In Conversation is a program that seeks to contextualize both special exhibitions and the permanent collection through the lens of Miami and the broader South Floridian artists, curators, educators, and community leaders.

00:00:09
Armando
Hello and welcome to in conversation by PAMM Edu. I am Armando Zamora, digital and interpretive content coordinator and your host. This program is meant to go alongside other educational materials the museum offers, however

00:00:23
Armando
Instead of talking about the art on the walls, we will be talking to community members with differing backgrounds about the issues the art aims to tackle, with a specific focus on Miami and South Florida. This episode is inspired by the work of Xican-a.o.x Body.

00:00:37
Armando
Xican-a.o.x Body showcases work by artists who identify as Chicano or Mexican American while embracing their indigenous roots. Here to talk about her experiences as a first generation Mexican American is Priscilla Terron. Priscilla is part of the Terron family who has established a well known and celebrated Mexican restaurant and other businesses in Broward County.

00:00:58
Armando
She actively engages in the community through both her family’s businesses and her work with their Mexican folklorico dance group, which performed at PAMM in 2023.

00:01:09
Armando
Hi, Priscilla. Thanks so much for being here with us today. Could you introduce yourself?

00:01:15
Priscilla
My name is Priscilla Alejandro, and I’m just a typical 29 year old girl

00:01:22
Priscilla
Living in South Florida.

00:01:23
Armando
What do you do for work?

00:01:26
Priscilla
I work at my mom’s store.

00:01:27
Armando
What can you tell us about the store?

00:01:31
Priscilla
She has like a basically a Mexican store that has just about a little bit of everything. So like, if you need things for your baptism and like.

00:01:43
Priscilla
Quinceanera, or a wedding? You know, we can get that for you. Also, we choreograph quinceanera

00:01:55
Priscilla
Dances, you know, like the waltz and her surprise dances and all of that, which is fun. And we also have a Mexican folklorico dance group.

00:02:07
Armando
When you guys do the choreography, a girl and her family will come to you guys or guy and be like help us plan a dance.

00:02:19
Speaker
Yes.

00:02:20
Priscilla
So. So what they’ll do is we usually tell them to have us like they have to come in with knowing what they want to do, like the genres of the music.

00:02:31
Priscilla
And you know, they have to have their like.

00:02:34
Priscilla
Their music ready because, I mean, we can, I mean, we can suggest what you want to do, but ultimately, it’s you who is going to do the dance and it’s going to be for your party. So obviously you have to pick the songs, you know.

00:02:47
Priscilla
And so when we always start with the with the waltz, which is, uh, you know the the typical dance that you do with like your.

00:02:57
Armando
The chambelanes.

00:02:59
Priscilla
Yeah, the chambelanes and the damas.

00:03:01
Armando
I don’t know what it is in English.

00:03:04
Priscilla
Ohh, like your court, it’s your court.

00:03:06
Priscilla
OK, OK and.

00:03:09
Priscilla
So yeah, and then you just either you’re just doing just the male court just a female court and, you know, we knock that out of the park and then we go on to the surprise dances. And if we need to teach you how to dance a little bit, we’ll do that and or if not, because for the most part, teenagers.

00:03:29
Priscilla
Especially Latin teenagers, you know, they know how to dance already, or at least a little bit. They have an idea. So it’s not too hard to have to teach someone. But you know, when you come in to when a girl comes in and she wants to do like.

00:03:46
Priscilla
Let’s say OK, patiada which is a really was just a Mexican type of dance that you know requires you to be thrown in the air. And that’s really hard.

00:04:02
Priscilla
And then you have your, your, your court, which obviously like sometimes they’ll be your cousins. Yeah. And like he’s 12 but like, twice his height.

00:04:14
Priscilla
Because she’s like 15/16 and like, obviously you can’t have a 12 year old throw you in the air or, you know, sometimes it’s just, you know, the girls not as athletic. But this song, this type of, like, music requires a little bit of that. Well, a lot of it. But, you know, we at the very least we have to put a little bit of that so.

00:04:36
Priscilla
I mean this this kind of. Things we have to work around when it comes to choreographies same thing goes with salsa bachata.

00:04:44
Armando
How long have you been doing it?

