IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 6 ENGLISH | Page 145

was an evolution that did not stop when
the mambo reached the peak of its
popularity, or rumba or bebop, but that
has been nurtured by new additions like

that of Orlando “Puntilla” Ríos, David
Oquendo, Román Díaz, Pupy Insua, and
Pedrito Martínez, rumberos who offer
direct testimony in the documentary.

Rita and Pedrito
These names when taken into
consideration with those the two
Nuyorican musicians Jerry González and
Abraham Rodríguez, Jr., and other,
lesser known ones without whom it is
impossible to talk about the presence and
persistence of rumba on the shores of the
Hudson, are key to the history of rumba
on the island of Manhattan and other
adjacent
territories,
an
to
the
documentary’s narrative. They are
bearers of an ancient wisdom that has
been marginalized a thousand times
over, and they proclaim this proudly.
They have received much more and
more frequent recognition in New York
than in their birthplaces. René López,
the film’s producer and historian, is
responsible for establishing that it was in
New York where the rumba is first
recorded “in its natural style, with

percussion and a singer, and nothing
more.” “This had not even been done in
Cuba because there was so much
prejudice against the rumba.” New York
is a place where many rumberos have
found themselves finally appreciated for
their true worth: this explains why so
many came to the city or its outskirts to
live at some point in their lives.
Paradigmatically,
what
becomes
increasing
clear
throughout
the
documentary is that many of the area’s
still living rumberos came during the
Mariel Boatlift, as part of that “scoria”
(riffraff) that the Cuban Revolution got
rid of to more energetically pursue a
bright future. This future ended up being
more like a degraded notion of a certain
past in which various, historic and even
contradictory objects were revered (who
could have told Che Guevara that he

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