| The rebirth of floricanto |
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Movements are opportune times in the history of a people to become creative and innovative as they search out identity, struggle for social justice and rummage around their souls creating liberating forces that will set them free. Claiming an identity is one of the keys to social movements.
Chicano/a identity had been compromised in mainstream educational systems for centuries where forced acculturation and assimilation had destroyed cultural self-esteems. This was combined with well-intentioned illiteracy as part of the master’s strategy to thwart la gente from advancing. If you are kept illiterate, especially in two
languages, your true voices can never be heard. Community illiteracy was one of the catalysts for the Chicano/a Movement. It was a spillover effect of the disfunctionality of school systems in the Southwest.
In response, literature became one of the catalytic forces used to create awareness. Flor y Canto or “Flower and Song” emerged as one of those forces that bequeathed a voice to the voiceless. It was famed poet, Alurista who coined the term “Flor y Canto,” as he used the power of the pen to craft enlightening poems describing those images buried in rubbish and clandestine images created by the oppressor. Floricanto had a significant meaning, “In the Nahautl language, flowers were the symbol for truth, and song was a symbol for poetry, so flor y canto (Floricanto) represented a profound truth. Stated in Nahautl as “in xochitl in cuicatl,” flower and song symbolized prayer and poetry.”
Floricanto was born out of the struggle for self-determination as the Chicano/a literary class sought out knowledge buried beneath the consciousness of the people. The power of the written and spoken word generates emotions that can be transformed into action. It forces people to move, to think, to feel and ultimately to resist.
According to Castro (2001), the 1970’s produced writers, poets and academics that would enlighten their communities suffering from educational malnutrition, kept ignorant about the contributions that their antepasados had made in American society. Floricanto festivals provided forums to promote the creation of Chicano literature, something that had remained foreign in community enclaves surrounded by mainstream society. I recollect Dr. Lorna Dee Cervantes’ Floricanto Program initiated out in West Denver.
It has been stated that music is universal, a language that penetrates the soul. The spoken word’s counterpart is music. The magic of rhythm and words combined breeds music with strong messages as wounded souls imagine a better world, a world without pain, without suffering. Music tells the stories about human beings enslaved in oppressive conditions resisting racism, colonization and cultural deprivation at the hands of
the oppressor. As Felix Padilla states about Latino music “Latino political songs refer to those songs in which its lyrics carry a heavy clear political message, involving Spanish and [Spanglish] speaking people in a very powerful shared experience (Padilla, 1992). Primordialized feelings emerge as Latin sounds transport listeners backwards to times and places where subservience was the norm. It ignites the passion and fires within.
The release of Midniter’s sensational tune, “Chicano Power,” and another historic creation by movement musicians “Yo Soy Chicano” were introductions into the role that music would play in the Chicano/a Movement. They were direct statements about how the Bronze People of the United States of América could begin to imagine and dream about and struggle for Chicanos/as to create their own destinies. Lyrics portraying Chicano/a struggles were being introduced into communities about a group that had been a part of the silent majority; a group whose voices had been squelched by a monolingual society.
The combination of spoken word and music has moved Floricanto in a new genre. It’s rasquache bursting at the seams. A culture of resistance is being re-born with a Latino/a twist, ready to announce the political awakening of Latinos. The rebirth of Floricanto is spewing forth new versions of traditional musical and poetic stanzas with an assortment of revolutionary messages, blotches of enigmatic palabras and good old fashioned opposition.
Floricanto is dialectics in action as Chicano/a poets, rappers, hip hop artists, and musicians go toe-to-toe with the music industry to transform hegemonic forces into a stylistic genre ready to reshape the political consciousness of people. Latino/a musicians and poets are building powerful forces of music into a Latino/a accepted medium of
resistance. Raza spoken word artists are building a revolutionary bridge between the dominant culture and a culture that was once assumed to be subservient, less-than, unequal, backwards and savage like.
Floricanto has created intra-cultural bridges of understanding allowing diverse Latino/a groups to comprehend the oppressive forces behind intra group conflict. Creative and provocative versos combined with Latino/a music creates embroidered images about and a collage of similar sentiments that are ready to explode. A common bond has been created, whereby diverse Latino/a groups can relate to injustice while developing a collective critical consciousness to stand up and have their voices heard. They are ready to shout in unison, a creative vocal approach that combines bi and trilingual stanzas, rhyme, the rhythm of congueros and a slice of life that is generally outside of typical American apple pie.
It is the return of Floricanto!
Ramón Del Castillo, Ph.D. is an independent journalist.
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