OK. Hi, everybody. Sorry we're a little
late to get started. Welcome. I don't need that microphone. Actually, I-- you know me. I'm Jeremy. I'm the director of
the honors program, and I'm so pleased to
welcome everyone here tonight for our second our
politics lecture series event of the season. Every month we have a
lecture of some kind that touches on art, politics,
and the complicated ties between them. We had Kate Gabriel read a book
from her new book of poetry last month. And this month,
I'm
so honored to-- possibly to welcome our
possibly farthest-traveling yet lecturer, which is
Professor Renzo Aroni here behind me, who came here from
Lima, Peru to speak to us. I'll just say a tiny bit about
the impetus for this lecture, and then a little bit
about our speaker, and then get out of the way. Honors juniors each
year take a trip abroad, which many of the
honors students know. Last year was supposed
to be a trip to Peru for some of those
students, but we canceled it due to both the pr
otests at
the time that were engulfing the country and the incredible
state repression that was happening at the time-- the state going
into universities and randomly arresting students,
the bloodshed on the streets. And so those of us-- some
of us are going to Peru again this year. So that's good. But also, we wanted to
use that as an opportunity to educate ourselves
and each other about the political
situation in Peru. And I can think of really no
one better to do that than-- and through an ar
tistic
lens, an aesthetic lens-- then Professor Aroni. So forgive me. I'm really quickly just going to
read a few biographical details because he deserves it. So he's an assistant professor
in the Department of Humanities at the Pontifical Catholic
University of Peru, where he teaches courses
on contemporary history, oral history, and the
politics of memory. Before joining PUCP, he
was a post-doctoral fellow at the Society of Fellows
in the Humanities, and a lecturer at the Center for
the Study
of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University. He has an MA in anthropology
from the National Autonomous University of Mexico
in Mexico City, and a PhD in Latin
American History from the University
of California Davis with an
emphasis on Indigenous studies and human rights. He's currently working on a book
manuscript, Indigenous Peasants at War, Resistance and Massacre
in Peru's Shining Path. He has multiple articles
that have appeared in academic journals, such as
Latin American perspectives and
the NACLA Report
on the Americas. He's a host of a
podcast, Kuskalla, a podcast about
Quechuan-Andean knowledge. And he's currently working
on a new project, which you'll be hearing
some about today, on music and resistance in Peru. So without further ado-- Oh, and I'm going to send
a sign-around sheet around. That's the last
piece of business. So please sign in if you can. If you're not in our
email list, just mark, and I'll make sure
you get on there. So without further ado, let's
please give
a warm welcome to Professor Aroni. [APPLAUSE] Thank you very much, Jeremy,
for the kind introductions. And thank you also to the
School of Visual Arts, particularly to the honors
program and the BFA Visual and Critical Studies
for the invitations. And thank you all of
you for being here. And what I'm going
to present today, it's about the role of
music in social movements, and the state-sponsored
violence and repressions focusing on the massive
Indigenous peasant mobilizations from the
Southern
Peruvian Andes through Lima,
Peru's capital city. Against President
Dina Boluarte and her authoritarian government
from the late 2020 to the early 2023 that
caused more than 60 deaths-- mainly Indigenous,
Quechua, and Aymara citizens at the hands of
police and armed forces. Quickly unexpected, the
protests became massacres in Andean cities like
Andahuaylas, Ayacucho, and Juliaca. As you will see in this map
that shows where this events-- tragic events and
massacres happened in the southern
Peru
vian Andes that's mainly populated by
bilingual Quechua-Spanish or Aymara-Spanish speakers. And the people Who were killed during the
protest were mainly, of course, Indigenous descendants or
Indigenous themselves-- being affected by this
very brutal state violence. And I bring this quote from
Amnesty International report after these events that
bring an evidence how repressive and brutal
was this repression was. And the evidence,
as it indicates-- that the police and army fired
bullets indiscri
minately, and in some cases,
at specific targets, killing or injuring bystanders,
protesters, and those providing first aid to injured people. The political power
of music that I'm going to talk about today is
not limited to its ability to mobilize protests
and/or address social and political subjects. It also creates or reinforces
communities of mutually engaged participants, fostering protest,
resistance, and activism beyond the physical spaces
where demonstrations arise. For instance, using
d
igital and social media, and rural urban
community networks based on their cultural,
political, and democratic practices. Since the demonstrations erupted
in Peru in December 2022, dozens of musicians and singers
