Ranald Woodaman is the Exhibitions and Public Programs Director at the Smithsonian Latino Center. He has a strong interest in constructions of ancestral heritage and history in Latino communities. He started at the Smithsonian in 2004 as a fellow in the Latino Museum Studies Program and a curatorial assistant for the exhibition “¡Azúcar! The Life and Music of Celia Cruz.”
The Smithsonian Latino Center’s first gallery, the Molina Family Latino Gallery, will open at the National Museum of American History in 2021 to showcase the Latino Experience in the United States and connect the community’s rich past with its dynamic present.
Some musical genres are just particular—particular to a region or a community, without aspiring to be universally relevant or to commercially conquer new audiences. I think of the plena this way, an island-born genre that is performed throughout the Puerto Rican diaspora to nourish a collective sense of identity, memory, and feeling. It is a rhythmic, tambourine (pandero/pandereta) and voice-based genre that was created to share local stories (often described as a spoken newspaper). Its beat, mobile instrumentation, and participatory singing make it perfect for processions, as well as impromptu concerts and protests. The plena is a genre with songwriters who really have something to say about the historical and contemporary experiences of Puerto Ricans on and off the island. It is similar to other regional genres, like the gaita zuliana from Venezuela or Trinidad’s calypso, which are deeply steeped in the political and social contexts of their listeners.
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