00:04:46
Priscilla
That actually I haven’t been doing it long. I started probably. I’ve been doing it for about a year and a half. My mom’s, the expert, she’s been doing it for five plus years and I have a little bit of like.

00:05:01
Priscilla
Uh, I guess you could say experience when it comes to dancing. When it comes to dancing on stage and being able to speak, you know, in front of a large crowd and things like that because because of my moms folklorico dance group, I’ve been doing it since I was like my whole life. And I guess I just never really noticed.

00:05:21
Priscilla
Can I tell you the story of how it all happened, how the dance group started? So at my church, the the church I used to attend

00:05:29
Priscilla
There is all every year there is like a like a fundraiser and for that fundraiser we like everyone like has their home country and like and like and there’s a lot of like Latin, you know, people in that in our church. So you would see Guatemala and Honduras

00:05:49
Priscilla
And El Salvador what they’ll do is we have, like, you know, we we make food and then we sell it for the fundraiser. And then that money goes towards, like the Boy Scouts that, you know, we have as, like, a part of the church. And so they also have a show because it’s part of, like, you know, the fundraiser. So everyone has, like, food and drinks and has a good time. Everyone does their like their countries most iconic or that, you know, there are traditional dances. Right. And so there came a point in time.

00:06:26
Priscilla
That everybody always was excited for Mexico because maybe it’s just the music, it’s it’s very like it just calls your attention and and you just you feel it in your bones, you know when you listen to it. You ever like Son de La Negra?

00:07:09
Priscilla
So you could just, you could just feel it, you know? And my mom didn’t like that. You know, Mexico, even though every year everyone was so excited for it, we kind of let them down because it wasn’t like, because we didn’t know, we didn’t know how to dance it. And so.

00:07:28
Priscilla
My mom got tired of that after, like many years of that happening and she was like, you know what, this year, I’m gonna take the time to like.

00:07:37
Priscilla
Find out how to zapatear and how to dance this. And then we’re.

00:07:42
Priscilla
And we’re going to start doing it. OK. OK, cool. And so when it comes to dancing, uh.

00:07:51
Priscilla
That like what? Mexico is most known for, which is the.

00:07:58
Priscilla
From Jalisco, Sonde la Negra, Jarabe Tapatio. You know where they dance with the mariachi outfits and the the girls have the long dresses and they have braids in their hair and everything is super colorful.

00:08:11
Priscilla
My mom brought a teacher. We started trying to learn how to dance it, but every year it just wasn’t quite to my moms expectations. I mean, it wasn’t just up to her. I mean, obviously there were other church members that were were participating in this, but I guess my mom was always just the one that was most.

00:08:32
Priscilla
Uh.

00:08:33
Priscilla
Motivated to do better and as the years went by, we got better and better and like like they came a point where we actually.

00:08:41
Priscilla
Uh, we were doing well enough that other church members saw how good she that our dance group was doing because we were just we kind of knew what we were doing at that point and they were like, oh, well, can you come do that?

00:08:56
Priscilla
At our branch.

00:08:58
Priscilla
To represent Mexico.

00:08:59
Priscilla
And we said, yeah, of course we would love to. And then we did that and then another branch like for, for example, I live in Coral Springs, so the Coral Springs would then go to Coconut Creek or like the Boca Raton branch or one point, we did a West Palm branch, you know, and we we really got the attention of like.

00:09:20
Priscilla
Of the dance group. And so there will be people from other churches who who came and then who saw, like, how well, like my mom was doing.

00:09:20
Priscilla
Of the dance group. And so there will be people from other churches who who came and then who saw, like, how well, like my mom was doing.

00:09:32
Priscilla
Doing, you know, Mexico’s typical dances. And they said, oh, can you come do it at our church? And my mom was like, yeah, eventually just got, you know, it got bigger. And my mom learned more, and we learned more about, like, all of the Mexico’s dresses and traditions.

00:09:52
Priscilla
And why you know, this is one way why this is another like in in every, every Mexican state has its own, like, specific style of dance and dress wear, which is actually really cool I think.

00:10:09
Armando
For people that don’t know what folklorico dancing is, where it comes from, and then go more in depth into what you were just saying about the different States and the the different aspects. So like the different cultures from the different states that.

00:10:29
Armando
Make their way into these dances.