have composed protest songs in different local and
global musical genres, including hip-hop, rock,
reggae, Quechua pop, and the unpopular [...] to
voice their social and political discontent. The songs question democracy,
citizenship, racism, and state violence, particularly against
his
torically marginalized Indigenous people. They also address, these
songs, about resistance, and the struggle to exercise
their political rights denied by mainstream
politics, media, and conservative coalitions. By addressing the current
political crisis in Peru through music protests, I will
provide some historical context that goes back to the 1980-2000
Peruvian internal armed conflict between two
guerrilla insurgent movements and the government,
and how musicians responded to this era of viole
nce giving
their testimonies through songs from that wartime and
its present continuity. This democracy is no
longer a democracy. Dina, murderer, the
people repudiate you. How many deaths do you
want for you to resign? It's the most popular
protest anthem that has echoed across the many
demonstrations from Southern Peru to Lima, calling
for the resignation of the new President
Dina Boluarte. Dina Boluarte had come to
power on December 7, 2022 following her predecessor, Pedro
Castillo's, file sel
f-coup, or as we say in
Spanish, [SPANISH] Boluarte would quickly
receive support from right-wing sectors and
mainstream media because of her reciprocal
support for conservatism and the ongoing
neoliberal economic model. She then became the
head of a coalition with a majority of
right-wing Congress of Peru and the Peruvian armed
forces raising concerns about authoritarian civilian
military government forming. As you can see in this slide,
the timeline of these events that happened between late 1
9-- late 2022, and the
earlier of this year. What I'm talking about is when
the former president, Pedro Castillo, was put out,
and the protest erupted. And the response
from the government-- the reaction was
very authoritarian, repressive, and causing
these three massacres-- major massacres in Andahuaylas
on December 11 and 12. And in Ayacucho,
December 15 and 16, that killed about 10 civilians,
mainly Indigenous Quechua speakers, and some of them
minors under 18 years old. And the last massacre
in Juliaca
in southern region of Puno, where at least 18 civilians
were killed during the clashes and protests. The right-wing coalitions
includes 1990s former president and dictator Alberto
Fujimori's daughter. Keiko Fujimori, political
party, which has lost, but not conceded the last general
elections in 2021. As you see in this map, the
election's main candidates were Keiko Fujimori
and Pedro Castillo. And Keiko Fujimori
lost the elections. But Pedro Castillo's support-- so you see in this m
ap the
red color is the area where he gained the most support,
mainly from rural provinces, and that who identify
with him as he represented a rural union and
provincial people-- like, most of the
people who lives in the rural and
provincial regions. So explain a little
bit more context to how we ended up in
this tragedy of massacres, and how repressive
with this violence that go back to the 1980s, 1990s. The conservative and
the media organizations never accepted that our
rural union teachers d
efeated them and
risked their privilege over controlling state power. The right-wing controlled
Congress obstructed Castillo's government, attempting
to remove him with consecutive impeachments
for corruption allegations. Castillo attempted
to dissolve Congress, claiming it constantly blocked
his executive policies. However, the legislative
body impeached Castillo immediately, and
removed him from office. Media critics reported
Castillo's dramatic fall with these words,
and quote, "He had breakf
ast as a president,
lunch as a dictator, dinner as a detainee." Unquote. Pedro Castillo was dictator
for only two hours. Nowadays, Castillo shares the
same prison with Fujimori, who has-- Alberto Fujimori,
who has accused of series of misappropriation
of public funds, abuse of power, corruption,
and gross human rights abuses for over a decade
from 1980 to 2000, particularly when he gained
total control after he staged a self-coup in 1992. His regime operated as a
kleptocracy in three scopes-- bu
siness, politics,
and the military. In 2009, Fujimori was
sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in
killings and kidnappings by the Grupo Colina
Death Squad during his counterinsurgency
campaign against two guerrilla groups, the Shining Path, or
Sendero Luminoso, and the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary
Movement, or MRTA for short. Since the removal of Castillo,
the protests initially mobilized his
supporters, then it grew to a massive mobilization
across the nation for broader demands, including
a new
general election that called for the
resignation of Boluarte and the replacement
of Congress, members. They also claimed
the installation of the constitutional
assembly that can make a new Constitution,
different from the 1992 Fujimori's authoritarian
and neoliberal Constitution. The forming military
civil government reactions to the rising protests
was a declaration of a national
state of emergency, deploying the army
