Example Student Paper - Cultural Events

On Tuesday, March 4 [1997], I was treated to an extraordinary performance by the musical group, Bwiya-Toli and Nicaraguan poet, Daisy Zamora. St. Michael and All Angels Church was packed for the event as the congregation, community and students anxiously awaited the show. At the conclusion of the evening, no one seemed disappointed.

Bwiya-Toli is an instrumental group based in Tucson. The five-piece ensemble plays Latin American music and uses traditional Latin American instruments. There were several guitars, la quena (a bamboo flute), la zampona (pan pipes), un palo de lluvia (rain stick) and las unas de cabra (goat nails). The group's members are from Mexico, Chile and Peru and all vocals are sung in Spanish or Quechua, an indigenous language. The result was an unusual (to my American ears) mingling of sounds creating great upbeat music. The songs were indigenous selections from Mexico, Bolivia, Peru and Chile. The musicians also took the time to explain the name of each song and its origin before performing it.

During the performance, one observation I had was the interesting manner in which the instruments were played. La zampona was played by blowing the pipes and moving the instrument, rather than the head, back and forth to keep time to the music. The continual blowing created a whipping sound that added to the music as the pipes were moved up and down. The extra whip-whip served to augment the beat. Whether these players ever inhaled still remains a mystery. They must have incredible lung capacities. Some played more than one instrument at once, carrying others around the neck or at the feet. These multitalented individuals rapidly switched back and forth between their instruments. The resulting music sounded like it was played by ten rather than five people. In the end, I was sad to see Bwiya-Toli go, but looking forward to the main event.

Shortly after Bwiya-Toli left the stage, Daisy Zamora was announced and took the stage with her friend, and sometimes interpreter, George Evans. Zamora grew up during the Nicaraguan Revolution and her poetry reflects the violent, often sexist conditions in which she has lived. Evans has traveled extensively and his poetry was also interspersed with images of political upheaval and violence. Both poets read their work, as the renowned Zamora commented on the importance of hearing all poets, not just the better known ones. In addition, each translated for the other. I especially enjoyed the bilingual experience of the evening. I had the opportunity to work on my listening skills in Spanish and as always, enjoyed hearing the melody of the native speaker's voice.

Although Evans and Zamora had been traveling for several weeks and were losing their voices, they read and translated for the bilingual audience for over an hour. Evans opened with a piece called "Earth's Mirror." The poem opens with the speaker sitting in a church thinking about the miserable time in which he lives. He ponders men's injustice toward women. "We take from them, but don't give back." The poem ends with the sobering line, "There's no place in the world you cannot die." The first few poems set the tone for the evening. Most of the work could be adequately described as dark poetry.

Evans read one poem called, "Two Girls." The speaker describes a dead Vietnamese girl whose eyes swirl much like Munch's "Madonna." The combined images of beauty and horror are apparent as the speaker ends, "...she still lives as alive as the one who lies beside you." Evans wishes to burn the image into the listener's soul. His mind burns with the memory of this girl. It is inescapable. She was once as human as the audience's living loved ones. The poem was powerful, and more than a bit disturbing.

Feminist poetry dominated most of the evening. It was apparent that both Evans and Zamora are avid feminists. Another poem of Evans, "El Campo Santo Cemetery," expresses Evans' feminist sentiments. The speaker reads the headstone of a young woman in San Diego which identifies her only as "wife of Andrew." The woman is remembered for neither her own accomplishments nor any aspect of her life. She is but an object beneath the earth, much as she was treated as an object during life. The speaker's imagination reels with the possibilities of the deceased woman. Who was she? No one will ever know.

Most of the work read by Zamora discussed individual women. The poet's sensitivity and empathy shine through the lines of her poetry. Many women have stopped her on the street in her native Nicaragua to ask how she knows them, their personal lives and struggles. I found one poem that dealt with all women, "Ser Mujer," to be particularly thought provoking and chilling. "To Be a Woman" is to put one's body at the service of others. Women's thoughts and intellect are unimportant. The poem also included the call to stand up and be oneself, to be heard and break through sexism to liberation. At first, I found this poem to be a little over the top. Perhaps in Zamora's native land women have these feelings, but certainly not here. On second thought, however, I began to realize that on some level I've experienced these sentiments myself. ...

"La costurera," by Zamora, examines the trials and exhaustion of a seamstress. The speaker directs her words to her son. She thinks only of work, for work is all that exists in her life. In the end, the speaker muses, "I have no idea how it would have been to have been myself." "Ama de casa," depicts a faithful housewife who married her first boyfriend and is accustomed to being treated like an object. She is used to "listening to life" while trapped inside the house. Zamora definitely advocates a proactive stance for these women. In her poem, "Prescripcion," she states that sometimes the only cure for a horrible headache is to leave your husband.

I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and was very glad I rescheduled work to attend the performance. Perhaps most importantly, I feel the sentiments expressed on March 4 are reflections of those examined in our Intercultural Perspectives class. The musical performance exposed the audience to a new culture through song. The poetry was thought provoking and showed that a similar female experience can be found almost everywhere. It is my impression that Intercultural Perspectives is meant to teach about cultural differences, while emphasizing major similarities in an effort to decrease prejudice. The performances on March 4 definitely served those purposes. Additionally, after the show, multicultural artwork and crafts were sold. Flyers about immigrant bashing were also handed out to interested parties. One flyer states, "Immigrants collectively earn $240 billion a year, pay $90 billion a year in taxes, and receive $5 billion in welfare. ... In California, taxes paid by immigrants are greater than the costs of public services used by them, excluding education." The facts were all from reliable sources such as, Business Week and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This information seems particularly pertinent after viewing the blatantly racist elderly people in the film we watched Friday. I highly recommend the music of Bwiya-Toli and the poetry of George Evans and Daisy Zamora to anyone interested in learning about another culture ... and their own.

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