from because those from Mayagüez danced this way, those from Ponce like this, Cangrejo like this, Loíza like this, you know and as my father and grandfather say, as soon as you saw how someone entered the batey, you already knew which town they came from, nowadays they don’t even dance as a couple. Another thing if you knew that the battle is something sacred, it is the constant birth and life of the Bomba practitioners, people would know that the batey, the important thing about the batey where you are going to seek healing, you are going to find freedom where you are going to try to feel better than when you started. Bomba heals, Bomba heals and as my sister says, Bomba is life, and that is part of our tradition of your feeling that in these drums you can free yourself, that is part of life, and be yourself? Surely yes, with respect, I have always said it with respect and everything can and everything can flow much better than what is happening. Also another thing about the Bomba that I want you to keep in mind is that Bomba has a story and every time someone does a seis de Bomba or sings a seis de Bomba should know it well, because you are singing about a tradition, you want to do the choir? Well, listen, let’s see how we can, if not, ask and learn what you’re singing about, because you can’t be talking to me about socks and I am talking to you about a plane passing by, you know that’s not, no, no and if you listen to Bomba, and I know that you are not part of the community and soon you will have to continue entering to be able to continue learning, you will realize that this happens a lot, but it is good that you are learning it.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

Yes of course yes, well those are the questions from me, I want to thank you a thousand times for your experience, for sharing your story, the story of your family through your voice, and if you have something else to share you can share it now…

José Cepeda

I shared everything, it continues with my dad, with my uncle, and so on, but at least what I wanted was for you to at least be clear about, the bases of, what you are going to be doing because on this path, you are going to find many people who are going to talk to you with, with knowledge, and well, there are others who are more modern and who may not have any knowledge of, why the woman wears a skirt or why not, it’s not that we are talking about Luisa Capetillo, Luisa Capetillo made a revolution, but you have to know how to differentiate what culture is, what tradition is and what Luisa Capetillo is in a story of, in a patriarchal story and that part, because grandfather always said that bomba is a mother and everything was born from bomba.

Amanda Ortiz Pellot

Wow, how beautiful.

José Cepeda

Greetings!