The Florida Folklife Reader

Exploring Peruvian Music in Miami

67 ‘’ ‘’ Exploring Peruvian Music in Miami Martha ellen davis They say that the wealth of Peru is not in its mines, nor its soil, nor its mountains, nor its jungle, nor its sea. Rather, the wealth of Peru is in each Peruvian, wherever he or she may be. —JULIo REY, PERUVIAN JoURNALIST, INTRoDUCING THE MUSICIANS AT A FAREWELL PICNIC FoR RESIDENT AYACUCHo HARPIST, ARTURo GáLVEz, BARNES PARK, MIAMI, AUGUST 12, 2001 the aMericas, north and soUth, are coMing together. their point of encounter is Miami, crossroads of the Americas. Five decades ago, Cubans laid the cornerstone for a Latin American presence in Miami. Today, every Spanish-speaking country in the Americas is represented in Florida and most, if not all, are in Miami. In the summer of 2001, all other Latin Americans taken together surpassed the number of Cubans in Miami. Among these other Latin Americans , the South Americans constitute a growing presence in the city. Colombians are the largest group (104,058 estimated in 2000 for Miami-Dade County alone).1 Peruvians in Miami-Dade number 18,579 (2000 estimate) with another estimated 15,119 in adjacent Broward County, and others undocumented . Many left Peru due to tremendous insecurity during the height of the Shining Path guerrilla movement of the 1980s. Peruvians in Miami include upper- and middle-class as well as lower-class and rural-derived people . They hail from all of the three major regions comprised of north-south geographic and ecological zones: the Coast (la Costa), the Andean Highlands (la Sierra), and the eastern Peruvian lowlands, part of the Upper Amazon jungle (la Selva). For all sectors, music is a fundamental symbol of identity, an antidote and a response to crisis, and sometimes a business. 68 Martha ellen davis field research In recognition of the South American presence in Miami, the Historical Museum of Southern Florida, in the summer of 2001, launched the South American Traditions Project to document the traditions of selected South American communities—Colombian, Peruvian, and Venezuelan—“making history” in present-day Miami-Dade. The project was supported by the National Endowment for the Arts’ Folk and Traditional Arts Program. The goal was to develop an archive of data and audiovisual materials for public access , a bilingual online exhibit,2 and future public programming. Three researchers participated: the writer and another researcher on Colombians, the writer alone on Peru, and a third researcher on Venezuela, later assumed and completed by the writer in 2002. The first phase of the project entailed field research to identify and document key traditions of symbolic identity—music, festival, and foodways (culinary arts)—among members of these three communities. With regard to music, the interest, as specified by Stephen Stuempfle, chief curator at the museum and supervisor of the project, was not in artists imported from home countries for specific functions. Rather, it was in music, musicians, and musical events of South American origin residing or based in Miami—thus forming part of the artistic fabric of the city. Special interest was to be given to how South American traditions are adapted to the limitations, inspirations , opportunities, cultural contacts and fusions, and other circumstances of Miami, and to musical composition and recordings made in the United States and specifically in Miami. The initial and major phase of the writer’s work in 2001 on Peru and Colombia had to be carried out in only some twenty-eight paid days for research, cataloguing, and reporting, although the writer had never before lived in Miami. She had few contacts in Miami as well as only limited personal experience in the three countries themselves, namely less than two months’ residence in Peru, specifically in the Andean area of Huancavelica twenty-one years previously, four very short visits to Venezuela, and no experience in Colombia. However, the research period was timed to coincide with both Colombian and Peruvian independence, July 20 and 28 respectively , high season for music, festival, and food symbolizing homeland identity . This intensive summer period was followed up by a few days in October 2001, and a couple of weeks in May 2002, focused on Venezuela and Peruvian coastal traditions. The writer launched the project by collecting musical-event announcements from free newspapers, flyers, and publications from Peruvian 69 Exploring Peruvian Music in Miami restaurants and other businesses.3 In the free papers, the most-promising Peruvian independence activity was a multipart festival organized by the...