This story was created as part of Ideastream Public Media's “Sound of Us” audio storytelling workshop, in collaboration with the Julia de Burgos Cultural Center. We are featuring stories about identity. Each of our community storytellers explores aspects of their identity they find important. Tell your own story!
Some compare bomba to the slow, steady beating of our heart. For many Puerto Ricans, bomba is a way for us to connect and listen to ourselves.
Bomba music was created by our African ancestors. They used it to communicate, celebrate, express their sorrows and frustrations and share their stories.
Bomba inspired me so much that I wrote a children’s book about it — "Cuando Julia Bailaba Bomba" or, "When Julia Danced Bomba" — published in 2019. In it, a little girl named Julia doesn’t think she should dance bomba, but she learns to listen to the music inside of her.
I was approached by Melanie Guzman McCarter, with Cleveland Public Library. She wanted to get my story on stage, and she wanted to do it with puppets.
“Our idea was to develop puppet plays based on books to produce within the library, and also tour around to branches and schools,” Guzman McCarter said.
She's Latina, too. We both agreed we wanted to tell our stories where Latinos are the heroes.
“Classic fairy tales — you know, your Cinderella, your Snow White — the good characters all seem to have a light skin tone, and the villain had a darker skin tone,” Guzman McCarter said. “What kind of message are we projecting when we have those sorts of images being presented to children? So, in building these sets of puppets, there’s a variety of skin tones so that kids can see themselves represented in these stories.”
Guzman McCarter designed and created the puppets. I wrote the script and music. We just needed actors! So we started working with a group of elementary students in Cleveland's Clark-Fulton neighborhood. For many of the kids, this was their first theater production. This made the story we were telling even more meaningful.
Facing their fears
In the musical, the main character, Julia, struggles with feeling that she’s not good enough to dance bomba. Trying something new is scary, especially for our young actors. Bella played the role of Julia in our production.
“My name's Bella, and I'm here to face my fears,” she said. “Like standing up and acting in front of everyone.”
She wasn’t alone. Guzman McCarter, who was also our director, said she was very anxious before our big performance.
“I can totally relate to that,” she said. “I told her, ‘I'm very nervous too! I haven’t taught and worked with a group like yours in a long time and I’m learning new things too, so let's be brave together.'”
Our production ran for one night only at Cleveland Public Library. Guzman McCarter said it was a huge success.
“Watching these stories come to life and seeing the sense of wonder and engagement, just the power of imagination, that's magic to me,” Guzman McCarter said.
We hope to have many more performances of Julia’s story. Bomba is all about facing our fears, celebrating Puerto Rican culture and bringing traditions to life. We need to continue to tell our stories — Latino stories of resilience — with Afro-Puerto Rican bomba drums.