00:10:31
Priscilla
OK, So what Folklorico dancing Is is

00:10:36
Priscilla
That basically mexicos a traditional dances being performed as you know, our ancestors once did it again. I will give the example of Jalisco where the woman wears a long dress or a skirt with the and everything. The dress is heavy and colorful and.

00:10:57
Priscilla
They have these specific specific type of.

00:11:01
Priscilla
Movements, when it comes to like the skirts, how they work. It’s a specific type of like where you have to maneuver the skirt and and highly skill. The men. The men for that state would like wear the mariachi outfit. But then like for example, you can go to the state of Oaxaca and.

00:11:21
Priscilla
Oaxaca you have a beautiful, uh, a dress that’s just like has a bunch of flowers all all over. It’s called Tehuana and it’s like.

00:11:32
Priscilla
It’s what Frida Kahlo. You would often see her wearing Tehuanas when she was alive. And it’s like an iconic form. I mean, I I think Mexico is very much like recognized because of the Tehuana but also because of like, you know, Jalisco and it’s like mariachi.

00:11:53
Priscilla
And what not. And then the men in Oaxaca have, like, a very simple, like, well, they have, like, their their guayaberas which is, you know, the shirt that has the you.

00:12:03
Armando
Know like the long sleeve with the buttons up top, yeah.

00:12:06
Priscilla
Right.

00:12:07
Priscilla
By the way, do you know why those are called Guayaberas?

00:12:10
Armando
No, I don’t.

00:12:10
Priscilla
Us. OK. So we had a lot of people come from Cuba.

00:12:16
Priscilla
At one point to Mexico, and they had these shirts, those specific shirts that were long, and they were white, and they were long sleeved. And umm, they had like a huge pocket. And I guess people would like farm.

00:12:31
Priscilla
Guayaberas and they always put them in that pocket. That’s how the shirt got called away. cause the guava. I guess you could say.

00:12:41
Armando
You mentioned that you’re from that you live in Coral Springs.

00:12:46
Armando
Uh, were you born in Florida?

00:12:50
Priscilla
Yeah, I was. I was born in Fort Lauderdale, actually, and this is in South Florida, is where I grew up. My family has moved around. Initially we lived in Pompano Beach and eventually, you know, that became in in Broward County, that became Margate. And eventually Coral Springs.

00:13:10
Priscilla
So we, we’ve always been right here in South Florida. I love it here for some reason I love Broward.

00:13:17
Armando
Are your are your parents from born in Mexico, or were they born here?

00:13:23
Priscilla
My parents were both born in Mexico. My both of my parents were born in Mexico City and they eventually. So my grandpa on my mom’s side.

00:13:34
Priscilla
Came to the United States and would send money home to Mexico, you know, because he wanted a better life for his family at home.

00:13:44
Priscilla
And you know, basically and slowly he, you know, stayed and stayed longer and stayed longer, you know, eventually my mom’s family moved basically down here to Florida. And at that point she she was in love with my dad. And she was like, hey, you want to make this work come?

00:14:04
Priscilla
You gotta, you know, come down to Florida and they got married. They came down to Florida, and that’s kind of how, you know, our my family history started here.

00:14:15
Armando
What do you think? Or what would you say?

00:14:20
Armando
It means to you.

00:14:22
Armando
To be a Mexican American versus being.

00:14:26
Armando
Like Mexican?

00:14:27
Priscilla
Oh, that’s a very good question.

00:14:31
Priscilla
I’m going to say I love being Mexican American.

00:14:35
Priscilla
Because I love my roots, I love who I am because of my roots. I love that I’m bilingual. I love that I could teach my son to be bilingual and he is now bilingual.

00:14:52
Priscilla
Speaking of my son, my my husband’s family also speaks a Mexican dialect, which my son understands 100%. Yeah, because my mother-in-law and father-in-law speak it to him for some reason, he just doesn’t.

00:15:10
Priscilla
He hasn’t caught on to like the way to speak it.

00:15:14
Priscilla
But he understands it perfectly and I’m like, that’s so cool cause I wish. And now I try. I’m trying to learn that as well.

00:15:21
Armando
What is the what’s the dialect?

00:15:23
Priscilla
It’s called Mixe Ayuuk from Oaxaca.