on the streets, and suspending the right
to gather and move freely. De
monstrators angered
even more, and took public spaces, local government
offices, and regional airports. The escalation of violence
ended up with massacres. The government alleged that drug
trafficking, illegal mining, criminal organization,
radical leftist groups, and even a neighboring country,
like Evo Morales' Bolivia, financed these mobilizations. In reaction,
Aymaras and Quechuas clarified that their
self-managed community supported it. The demonstrators decided to
mobilize Lima to listen t
o-- and find social justice, and
justice for their victims after the massacres, like
in Ayacucho and Juliaca. They called this
mobilization La Toma de Lima, or the takeover of Lima. As an Indigenous woman
declared in Quechua-- from Puno region-- [SPEAKING QUECHUA] The word [SPEAKING QUECHUA]
which means our rights, is the most powerful
used in her speech during the massive
mobilization of Aymara people taking several buses to Lima. By saying [SPEAKING QUECHUA] she
claims her rights to protest, a
nd stress their
political rights. As she continues declaring, "We,
ourselves are going on our own. No one is financing us. We will make our
self-respect, and that they listen to our voices. We are not going to
allow ourselves to be trampled like in the past. That is why we are
fighting for our rights. Who is paying me? No one is paying me. We, ourselves, are
traveling, organizing, abandoning our children all
because of this government. We are all-- just
for this cause, we are all going to live,
or we are all going to die, and we will all come to fight. We are traveling to
enforce our rights, traveling with all our
brothers and sisters." Unquote. In Peru, Indigenous
men and women do not have the rights
to make politics. If they protest, it is because
radical political actors manipulate and mobilize them. This paternalistic and
racist vision of the elites shows their incapacity
for understanding Indigenous community politics. The worst part of this vision
is that these privileged sectors
denigrated those protesters,
passing a law to criminalize them as terrorists, or
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Linking them with a Maoist
Shining Path terrorism, dictatorial regimes under
Alberto Fujimori in the 1990s and then Dina Boluarte
today criminalized protests with brutal repression,
arbitrary detentions, and killings, and
torturing and imprisoning grassroots leaders with the same
anti-communist paranoia using the shadow of the Shining Path. At this time, I should
give you a brief background on
The Shining Path,
or Sendero Luminoso. That was the main topic of
my research for many years. And I'm going to
give you, briefly, a background on this era of
violence from 1980 to 2000 in order to understand the
continuity of this state violence, and repressions,
and the use of this word, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
or terrorist, linking in order to the
legitimate those who are demonstrating. The Shining Path
arose in Ayacucho as a small splinter Maoist
party in the 1960s that started its armed struggl
e
in the village of Chuschi by burning ballot boxes on
election day in May 1980-- yes, as the country returned
to democracy after 12 years of military dictatorship. From Ayacucho, it expanded,
as you see in this map-- in the southern part of
region, the dark yellow area, Ayacucho-- from that region, it expanded
across the Andes and lowland Amazon from where it sought to
encircle Lima and other cities by late 1980s, and early 1990s. The party leaders were
mainly educated, middle and upper class M
estizos
from urban centers, while the rank and file members
were Indigenous descendants, laborers. And the leaders of
this movement offered these local and rank-and-file
members, combatants, an armed rebellion
to take power, change economic disparities,
and make an egalitarian society. The leaders also offered
a gendered message for incorporating
women in leadership and the rank-and-file members. However, women experienced
also numerous barriers inside the movement, including
patriarchy, misogyn
y, and sexual abuse by
male guerilla leaders. Women compose about 40%
of Shining Path militants, and 50% of its central
committee-- the top leadership. And as I said, even
the discoursely opened the possibility
that women can join this guerrilla insurgency. In practice, most of these
women faced so much barriers and fighting for their
own political liberation inside the movement
that they are-- they were making kind
of internal revolution within this big
revolution that was fighting against the
system,
and bringing a world revolution. And so this is a
very important part that I focus on my
research, that gender perspective of this
insurgency that I can talk more later after the talk. Defeated in the
1992 with a capture of Abimael Guzman, the
top leader of The Shining Path in Lima, this
movement declined rapidly in the following years. Former dictator Alberto
Fujimori took credit for this military victory. However, his conviction charged
ranging from corruption, abuse of power, and huma
n
rights violations showed that the [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH],, the
