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Speaker 1: We know.

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Speaker 2: La Bamba is a song that's over four hundred years old.

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Speaker 2: That song survived because people sang that song. They didn't

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Speaker 2: know how to read. They know how to write, but

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Speaker 2: they just passed it on. How are people going to

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Speaker 2: know our story as Chicano's mestizos, brown kids, mixed kids.

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Speaker 2: If we don't tell our story, how we going to

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Speaker 2: survive for four hundred years? And every art form, there's

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Speaker 2: people who hold on to what they believe is tradition,

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Speaker 2: and then there's people who are trying to evolve with it.

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Speaker 2: Don't let a conversation or those ideas of what tradition

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Speaker 2: is keep you from telling who you are.

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Speaker 3: From Futro Media and PRX, It's Latino Usa, I'm Maria

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Speaker 3: in Josa today. One of our How I Made It

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Speaker 3: segments with East La band Las Gafitiras Les Gaffideiras made

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Speaker 3: a name for themselves with their politically charged lyrics set

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Speaker 3: to traditional Mexican and Afro Mexican instrumentation. The group from

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Speaker 3: East La fused a bass of sonarocho with rock, ska,

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Speaker 3: spoken word, and hip hop, telling the stories they grew

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Speaker 3: up with and the realities they still see every day

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Speaker 3: in their communities.

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Speaker 1: And nineteen black and Brown fighting together one day.

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Speaker 3: I'm always singing in English, Spanish and in Spanish. Their

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Speaker 3: message has reached the ears of listeners all over the world,

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Speaker 3: from the stages of the Hollywood Bowl all the way

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Speaker 3: to New Zealand. On today's edition of our How I

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Speaker 3: Made It Series, we check in with three members of

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Speaker 3: the group, LEAs Cafetiras, Denise Carlos, Ector Flores and Danielle French.

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Speaker 3: They tell us about their beginnings, how they preserve telling

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Speaker 3: brown stories, and they're going to break down one of

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Speaker 3: their latest songs. I'm not your puppet.

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Speaker 4: I'm Daniel French. I play harana keys, I sing, and

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Speaker 4: I spit and whatever else the band tells me to do.

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Speaker 1: My name is Ecto Floris.

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Speaker 2: I play harana terreceta, I dance a patiado and I

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Speaker 2: sing with a little bit of spoken word and rap

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Speaker 2: rap rat Hi.

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Speaker 5: I'm Denise Carlos and I play the harana primera. I

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Speaker 5: sing and I dance a patio. We are Las Cafetera.

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Speaker 2: I always tell people who don't know confidittas. I always say,

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Speaker 2: if Leela downs and uh go go bordello had a

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Speaker 2: baby in East La.

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Speaker 1: That would be last Caffadettas. It's La music.

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Speaker 4: It's all the things that reflect the way we grew up.

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Speaker 2: What we're doing is carrying immigrant stories, Chicano stories, Brown stories,

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Speaker 2: and that's what we want to keep on doing.

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Speaker 5: We offer a reimagination of what it means to luck Mexican,

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Speaker 5: to sound max second, to speak Mexican, because even in

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Speaker 5: Las Cafeterras, the experience varies, the language, style varies, the

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Speaker 5: self and both identity varies.

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Speaker 4: In a way, I think it reflects the pressure cooker

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Speaker 4: of life in La. And so of course the music

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Speaker 4: we create is influenced by how we grew up, the

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Speaker 4: sounds we heard, the foods we ate at other people's houses.

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Speaker 5: You see us, and we don't look like Mexicans. We

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Speaker 5: don't look like Spili Gonzalez, right. We speak English, we

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Speaker 5: speak Spanglish, we speak Spanish. We dance, you know, Narteno style,

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Speaker 5: We do staff atiallo, but then we also do ska

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Speaker 5: and cumbia and you know rock. And I think what

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Speaker 5: we offer is a discomfort and a reimagination of what

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Speaker 5: it means to be American, to look American, what that

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Speaker 5: sound is, what that story is.

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Speaker 2: Last Coffee comes from the East Side Cafe. It's the

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Speaker 2: space that Denise and Josse Gano, the drummer percussionists in

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Speaker 2: our band. They were part of a bunch of students

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Speaker 2: who helped found the space, and so when we were

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Speaker 2: starting to play music there, we would go play everywhere

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Speaker 2: coffee shops, on the streets and the corners or wherever,

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Speaker 2: and people would say, oh, here are the caffedeos from

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Speaker 2: the cafe. But we had women in the crew, and

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Speaker 2: they're like, we're not cafedeos, we're caffedetas. And we're like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: even though we have men in the group, let's take

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Speaker 2: on the feminine identity because we all come from a woman,

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Speaker 2: so it's a great way.