00:15:47
Priscilla
But going back to your question, it makes me incredibly proud to be

00:15:52
Priscilla
Mexican. However, I was born in Florida, you know, and so here in South Florida, this is home. This is where I grew up. This is where all my family is. This is home. That’s the essentially how I feel. So it’s a beautiful mix of two different countries.

00:16:12
Priscilla
Is that hard sometimes.

00:16:13
Priscilla
Yeah, in a way. Because you know, for all the, let’s say for people that have blonde hair and blue eyes, you know that are in their 60s or 70s, I am never.

00:16:28
Priscilla
Sure.

00:16:29
Priscilla
American enough for them, which is weird because my family has a restaurant and I used to waitress at this restaurant whenever I would waitress and I had a very the white people, OK, the white people. Whenever the White Group would come and they’d ask me, oh, where are you from?

00:16:50
Priscilla
I always had a struggle like in my head as to say am I Mexican because I was born in Florida but my roots are Mexican, you know? So I would have that like inner battle and it got to a point where I where you used to say, you know, I was from Florida. I’m this is where I was born. This is where I was raised. It’s not a lie.

00:17:11
Priscilla
I am from.

00:17:12
Priscilla
Florida, but they’re like, oh, but you don’t look like, you know, you’re from Florida, where then they go, where are your roots from? I’m like, oh, well, my family is Mexican, so I am first generation Mexican American. And and I don’t know it just always kind of rubbed me the wrong way because.

00:17:32
Priscilla
I always got a got a sense of, oh, you’re born in Florida, but I I can be two things at once, you know, but this also goes happens to me in.

00:17:44
Priscilla
Again waitressing at the at the restaurant. And sometimes people have questions and they’ll be like, oh, you speak very good Spanish. Where where are you from? And again, that inner battle. And am I from Mexico or am I from, you know, the United States to them? I would say, oh, you know, I’m from Mexico.

00:18:03
Priscilla
And then the next question would be ohh were you born in Mexico? I got this from Mexicans, specifically Mexicans.

00:18:12
Priscilla
And I was like, no. Well, I was born here in Florida, and they go. Their immediate response is, oh, you’re not Mexican because you weren’t born in Mexico.

00:18:20
Priscilla
And again, that would make me so mad. I would never say anything because obviously I’m working, you know? So I can’t. Well, I maybe I could have, you know, given my opinion. But at that point, I was like, it’s not necessary for me to like, just move on. OK. Yeah. They said it. Let’s let’s just move on. And I don’t like that I am.

00:18:40
Priscilla
Mexican American? Yes, I was born in Florida, but ultimately.

00:18:45
Priscilla
You can’t my the blood that goes through my veins is Mexican, and it has indigenous roots and you can’t take that away from me as hard as you want. You know, for me to not be Mexican. You just you can’t. You can’t do that because you will. You will never be able to look at me and say ohh.

00:19:05
Priscilla
They’re very clearly like a white girl, for example. Look at just looking at my skin tone. I don’t have a deeper color skin tone. I’m very white.

00:19:17
Priscilla
When it comes to being Mexican, I guess I don’t look like.

00:19:23
Priscilla
A traditional person, I guess. What what people think typically think of like having a.

00:19:28
Priscilla
A Mexican features are which makes no sense to me because Mexico Mexicans come in all shapes, sizes and colors and I I think I look Mexican, but being here in Florida at first when I was in like middle school and high school because I was white, I guess you could say pale.

00:19:48
Priscilla
Growing up people would never think I was Mexican. They’d go. Oh, you’re Colombian. You’re Puerto Rican. You’re and even like, Mexican. Because I don’t, you know, have a dark skin and my hair is dark. I guess it’s it’s black, but I guess I just because I’m I don’t have dark skin, I guess.

00:20:05
Armando
Its crazy how Like pervasive, the stereotypes can get about what people from countries are supposed to look like. I always think about reading in the news about Mexicans with African descent and how.

00:20:22
Armando
Like how heavily they were like shunned by Mexicans because they had like dark skin and like curly hair, but they were still Mexican. And it was like this, you know, weird racism of like, you’re not really Mexican type thing that like is pervasive here, but it’s also pervasive it seems.

00:20:44
Armando
In Mexico, and I feel like you see it a lot or I see it a lot in in, like Mexican TV shows, which like really like frustrate.