community self-defense patrols, played a crucial role
in the guerrilla armies. Upon Fujimori's
resignation in 2000, a transitional
government established the Truth and
Reconciliation Commissions that was created in 2001
because the power vacuum that Fujimori left
in the country. And the work of the human
rights organizations helped to contribute to
the creation of the Truth Commissions in 2001. But in two years later, in
2003, the Tr
uth Commission delivered its final report. And the result of the
findings is very astonishing, that I'm going to show you in
a moment in the next slides. The one thing I should say,
that Truth Commission's main objective
was to investigate what happened during these
20 years of Civil War-- the human rights abuses,
who were the perpetrators, and how it happened. In many countries that
experienced Civil War military dictatorships, political
violence, in order to return to democracy,
in order to ad
vance to peace and
transitional democracy, we need a truth commissions
that can make it clear and recognize what
happened in this country. And so we can
eventually reconcile it. So we had that experience,
truth commissions-- most-- mainly with previous
experience of truth commission, like in South America-- South Africa, and Southern
Cone, like Argentina, Chile. So the work of the
Truth Commission included collecting
numerous testimonies-- about 70,000
testimonies collected in different communit
ies
across the Andes, the Amazon, on the coast, and
the coastal cities. And also they conducted
mass grave exhumations because most people
who disappeared, had been buried in mass graves,
and in different places, and mainly in
Ayacucho, which was the epicenter of the conflict. And also the public hearing,
where some victims survivors who can give their testimony
to televised a public hearing for the very first time to
dignify and break the silence, and share their own experiences
what really hap
pened. So as you can see
here in this slide, the main conclusions of
the truth commissions. And it's very astonishing. The first, it estimated that
almost 70,000 people were killed or disappeared
resulting to the conflict-- mainly poor, rural, and
Quechua-speaking people. It's about 75%. 75% were people who
killed or disappeared, speak Quechua or any other
Indigenous languages. And over 40% of the victims were
from Ayacucho, the birthplace of the Shining Path-- also the region
where I come from.
And I grew up in the
middle of this conflict. And, of course, I
witnessed what had happened during these tragic year, and
that influenced tremendously. my own academic career
as a human, as a person, as a civilians, as well. The Truth Commission
is also conclude-- also concludes that The Shining Path
was responsible for over half the killings, and the
government security forces for over a third,
while the remaining dead were victims of local
militias or MRTA rebels. This is the highest level
of
guerrilla culpability for violence found by
any Truth Commission report for any of Latin
America's Cold War-era conflicts. Shining Path took distance
from other, more traditional guerrilla movements
from that era. At the time of the
Truth Commission's work, rural and urban migrant
self-taught musicians, many victims themselves, or
who lost their relatives, especially from the conflict
epicenter region of Ayacucho, gave their testimonies
through music performances, often naming their songs as
ca
nciones testimoniales-- testimonial songs. These musicians
embodied their wartime experiences, and positioned
themselves and their people as victims of brutal
violence and massacres committed by The Shining Path
and the state security forces. A particular Indigenous
music is called pumpin, pronounced poom-pin. And I will now perform-- I will give you a
little demonstration at the end of my talk. I bring my guitar. [LAUGHTER] So you can hear this-- a little bit about
this music, pumpin. It's a Qu
echua carnivalesque
and testimonial music genre and dance performance
from the province of Fajardo, Ayacucho, often played
with 12 string guitars, and sung in Quechua
and/or Spanish. In February 2 of 2002,
a musical ensemble-- Conjunto Musical is
the name in Spanish-- called [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
performed the song titled [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH],,
clandestine graves, during the Annual Carnival
Festival in the Highland Plateau called Waswantu. As you see in this image,
it's located very high-- over 4
,000 meters in
Highland Ayacucho, in the province of
Fajardo, where musicians-- local musicians, and people--
and also migrants and displaced people from urban centers
go back to this contest-- this festival-- and to perform,
and bring their own songs-- very testimonial songs. And if you are familiar,
like the corridos from Mexico's northern
musical genre. So it's giving some stories,
giving some narrative about history. The carnival contests
in Waswantu-- particularly in this place
called Waswa
ntu Plateau-- started before the
Shining Path insurgency. Indigenous young people
from the nearby towns surrounding the Waswantu
mountain held in formal pumpin gatherings until the mid 1970s. In these meetings, participants
