Dozens of people got on their feet to dance Bomba, an afro-Puerto Rican music style, at the Yale Peabody Museum over the weekend. Like any good Latino party, dancing was how the museum kicked off their Fiesta Latina in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month.
The Yale Peabody Museum and Junta for Progressive Action partnered to host ¡Fiesta Latina! with a series of events. The annual celebration serves as an opportunity to empower Latinos, an opportunity Yari Ijeh took for her kids, ages five and nine.
“[The event] makes all of what we talk about and learn [at home] come to life in a way that allows us to participate in it differently,” Ijeh said. “Having different ways to have them interact with who we are as a group of people is exciting.”
Ijeh is Puerto Rican and Dominican. She said she also invited some of their non-Latino friends to the fiesta, so they can learn about Latino culture too.
“It’'s always important to me for my kids to be proud enough of who they are—not proud enough, proud, period—of who they are,” Ijeh said, “and to be able to demonstrate to their peers who are non-Latinos what our culture is all about, beyond them hearing us speak Spanish to each other all the time.”
At the Peabody, several musical performances saw a full house in the museum’s central gallery, including the bomba group Proyecto Cimmaron, the Spanish Community of Wallingford’s youth mariachi band and dance group, and the salsa band Orquesta Afinke.
But organizers brought more than just music and dance to the party; they brought science.
Opening educational doors for Latino youth
On the third floor, Yale Professor Daniel Colón-Ramos shared with his audience in Spanish how one of his earliest curiosities as a budding scientist was wondering how baby leatherback sea turtles in Puerto Rico would automatically make their way to the ocean after hatching.
That question sparked a natural curiosity in how memory works in the brain, which Colón-Ramos now studies as a neuroscientist at the university. But that question, he said, would not have come about without his experience as a Puerto Rican man.
“The context around my being Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Latino influenced the way in which I ask my questions,” as a scientist, Colón-Ramos said in Spanish.
That context is why, Colón-Ramos said, we need more Latinos studying science.
“There might be diseases, for example, that affect predominantly Latino populations or minority populations that are going to remain under explored until people that are interested in those diseases come into the scientific workforce,” Colón-Ramos said.
“It's more likely that people that are interested in those diseases will come from groups that are affected by those diseases,” he said.
According to Colón-Ramos, it’s important to cultivate a natural curiosity in children, a valued trait in science.
“When your child asks a question, instead of just providing, quickly, an answer, sit down with them on the computer, research it, use the internet, find out more,” Colón-Ramos said.
Colón-Ramos also recommends finishing the conversation with a new question, to keep fueling a desire to learn.
Daniel Diaz has seen Colón-Ramos’ talk twice now. He is the co-founder of Arte Inc. in New Haven, a Latino youth enrichment organization. The first time he saw Colón-Ramos speak was when he helped bring Colón-Ramos to a group of students in Fair Haven for a presentation.
Diaz said it’s extremely important for him to have young Latino students see a successful academic like Colón-Ramos speak.
“Students can see people that look like them, that work at Yale, that are in positions of change,” Diaz said.
Fiesta Latina as a whole also serves as a way for Yale to show that its doors are open for Hispanic youth.
“I think the Peabody Museum, by having such a great event and telling everybody, ‘You're welcome into Yale,’ it's a great introduction to the New Haven community,” Diaz said, “specifically Latinos, to come here and see, ‘Look, listen, we're welcome at Yale.’”
For Diaz, Fiesta Latina is more than just one day. Diaz said it opens doors for Latinos to envision a brighter future.