00:20:54
Armando
To me that like it, it seems like in the novellas the the good, the main character is always like white or fair skinned, with like a blonde wife and the bad guy or the people who are like poor or struggling are always the like brown more indigenous.

00:21:15
Armando
Looking people, and it’s such a weird thing to, like, perpetuate that I feel like leads to.

00:21:22
Armando
I don’t know, like some self hate in Mexicans, in my experience. Anyway, I don’t know if you have encountered the same thing or or see the same thing.

00:21:30
Priscilla
Yeah. No, I see it all the time. You know, this is, it’s like you said in the novellas and like the movies, you know, celebrities the like, for example, Belinda, she’s a she’s not even Mexican, but she was raised in Mexico. I think she’s from Spain but like.

00:21:50
Priscilla
She’s very popular in Mexico when, like all these other actors are.

00:21:56
Priscilla
You know, they’re very white passing, but what’s the I think the correct term is for like they have the features of like our colonizers.

00:22:06
Priscilla
You know, and so I think we should, as a Mexican society, I mean, it would be nice if we would recognize the beauty in our indigenous roots, you know, and.

00:22:19 Priscilla
And not so much. I guess that’s what is very popular in Mexico having the white.

00:22:24
Priscilla
And then and uh, you know, fair, fair colored hair because that’s what our colonizers look like. Mexican Mexicans and Mexican Americans as well. You know, we should learn to appreciate our indigenous roots more because This is why we are who we are today as a society. Whether you like it or not.

00:22:45
Priscilla
I mean something as simple as, you know, our music. That’s our, that’s part of like where it came from, our indigenous roots, our dance steps, you know, that’s where you know.

00:22:55
Armando
So much of the cool stuff in our culture comes from that like.

00:23:00
Armando
The like you said, the music, the dance, the.

00:23:04
Armando
The the clothing. The even like the slang that we use in in in our Spanish.

00:23:14
Armando
Like, I feel like people don’t recognize that that’s where it comes from. When you talk about like Mexican quote u n quote Spanish, it’s that way because you’re bringing in words from our indigenous roots. Like if you think about a word like.

00:23:32
Armando
Aguacate. It’s like the first thing that I think of is like, that is a straight indigenous word and there’s there’s so like, like a word like cacahuates like you. But you can hear it in the thing where it has the, the which is like coming from indigenous languages.

00:23:53
Armando
Like it’s so present and I think that’s so like I think it’s that it’s cool and it makes me.

00:24:00
Armando
Like, especially when I was in college, like it made me want to learn more about that language.

00:24:06
Armando
Like I wanted to like, how do I learn this like I wanted to try to learn it. I didn’t. I couldn’t. But because there’s not enough resources. But I was super fascinated by that aspect of our culture and how.

00:24:22
Armando
How embedded it is, but also like the conflict of us not being super into it, that has always been weird to me, and then that makes me go back to what I had asked you before, and you brought it up with like, the weird dichotomy of being Mexican American. And when you’re asked where you’re from, having that conflict of not knowing.

00:24:43
Armando
Exactly how to answer the question, I wonder if you because I had those experiences as well. I wonder if you had experiences in Mexico.

00:24:52
Armando
So with the same question, because personally when I would go to Mexico, I would be called El Gringo like I was the American. And so in Mexico, I was never Mexican enough.

00:25:07
Armando
And then in the US, I was never.

00:25:11
Armando
American enough. So I wonder if if you had experiences like that in Mexico.

00:25:17
Priscilla
As American’s only American like being a gringa, well, if I was ever called the gringa, it definitely wasn’t to my face.

00:25:25
Priscilla
It was probably said behind my back, but what I did hear a lot of was.

00:25:31
Priscilla
If it wasn’t for the fact that your accent isn’t slightly off, I would believe that you’re 100% Mexican.

00:25:39
Priscilla
Which is and I was like. Excuse me. What? Because I guess I I tend to speak with a with a Mexican accent like because I don’t know. That’s just how I was raised. That’s who was around me. My slang can be very Mexican.

00:25:54
Priscilla
Even my Spanish slang, because you know, every country has its different type of slang.