improvised their songs about love, play, and satire. As an ethnomusicologist,
Jonathan Ritter, who studied the evolution
of this music said, quote, "The internal
logic of this event was, one, to center it on
courtship and inter-community competitions, principally
among young
men and women. Songs' texts were, at
best, secondary concerns." And so most of these
performance and songs are talking about more
traditional communities' practices, and love, and
love experiences, right? However, I'm going to
just explain briefly-- I think while I'm
reading, sometimes I feel like I'm
going very slowly. So that's what's happened later
when The Shining Path started its armed struggle
and campaigning for revolutionary
armed struggle. So they became gaining
local support-- not recr
uiting
combatants, but using this Indigenous music,
which is normally singing and in Quechua. And they changed the
lyrics of this language with revolutionary context, with
social and political context in order to influence
their political ideology and political
campaign, or propaganda for the revolutionary cause. And in the early 1980s-- 1980, 1981-- when this
contest was still active, Shining Path sympathizer
and militants organized some musical
groups, and they performed in this stage,
and cal
ling for revolutions. For example, one of these
musical group called [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] they
performed a song called International Situation--
and revolutionary situations, which are subject of
clear Maoist tendency. And I'm going to skip this part. And you can see here that the
lyrics is very, very political, very highly
revolutionary message that they are spreading at these
early years of the Shining Path insurgency with clear message
about the poor, the poverty, and the social injustice, an
d
that workers and peasants are in union to advance
this popular war in order to overcome
the misery, and poverty, and social injustice. So the militants used the
rhythm of structure of pumpin as a traditional music,
and change the lyrics with revolutionary message. However, except for the
music director-- for example, of this group,
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]---- not all the members of
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] were active members or clear
sympathizers of The Shining Path, according to
some testimonies. T
he group's popularity,
at least at the beginning, arose not so much because
of their political speech, but by the stage of
their performances, and the vocal power of
their teenage singers. In 1982, for example,
when the police intervened in this
stage of Waswantu, the contest was postponed
because they were singing this revolutionary message. And that's associated, of
course, with The Shining Path. And so the intervention of
the police and the military ended up this contest,
this festivities, an
d it was postponed
until late 1990s. And in the late 1990s, those who
survived-- musicians, singers, activists-- began organizing
again to bring the festivity-- the contest-- the carnival contest
to this place again. And especially between 2001
and 2002, as I say at the time the Truth Commission was
working with several teams, collecting testimonies
in communities. And of course,
people were afraid. I mean, they knew that
the commission was arriving to their communities. So some people--
musicia
ns-- become performing about what
happened during that year, telling stories about
the military repressions, the massacres, the mass
graves, as in these songs collected by my colleague,
ethnomusicologist Jonathan Ritter, show. I will turn this
down a little bit. And you can see also
the musical style of pumpin music and dance. And there is a
subtitle in English, and you can get a sense of
what they are talking about-- what they are performing. [MUSIC PLAYING] [NON-ENGLISH SINGING] So it has thes
e
musicians, male musicians, playing this 12 string guitar,
and women mainly dancing, and also singing. And it's very powerful
how this space became a place of memory,
where these musicians and the audience can
remember and denounce what really happened, and
also and telling story about their positionality,
right-- as a musician. And back to the
early 1980s, this was very political
performance at the time. I showed you the previous
revolutionary songs by The Shining Path. But in the aftermath of
this conflict, this contest, this carnival festival
became the main space for commemoration and
social memory of the locals during and after
years of violence. This is more like a
rural area, right? Moving to the urban centers-- for example, I'm
going to show you this other image, also in
Ayacucho, because the slides also-- the music is coming
from Ayacucho. And in urban centers, Ayacuchano
people, Ayacuchano musicians such as Manuelcha Prado
and Carlos Falconi denounced the brutality of
the wa
r through their songs. They called their music
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Ayacuchana, social
songs from Ayacucho. And in the late
1980s, they released-- these two musicians, very
prominent and activist musicians who survived
the war because they are from the northern and
southern Ayacucho regions-- they call their
