In a small Puerto Rican barrio in Aguada, or “the Vatican City of Puerto Rico,” Nina Vazquez was raised attending Sunday mass, catechism classes and Christmas parrandas.
“To be Puerto Rican, where I was from, was also to be Catholic,” Vazquez said.
But even at a young age, she didn’t follow the religion blindly. She recalls sitting through a sermon on marriage and how women should obey their husbands one Sunday.
“I remember looking at my mother in the pew and saying ‘Do you believe in that?’ and she looked at me and she goes “Shh, not right now,’” Vazquez said.
Her questions caused some internal conflict, complicating her relationship with her faith.
“Is there something wrong with me that I can’t follow blindly? I was questioning everything,” Vazquez recalls thinking at the time.
“I do have that religious foundation. But that definitely goes against and is controversial to who I am today,” she said.
Today, she’s an organizer with the Greater Hartford Interfaith Action Alliance, a faith-based social justice group and a cultural educator on Puerto Rican and reggaeton history. While the roles sound different, they are a representation of Vazquez’ upbringing, her radical honesty and ability to think critically about the world around her.
Religion wasn’t the only influence that shaped her childhood.
“Music was an essential part of the household. All types of music,” Vazquez said.
While her dad was all about salsa, her mother was a huge fan of hip hop.
“Some people say that they listen to Miguel Miguel while cleaning on Saturday mornings, I listen to N.W.A.,” Vazquez said. “My mom just loved the music and she always wanted me to know ‘Hay más música allá afuera.’”
Music was a source of joy and a reminder from her parents to “look beyond the border,” or rather, listen. Music, religion, family and the love for her island shaped the world she knew. But as she moved stateside, that reality would be challenged.
Questioning her belonging
At 13, Vazquez moved to Meriden, Connecticut. It was a major culture shift, she said, and the first time she felt “othered.”
“Folks asking [sic] me: so did you actually live in a house? Did you actually go to school? What type of money do they use in Puerto Rico?” she said.
Vazquez realized her lived experience on the island was viewed with false narratives and stereotypes. And the worse part, she said, was that some of these questions were coming from people who identified as Puerto Rican but were raised stateside.
She didn’t have the words as a child to describe what she was feeling, but those experiences would light a fire in her.
“I know what it is to not have my history accessible. I know what it is to sit in a classroom and hear about the contributions of folks, and yet, you don't hear the contributions of your community,” she said.
As she grew older, she decided to change that. She went into academia to become a professor and make Puerto Rican history more accessible.
But at 23, she found herself questioning the future she planned. Following a suicide attempt, Vazquez was hospitalized. She describes that period as a turning point. She began questioning her career aspirations while also navigating her identity as a queer woman, something she had kept private for years.
“I think that was just a turning point for me, where I was just like, I kind of have to live my authentic self,” she said.
Although her passion for history and education remained, Vazquez realized academia wasn't necessarily the environment she was looking for at the time.
“Academia, not only is it hard, but it's also very not welcoming at times. And I felt very isolated,” she said.
But stepping away from her plans to become a professor didn't mean stepping away from education. She found ways to share her knowledge outside traditional academic spaces.
Teaching history through reggaeton
While working with teenagers at the Boys and Girls Club in Hartford, Vazquez remembers hearing some Puerto Rican students say they didn’t like reggaeton because they didn’t feel represented.
“‘Oh, I don't look like them, or they don't dress like me, or they don't talk like me, or I don't identify with whatever they're talking about in the music,’” she remembers her students telling her.
She said that experience radicalized her. She knew the music had meaning and a larger conversation was budding.
“When people hear the term ‘reggaeton,’ they automatically think about sex, stereotypical gang violence, all these stereotypes associated with Latinos or Puerto Rico specifically, right?” she said. “Reggaeton as a genre of music holds memory. It holds collective pain. It holds collective joy.”
She began using reggaeton as a way to explore questions about identity, history and culture with students, some as young as nine years old. It then bloomed into creating curriculum with the Connecticut Historical Society.
“One of the primary sources that I had pitched to the [Connecticut Historical Society] was, let's use a Bad Bunny song, and if anyone knows anything about museums, you know that that doesn't really fly,” she said.
Bringing reggaeton into traditional educational spaces wasn’t always easy but she wasn’t a stranger to pushing the norm.
“I want to teach people about Puerto Rican history, but not just do a regular boring lecture. I wanted something that was fun, something that was interactive,” she said.
Her work didn’t just reach folks in Connecticut. With the Hasta ‘Bajo Project, a reggaeton archive organization, she started teaching educators across the country and in Puerto Rico how to use the genre in classrooms.
Eventually she wanted to bring it to folks in person. Her workshop series “Rebellious Rhythms” was born. Vazquez leads the 3-week workshops across Connecticut public libraries and welcomes attendees to interact with history in real time. She discusses historical moments like El Grito de Lares to LUMA power outages, all with the help of artists like Bad Bunny, Daddy Yankee, Ivy Queen and more.
“I want people to know what Puerto Rico is, who Puerto Ricans are, what we have contributed to society. I want folks to know that our identity and our issues are incredibly complex. That [sic] not to take everything at face value,” she added.
One of the songs she uses in her series is “Somos Raperos Pero No Delincuentes” with Ivy Queen, also known as the Queen of Reggaeton. The song, performed live, has a catchy beat and infectious energy, but on a deeper level, it highlights a key moment in Puerto Rican and reggaeton history. “It was a song basically in answer to the police force and the government in Puerto Rico,” she said.
The song came at a time when the Puerto Rican government was cracking down on crime and targeting poor and Black communities. The music pushed back, Vazquez explained.
That’s exactly what Vazquez wants her students, other teachers and society to realize through reggaeton.
“Reggaeton is a beat that it [sic] cannot be assimilated. And reggaeton came out of the underground scene of a group of people, of kids, of youth, who felt ignored by a more mainstream society,” she said.
The genre has developed into a billion dollar industry today, and yet, there are still lessons from the beats, to the lyrics and who gets to profit from this music.
Keeping faith in herself
While music has given Vazquez a way to explore Puerto Rican identity and history, her work as a community organizer has encouraged her to revisit another part of her upbringing: religion.
At the Greater Hartford Interfaith Action Alliance, Vazquez works with religious congregations in suburban areas on issues including immigration rights and housing justice.
It may not be the role she imagined as someone who questioned her own faith growing up, but according to Vazquez, it’s been the best place for her to continue asking questions and thinking critically.
Through her organizing work, she’s met others whose relationship with religion is just as complex as hers, and she’s learned it doesn’t always have to be a straight line.
“They have had points in their life where they have drifted away from their denomination, or they have been looking at other denominations, trying to figure [it] out right,” she said others have shared with her. “I think that that transparency and that fluidity in these conversations have helped me.”
Those conversations have encouraged her to be more open about her own relationship with religion. And despite not agreeing with every lesson, she said she wouldn’t be who she is today without her religious foundation.
“I was taught at a very, very young age, God accepts all,” she added.
For Vazquez, the questions that started in a church pew in Puerto Rico have followed her through every stage of her life. From navigating her identity in Connecticut, to finding her place in education and understanding her faith, she’s remained unafraid to stray from the norm.
That honesty has helped her find purpose: making room for people to understand history, ask hard questions and feel accepted.
She has a message for other Latinas doing the same.
“Sigue, sigue no le baje. Keep on going, don't stop. It is very hard, especially these days, right? To be Latina and to own that, and to not feel like you have to minimize yourself.”
If you or someone you know is in crisis, dial or text the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.