00:26:01
Priscilla
And so I remember one time I was, I was on the bus in Mexico with a Mexican friend of mine who obviously lives over there, and he was like, yeah, you speak perfect Spanish. And like, you look Mexican. I you don’t, you know, you don’t get well, actually, that’s a lie, he said.

00:26:19
Priscilla
You look Mexican. You do dress slightly differently and I was like, what do you mean? Cause I saw what I was wearing and it was jeans a T shirt and sneakers and he was wearing jeans AT shirt and sneakers.

00:26:33
Priscilla
And he was like, yeah, but your clothes is slightly different. I was like.

00:26:38
Priscilla
How? he’s like it just doesn’t look.

00:26:43
Priscilla
Like it’s from around here and I don’t remember what I was wearing, but I remember that it wasn’t like.

00:26:49
Priscilla
It wasn’t the IT wasn’t the like. It wasn’t brand name, you know, it was just, I don’t know what it was. It was just very simple, like nothing, you know, crazy and out of the ordinary, you know, cause at the time, I was probably like 16/17. And I never really cared about like, you know, a brand sort of thing. So I never had like Nike written across my, my my shirt.

00:27:09
Priscilla
Or or whatever.

00:27:11
Priscilla
And I just thought it was very interesting. And he also, he said again like ohh, you know you’re.

00:27:18
Priscilla
You you’re acting is slightly off and I was like, umm again I I don’t like to hear this, you know, because because in a way, they’re telling he’s telling me you’re not Mexican enough to be considered fully Mexico.

00:27:33
Armando
Right. Like we can tell that you’re an outsider.

00:27:35
Priscilla
Exactly. And I mean that’s that’s the kind of.

00:27:39
Priscilla
Thing I heard.

00:27:40
Armando
I I wanted to ask if you ever found it difficult to.

00:27:47
Armando
Find or establish.

00:27:51
Armando
Uh, like a sense of community with other Mexican Americans, because that was something that I struggled with a lot growing up.

00:27:59
Priscilla
You know what? I I I have never struggled with finding the Mexican community.

00:28:06
Priscilla
In my.

00:28:07
Priscilla
Life. Uh. Because like I said, my family owns a Mexican restaurant. They also own like a little meat market. And next to that meat market. And that restaurant, my mom has her store. So and obviously we sell Mexican products and we, I mean, other Latin American products, you know as well now.

00:28:27
Priscilla
But initially it was only Mexican products because that’s what people would ask for and my family spoke Spanish. And you know, that’s what they knew. And they saw that

00:28:36
Priscilla
There was a a need for that back like 20 years ago when they opened the meat market at first, which was t then later came my mom’s store. And then later after that came the restaurant. So I I feel like I always had.

00:28:58
Priscilla
Like people around me who are Mexican and yeah. And you know, because.

00:29:05
Priscilla
I grew up at this business in this Plaza. I’ve gotten to know like customers. I I there’s there’s certain people that have literally watched me grow up just because they’re customers of my family’s business. And I’ve seen them as well, you know.

00:29:26
Priscilla
Go on in life.

00:29:28
Priscilla
Because just because of where we were. So I think because of that business, I was able to always have a like a Mexican community.

00:29:38
Armando
I wanna tie tie this up with some questions about art to wrap this up.

00:29:46
Armando
What do you in your experience? What have you found to be the local Mexican community? Mexican American?

00:29:54
Armando
Community, what have you found their relationship to art to be? And I mean art in the sense of, like the art that is presented.

00:30:08
Armando
Here in South Florida, in institutions like museums, places like wynwood walls, etcetera, what do you see the the Mexican Americans community?

00:30:24
Armando
Is there relationship to that? What is the reaction to that? Are they? Do you find them interested in that as a whole or do you see them not particularly being interested in?

00:30:36
Priscilla
So it’s funny that you mentioned art and how it pertains to, you know, museums and those sorts of in, in institutions. For example, our Folklorico dance group danced at the Perez Art Museum, I believe last year.

00:30:57
Priscilla
And it was a wonderful experience because they it was for.

00:31:04
Priscilla
National Hispanic month, OK. And it was really nice having, you know, being able to represent Mexico here at this Art Museum, you know, in Miami. And we felt really, we felt we were honored, you know, to to, to do it at such a like, you know.

00:31:06
Armando
Yeah.