music, of course, as I said [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Ayacuchana. And in the late 1980s, they
released this cassette, as you see the cover,
Testimonio Ayacuchano-- Testimony of Ayacucho--
which i
ncluded their songs with sociopolitical,
testimonial content. As Carlos Falconi, one of the
guitarist and singer-composer who passed away last
year said, I quote, "Music was the only
space we had to talk about the terrible things
happening in our lives." Unquote. In songs such as Viva
La Patria, Falconi denounced the brutality
of the state repression and sexual abuse of women by
soldiers and army officers. This is giving you briefly
background historical, but also from the lens of music-- you kn
ow, how music was now
having this important role in documenting, narrating in
more creative way than what was happening at this
difficult time in this war zone in rural regions like Ayacucho,
the epicenter of the conflict. But moving now to the present-- and I'm not-- bring
more global music. We're talking about so far is
more local, regional music. It's Andean Indigenous
musical genre. But now, moving to this present,
we see a new generation. Some of them, well, grew up in
the aftermath of this
conflict. And a few probably,
they grew up, as myself, in the middle of this
conflict as a child. But everyone that is street
musicians and singers that I'm going to present,
you got Liberato Kani, Renata Flores, and Edith Ramos. They are very young people
from these three regions-- cities where the
massacres happened. Liberato Kani is
from Andahuaylas and Renata Flores is
a rapper and hip-hop singer also from Ayacucho, and
Edith Ramos from South Juliaca. So musicians, at this
time of the prote
st, going back when I
started my talk, responded to the state violence
and military repression with the same tradition of
denouncing the human rights abuses, and against
the impunity. These are a new
generation of young people who were born in the
aftermath of violence, and they are well-informed
about what happened in the 1980s and 1990s. Since the demonstration
erupted in December 2022, dozens of music artists
have composed protest songs calling for the end to
Boluarte's government, and condem
ning the death
of at least 47 people who have been killed. From hip-hop to Huayno, the
popular musical genre in Peru, through reggae and
punk, this dispersal of protests in which
Peru is immersed has inspired songs
of all styles that put lyrical to the
discontent of those who raise their voices against
the political elites, racism, and police, and
military repression. Over hip-hop music, young
Quechua rapper, Liberato Kani, responds to the first
massacre in Andahuaylas, where he teaches history
at the high school. He spent his childhood
between Lima and Andahuaylas. And later, he started rapping
in Quechua as a way of language and cultural resistance to
the state nation's dominant ideology of [...] that denied
Indigenous backgrounds. At the time of the
protest, he was in Cusco, where he was
studying for his master's program in anthropology when he
received a call from his father that the police were killing
demonstrators in Andahuaylas. One of his students
was among the killings. His s
ister and father
witnessed the massacre. Liberato Kani was
angry at that moment, and turned his emotion into a
song written almost entirely in Quechua. [SPEAKING QUECHUAN] Let all our villages rise. His song talk about
Lima centralism, and how Indigenous peoples from
the Southern Peruvian Andes and Amazon fight against an
oppressive and corrupted system correlated with corporate
media that lies to citizens. The song also called his
people for resistance, with the strength
of their ancestry, the
Incas and the [...] [SPEAKING QUECHUAN] From the prehispanic
Tahuantinsuyo Inca civilizations up to
the present struggles, waging with legendary
self-defense Inca weapon called huaraca. Liberato songs also talk
about how Peruvian-- Peru's Constitution,
which was drawn up under Fujimori's regime,
needs to be renewed, as you can read here. In the face of so
much repressions due to the Constitution of
'93, these constitutions legitimize neoliberalism. Unlike in Pinochet's Chile,
a free market econo
my was imposed under an
authoritarian regime. As a result of 30 years,
this economic model has brought a more unequal
and divided country as the COVID-19
pandemic revealed the collapse of the
state and its healthcare and educational system. So the demonstrators claim
for constitutional assembly that creates a new Constitution
with Indigenous participation and gender parity to
depatriarchalize and decolonize the state. Support for constitutional
assembly in Peru increased during
the mobilizations
. Indigenous activists
and protesters even talk about building a
plurinational state, respecting Indigenous rights,
and their non-human relatives in the Andean [? cosmovision. ?] Finally, Liberato's
music reproaches representative democracy-- a false democracy that enables
passive citizens participating in polls to elect the same
political and economic elites. As he said in his
verses, "Don't you see that they want us
to remain silent? It's spreading supposed
democracy, just a pure fallacy, deci