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Speaker 1: To honor that we all have feminine inside of us.

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Speaker 2: We fell in love with the style of music called

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Speaker 2: son which is in Afro Mexican style of music.

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Speaker 4: It comes from this mix of West Africa, the Mecca

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Speaker 4: and the indigenous peoples of southern Vera Cruz and the

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Speaker 4: Sotavento region, and you have the Spanish and Arab influences.

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Speaker 4: Is about telling stories. It's about call and response. I

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Speaker 4: tell a verse and you sing it back to me,

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Speaker 4: So we make sure we're listening to each other.

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Speaker 1: We talk about the real things.

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Speaker 4: Going on in our life. And I think that's where

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Speaker 4: Las Cafetra's story takes flight, because then we say, okay,

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Speaker 4: they're telling their stories, but we didn't grow up in

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Speaker 4: Vera Cruz. We grew up here in La So what

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Speaker 4: happens when we tell our story? What happens when we

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Speaker 4: let the music reflects our experience and where we live.

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Speaker 5: As a Chicana was being told that the way I

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Speaker 5: placed on Harocho wasn't correct and it was disrespectful because

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Speaker 5: I spoke Spanglish because I didn't understand everything I was

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Speaker 5: singing about.

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Speaker 1: We used to dress up like hachos.

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Speaker 2: We used to dress up in our why weather sombredros,

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Speaker 2: but we stopped doing that because we're not had o chos.

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Speaker 2: We're not from Beta Cruz. We don't say we placed

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Speaker 2: on haroucho music. We are grounded in Harocho, which taught

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Speaker 2: us your story is important and vital, taught us that

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Speaker 2: we are valid right and for that we are forever grateful.

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Speaker 1: But we are not had o chos.

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Speaker 5: In Las Cafeterra and through Sono, I was given this

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Speaker 5: platform and this vehicle to no longer be ashamed, to

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Speaker 5: be able, to be proud, and to be able to

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Speaker 5: make connections with people all over the world.

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Speaker 4: The more we create that space in our band where

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Speaker 4: everyone can express themselves and be who they are, the

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Speaker 4: more I feel like we've created this space outside on

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Speaker 4: stage for the listeners say, hey, no matter where you're from, homie, like,

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Speaker 4: get up and dance. There ain't no wrong way, you know.

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Speaker 4: And I think because we've been told that we were

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Speaker 4: doing it the wrong way, we learned to shed our

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Speaker 4: concern for what people thought and to acknowledge that we

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Speaker 4: respectfully are going to go our own path and let

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Speaker 4: our path reflect who we are.

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Speaker 5: That's such a powerful thing for young people of color

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Speaker 5: to be able to do, and to do it in

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Speaker 5: a way that we're not apologizing for, do it in

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Speaker 5: a way we're not ashamed, but being proud of our

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Speaker 5: own existence and our own stories. And it's almost.

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Speaker 2: We recorded a song called I'm Not Your Puppet, which

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Speaker 2: is based on a song called I'm Your Puppet, which

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Speaker 2: we love, but we just added one word not I

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Speaker 2: don't when I think about oldies and now there are

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Speaker 2: tragic love songs, but a lot of the stuff is about,

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Speaker 2: you know, really unhealthy relationships. So we were strategic and

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Speaker 2: trying to pick songs.

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Speaker 1: That we loved and that could be flipped a little bit.

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Speaker 1: I'm just a too.

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Speaker 4: Just the oldies are something. I guarantee you that no

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Speaker 4: matter whether you're black, white, brown, Asian, wherever you're from,

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Speaker 4: if you've been in America that long, like you have

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Speaker 4: that story, you have that connection to this song.

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Speaker 1: Dude, just what.

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Speaker 4: I'm told, I do anything for you, but I'm not your.

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Speaker 2: Part of the things that we do in Blast Calfeeta

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Speaker 2: is we always.

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Speaker 1: Like to perform spoken word.

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Speaker 2: We like to do perform hip hop pieces.

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Speaker 1: Anything you know, everything you need. I knew all that

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Speaker 1: this is, y'all get down on one knee. It could

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Speaker 1: be a kermit.

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Speaker 2: To write a little piece just to include something different.

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Speaker 1: Would be silly.

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Speaker 2: It'll be your soul man and man show you how

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Speaker 2: to slowness.