00:31:23
Priscilla
The just museum. But that’s one way and and how our I guess it’s art is being shown in museums. It’s being shown through dance.

00:31:36
Priscilla
And music. And when it comes to our youth again, right now all the rage is, you know, zapateado Everyone is learning how to zapatear

00:31:49
Priscilla
And that’s how our youth is taking in our roots. I think our even our indigenous roots, without them even really knowing that they are. And I’ll give you a good example of that.

00:32:03
Priscilla
One of my quinceanera griyps

00:32:06
Priscilla
I had a we were we were dancing because the girl, you know, she wanted to do a zapateado as part of one of her surprise dances. But one of the boys said something very interesting about the zapateado I told we were we had these, the large, like, they’re called.

00:32:25
Priscilla
Penachos. They go on your head, you know, it’s for one of our indigenous.

00:32:30
Priscilla
Performances that we have and I’m not sure what was said, but he said something along the lines of like putting down our indigenous roots and like kind of being like, oh, like, I’m not like something Indian like, no.

00:32:49
Priscilla
I’m not Indian or something like that and it made me mad.

00:32:53
Priscilla
And obviously, and I was like hold up, you are here in this dance room today.

00:33:00 Priscilla
Zapateando And do you know where Zapateado comes?

00:33:05
Priscilla
And there was about like I told you this earlier, about eight or ten of the kids, and they all, for some reason, they all decided to listen to me, right them in there. And I told them honey.

00:33:18
Priscilla
Zapateado is a mixture of our indigenous roots along with our colonizers influence and the the dances you’re doing today that you did today that you did so well today.

00:33:36
Priscilla
All come from these indigenous roots.

00:33:39
Priscilla
So do not belittle you know where we come from. You can’t say, oh, we’re not Indian or which is another way saying indigenous. You know enough because.

00:33:52
Priscilla
It’s it’s in our blood whether you like it or not. You know it’s where your mom came from. It’s where your grandma came from and so on and so forth.

00:34:02
Priscilla
Forth so you know we have to, we still have to educate our youth a little bit definitely on on how we came to be you know here in this world today and I think a great way to do it is again through dance and through music which is how you know, like I said, they’re taking it all in.

00:34:23
Priscilla
And they don’t even realize it. You know, they’re learning our traditional dances.

00:34:28
Priscilla
And.

00:34:28
Priscilla
Again, they don’t realize they’re doing.

00:34:30
Armando
It I think this leads perfectly into my last question. This idea of of like the youth learning about our history through different forms of art. I I’m really curious.

00:34:48
Armando
To hear what your wish is.

00:34:52
Armando
For the Mexican community, Mexican American community in South Florida, what what would you like to see more of? Well, where would you like to see things?

00:35:03
Priscilla
Go. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this saying in Mexico, but I’ve heard it pretty often and I like to say it pretty often.

00:35:12
Priscilla
It’s Mexico and we stayed in Mexico all the time. Mexico doesn’t dominate the world because we don’t want to.

00:35:20
Priscilla
UM.

00:35:21
Priscilla
I think that what I would like to see, you know in the very near future preferably is that you know, I don’t think our even our Mexico, even Mexico itself doesn’t believe in itself enough. You know I I want. 00:35:41 Priscilla I want our people to grow confident.

00:35:46
Priscilla
And you know who we are? And and that includes Mexican Americans here. You know, I I would like to see no more of the racism. You know that there is a towards our indigenous people because again it’s that’s where we come from. How can you scorn what.

00:36:06
Priscilla
What runs through your veins?

00:36:08
Priscilla
I don’t think you know our community recognizes how strong it is. I would like to see us in a sense.

00:36:19
Priscilla
You know, believe in that strength a little bit more.

00:36:22
Armando
I think that’s a great thought to to end on. Thank you so much for sharing your time with me and with with the museum and sharing your thoughts with us. It’s very much appreciated.

00:36:36
Priscilla
I’m very happy to be here anytime. Thank you.

00:36:51
Armando
This program was produced by Pam Education, written, recorded, narrated and edited by Armando Zamora Digital and Interpretive Content Coordinator, original music by Christian Cummings and Ruben Espinoza. Additional audio samples.

00:37:07
Armando
And cited works are listed in the production notes.

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Production notes.

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Sources