September is Hispanic Heritage Month, so it’s fitting to explore some songs from the hispanic diaspora and dig deeper into why we should celebrate this month and how we can celebrate it respectfully.
To start, it’s important that I acknowledge that I am not of Hispanic descent. My culture is that of a 10+ generation Swedish, Irish, and English descent. I will move forward discussing with an attempt to view this month with the lens of Hispanic Americans and attempt to decenter my own lens.
Second, let’s just say that this blog is late. The month is almost over. But that brings us to why we celebrate cultural months. It isn’t because that month is the only time you can explore music from that culture. Instead, it’s a time to spotlight that culture. In other words, Hispanic Heritage Month can be celebrated all year long.
A note to our readers about the difference between Hispanic and Latin in the context of “Hispanic American” and “Latin American.” When saying Hispanic American one is referring to native speakers of Spanish and/or of Spanish ancestry. Latin American refers to people from countries in Central and South America, which can include people who speak languages other than Spanish, like Portuguese and Brazil.
Two of my favorite books to pull literature from or Diez Deditos and De Colores. Both are song collection that were selected, arranged, and translated into English by José-Luis Orozco. Both books source from multiple Latin-American cultures. Today, we’ll be exploring three songs from Diez Deditos.
A favorite song is Vamos a Cantar which translate to “Everybody sing now!” It is an action song, and explore many different Spanish verbs. This year it has been the first song I sing with my Pre-K and Kindergarten classes, and each week we explore a different verb. You can make this more meaningful by diving into its origin and credit the author of the book as the composer.
The next song, La Pulga de San José, is a song learned by the author in Guatemala, but also heard in Puerto Rico and Mexico where it is known as La feria de San Juan. In this song students have the opportunity to move, there are some intricate rhythms that would be appropriate for study with older students, and it exposes students to the five Spanish vowels while imitating the sounds of various instruments. Purposefully acknowledge the variety of places this song can be found, possibly show students a map that connects where you are and where the song is from.
The next song, Que Llueva, traces its roots to Spain and is sung by Spanish speakers in many places. The song includes animals not from Spain. The teacher can acknowledge that the song likely changed as the people who sang it traveled to different continents and encountered different animals. With older students the teacher could talk about how this is likely due to Spanish colonization of the Americas.
These three may be my personal favorites, but there are certainly many more songs to look into. For each of these songs, it is important to attempt to identify the specific cultures that they represent. When you know that a song is specifically Mexican, Guatemalan, Brazilian, Chilean, or from any other culture or country, it is appropriate to credit that group instead of using the umbrella terms of Hispanic or Latinx. Performing a Spanish language song is not a meaningful experience if we cannot connect it back to the cultures it represents and connect it to your students background. This is regardless of their own personal heritage: your white student’s still have background knowledge that can be activated and built upon.
I have made the purposeful choice not to include western notation for these songs because it is important that we invest in our literature and sources instead of simply taking the blog as the source.
Go forward and bring Hispanic heritage month to the entire year!
Jacob Barker
President-Elect
To start, it’s important that I acknowledge that I am not of Hispanic descent. My culture is that of a 10+ generation Swedish, Irish, and English descent. I will move forward discussing with an attempt to view this month with the lens of Hispanic Americans and attempt to decenter my own lens.
Second, let’s just say that this blog is late. The month is almost over. But that brings us to why we celebrate cultural months. It isn’t because that month is the only time you can explore music from that culture. Instead, it’s a time to spotlight that culture. In other words, Hispanic Heritage Month can be celebrated all year long.
A note to our readers about the difference between Hispanic and Latin in the context of “Hispanic American” and “Latin American.” When saying Hispanic American one is referring to native speakers of Spanish and/or of Spanish ancestry. Latin American refers to people from countries in Central and South America, which can include people who speak languages other than Spanish, like Portuguese and Brazil.
Two of my favorite books to pull literature from or Diez Deditos and De Colores. Both are song collection that were selected, arranged, and translated into English by José-Luis Orozco. Both books source from multiple Latin-American cultures. Today, we’ll be exploring three songs from Diez Deditos.
A favorite song is Vamos a Cantar which translate to “Everybody sing now!” It is an action song, and explore many different Spanish verbs. This year it has been the first song I sing with my Pre-K and Kindergarten classes, and each week we explore a different verb. You can make this more meaningful by diving into its origin and credit the author of the book as the composer.
The next song, La Pulga de San José, is a song learned by the author in Guatemala, but also heard in Puerto Rico and Mexico where it is known as La feria de San Juan. In this song students have the opportunity to move, there are some intricate rhythms that would be appropriate for study with older students, and it exposes students to the five Spanish vowels while imitating the sounds of various instruments. Purposefully acknowledge the variety of places this song can be found, possibly show students a map that connects where you are and where the song is from.
The next song, Que Llueva, traces its roots to Spain and is sung by Spanish speakers in many places. The song includes animals not from Spain. The teacher can acknowledge that the song likely changed as the people who sang it traveled to different continents and encountered different animals. With older students the teacher could talk about how this is likely due to Spanish colonization of the Americas.
These three may be my personal favorites, but there are certainly many more songs to look into. For each of these songs, it is important to attempt to identify the specific cultures that they represent. When you know that a song is specifically Mexican, Guatemalan, Brazilian, Chilean, or from any other culture or country, it is appropriate to credit that group instead of using the umbrella terms of Hispanic or Latinx. Performing a Spanish language song is not a meaningful experience if we cannot connect it back to the cultures it represents and connect it to your students background. This is regardless of their own personal heritage: your white student’s still have background knowledge that can be activated and built upon.
I have made the purposeful choice not to include western notation for these songs because it is important that we invest in our literature and sources instead of simply taking the blog as the source.
Go forward and bring Hispanic heritage month to the entire year!
Jacob Barker
President-Elect