Culture for Tourists

Today's post on my Facebook page for the book (https://www.facebook.com/stonesfromthecreek) offers the viewer a look at Garífuna drumming and dance from last summer's Smithsonian Folklife Festival.  I wasn't there; I just found the video on YouTube.  I like the festival, though.  I always feel that it is an opportunity to meet artists and artisans from elsewhere in a respectful setting.

In 1976, they had all the AFL-CIO building trades demonstrating their craft by building structures on the National Mall.  They also had sessions in which the constructions workers could share lore and story.  After that it felt less like gawking when I watched a New England stone mason, or a Senegalese tie-dyer, or Inuit high schoolers demonstrating Arctic sports.  And I got to have lunch with Betty Fikes, who was there performing with the SNCC Freedom Singers.  She was alone at the picnic table and I was there with a very young Maya so we got to talking.  At the Folklife Festival it doesn't feel (at least to me) like they make exotics out of the guests.

But in looking for that video on YouTube I also found one from "the Garífuna Experience" on Roatan Island, Honduras.  Like the video from the National Mall, the audience is mainly white.  The costumes are similar, as are the dancing and drumming.  But I visited "the Garifuna Experience" and it gave me a little different vibe.

We were on a Norwegian Cruise of the western Caribbean and Roatan was one of the ports of call.  I had already started on the story "All These Blue Things" about a detachment of US Marines chasing "bandits" in the mountains near La Ceiba, Honduras.  It occurred to me that actually seeing these mountains would be a lot better than Google Earth but, for a variety of reasons, that was not going to happen.  We were, however, going on this cruise, so I figured it would have to help somehow.

If you have never gone (and I actually recommend it) you will need to understand that the ships offer tours of various kinds at each port of call: shopping, sunbathing, "adventures," and various cultural experiences.  At a previous stop we went to a truly spectacular classical Mayan ruin.  In Roatan Island we chose the Garífuna Experience.  The guide was an engaging young Afro-Caribbean woman, not Garifuna, who took us in boats through the mangroves and showed us plants and their uses on the bus ride to the cultural center.

The centerpiece there was clearly the drumming and dancing, but there was also traditional food preparation and other crafts.  The stew was really good and reminded Judith of her uncle's cooking.  What there was not was any contemporary (as in today) culture.  It felt as though this was a kind of living museum, without which the culture would not exist.

There was no Aurelio Martinez. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03P18xJeEEU

There was no La Buga.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1AvYMyUS6M

There was no Big Kev.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1AvYMyUS6M

The fact is that I was looking for some historic material.  The stories take place in 1906.  But this culture is alive and growing.  And it is really close by, too.  I don't have to travel to Honduras.  The community here in the Bronx is on Tremont Avenue, a few minutes from my home.  And the children have been my students for years.

So I do my best to set a historical stage.  But my work is not without ambivalence.