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Speaker 4: I think it kind of expresses this connection between Detroit

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Speaker 4: and the folks who created that music, and Los Angeles

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Speaker 4: and Mexico, and it kind of unites this continent and

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Speaker 4: unites our stories and reminds us it's just a thin

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Speaker 4: line between our cultures.

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Speaker 5: I think saying I'm not your puppet. I can love you,

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Speaker 5: I can sherish you, and I also expect the same back.

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Speaker 5: It's just hoping that people listen to this song and say,

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Speaker 5: you can love fiercely, but remember to love yourself fiercely

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Speaker 5: and never to just be held by anybody's strings.

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Speaker 4: No matter what happens. We got to remember to do

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Speaker 4: the things that give us joy. And we can critique

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Speaker 4: the people in power. We can critique each other and

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Speaker 4: ourselves and talk about what matters and do it in

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Speaker 4: a way that still gives us energy and life and

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Speaker 4: motivates us to not just say what's wrong, but to

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Speaker 4: go make things right. We can't just preach to the choir.

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Speaker 4: And also we can take a message that we never

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Speaker 4: thought would resonate with somebody who has a different color

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Speaker 4: of skin, different upbringing. We say, you should love who

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Speaker 4: you are, you should love the person next to you,

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Speaker 4: and we get the party cracking, and then we slip

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Speaker 4: in these little messages we hit them with. You know,

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Speaker 4: if I was president, if I was present sleeves, as

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Speaker 4: I phrased the congregations, the first thing I do is

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Speaker 4: re education in every third period we talk about the

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Speaker 4: things that are going on and in our country and

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Speaker 4: our world, and we see that those words bounce back

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Speaker 4: at us black.

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Speaker 2: And brown because three strikes and when they get out

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Speaker 2: so they can run to their future, back to their past, and.

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Speaker 5: Some spaces appreciate that more than other spaces. We've been

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Speaker 5: told to stop playing and stopping political and people have

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Speaker 5: walked out of our shows. Making people uncomfortable is not

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Speaker 5: the goal. Making people reflect on why they're uncomfortable is

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Speaker 5: what's valuable.

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Speaker 2: Conflict is a natural thing, you know, how we deal

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Speaker 2: with conflict becomes the unnatural thing.

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Speaker 5: Growth is always going to be uncomfortable, and so what

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Speaker 5: I'm hoping for with our music is not that we

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Speaker 5: make people angry or that people walk out of our shows,

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Speaker 5: is that we're able to end the discomfort growth.

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Speaker 3: The voices of Denise Carlos, Ector Flories, and Daniel French

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Speaker 3: from the East La Band Las Cafeterias. This episode was

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Speaker 3: produced by Gini Montalbo and edited by Miel Massias. The

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Speaker 3: Latino USA team includes Mike Sargent, Julieta Martinelli, Victoria Estrada,

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Speaker 3: Patricia Sulbran, Gini Montalbo Alejandra Salassa Rinaldo, Leanos Junior and

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Speaker 3: Julia Rocha, with help from Raoul Perez. Were edited by

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Speaker 3: Andrea Lopez Grussado and Marta Martinez. Our editorial director is

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Speaker 3: Julio Ricardo Barela. Our engineers are Stephane Lebou and Julia Caruso.

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Speaker 3: Additional engineering by gabriel A Bayez and j J. Carubin.

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Speaker 3: Our digital editor is Luis Luna. Our New York Women's

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Speaker 3: Foundation Ignite fellow is Maries Kinca. Our fellows are Elisa Baena,

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Speaker 3: Monica Morales and Anna Dalis. Our theme music was composed

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Speaker 3: by Sangue Rubinos. If you like the music you heard

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Speaker 3: on this episode, stop by Latinousa dot org and check

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Speaker 3: out our weekly Spotify playlist. I'm your host and executive

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Speaker 3: producer Mariano Josa. Join us again on our next episode,

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Speaker 3: and in the meantime, look for us on all of

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Speaker 3: your social media. I'll see you there, i E.

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Speaker 6: Latino USA is made possible in part by California Endowment,

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Speaker 6: building a strong state by improving the health of all Californians,

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Speaker 6: the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and funding

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Speaker 6: for Latino USA is. Coverage of a culture of health

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Speaker 6: is made possible, in part by a grant from the

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Speaker 6: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

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Speaker 1: You want me to move on? Or do you want

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Speaker 1: me to We can move on. Thank you, Mark, thank you.

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Speaker 1: You're tired of hearing me?

217
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Speaker 3: Swere okay, here we go in three two one