ding for the community
without popular consultations. Murderous laws they make,
and trust to TV to justify." Perhaps we can
watch a little bit-- a portion of this
song and hip-hop. [MUSIC PLAYING] [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] [NON-ENGLISH SINGING] I'm going to just continue. And how long do I have? You're OK. OK. Thank you. --half an hour more. OK. Thank you. So I don't want to
also make you tired, so I'm going to just keep-- well, we combine with
some video clips. So that would be good to
have a sense
of music, and also contextual approach
to this musical voice and expressions and. So-- OK, first of all, I
want to say a little bit more about Liberato, and what
the political elites economic and
military elites think about those who are
protesting, and especially about Indigenous people. Political elites perceive
Indigenous and rural population as passive electoral voters,
offering broken promises. They don't understand that
Indigenous peasants have their own political
platform of a struggle ba
sed on communal consensus
approved in the assembly. Community assembly is the
most democratic institutions that prevails locally. These local institution
has historically sustained peasant and
Indigenous mobilizations for their social
and political rights based on their Andean knowledge
system and cultural practices, including solidarity,
reciprocity, and identity, belonging to a community,
territory, or ethnic nations. Rural and urban
community members donated a little of their
poor salaries, s
upplies, and resources to support
the demonstrations. And the people who have
to mobilize to Lima to make their voices
listened to in protest against repressive regimes. And here come Renata
Flores, the other singer. Like Liberato
Kani, Renata Flores raised her voice through
her hip-hop track from his native Ayacucho,
where she and her family witnessed the
December 10 massacre. She also criticized
Peru's centralism, despising people
living in provinces, and criminalizing them
when they go to pro
test. The indifference of Lima during
the internal armed conflict also repeated during the
current protests and tragedy. So what I want to say is, at
the time of The Shining Path War in the 1980s, as I said,
it started in Ayacucho, and it spread
throughout the Andes. Those who were in Lima, mainly
elites' conservative sectors, they don't care much what
was going on in the provinces because that's the
backward Indians-- and suddenly, later,
became a terrorist-- until when The
Shining Path decided
to move its guerrilla warfare
from rural to urban centers. And in the 1991 it was this-- bumping cars in that
center, in the vortex of this rich neighborhood
called Miraflores. It's a massacre. It was a car bombing that
killed about dozens of people in the place called Tarata,
and she mentioned that in her song, Tarata-- in
this song that she wrote. So for those who are from
Lima, at the time of the-- didn't matter for Lima until
they experienced The Shining Path attack, like in Tarata, at
the
center of Lima's wealthier neighborhood, as I said. However, Ayacucho people,
[...] people experienced, as Renata said,
hundreds of Taratas. And this is a very
powerful word, how she is making comparison--
the indifference of those who are living more
privileged wave, and they didn't say anything. Instead of condemning, just
following this common sense of these people are terrorists
criminals, and protesting because they don't
have to work, or they don't have anything to say. So as she said, "In
the name of
my people, who, for 20 years, have suffered hundreds of
Taratas, thousands of deaths and missing persons--" this is
the part that I really engage. This is very powerful words. And we are going to
listen on it in a moment-- songs. Renata then voices about the
silence of both those victims who could not speak by
themselves before being killed, and as the indifference, the
silence of those who condemn those victims without
evidence, and trampling the rights to protest. She continues ra
pping, saying,
"That voice of the mother of the Andes that asks
for justice, and never gives up," about the struggles
of Indigenous Quechua women who lost their husbands and
children during the conflict, and many of them were detained,
and took to the Ayacucho's military base-- we're talking about the time of
the conflict, 1980s and 1990s-- this place called--
the military base called Los Cabitos,
where soldiers, officers detained the suspects or
linked to terrorist actions. And some of them are
innocent. They don't have to
see it, and they don't have to-- they
don't have any connection to this movement. But because there are
Indians, there are Indigenous, or they are just suspect,
and they have been detained, and put in prisons or
military-detained base, and then disappeared. And even buried in mass
graves, or cremated. There was this cremate-- for cremations In this
military base in Ayacucho. And I'm not-- I'm saying,
and as a historian, that this really exists. And we can see this
o
ven where they have cremated these detainees. And one of these organizations,
one of the first human rights organization, was
called an [SPANISH].. It's a long name for the
first female widows, Quechua speakers, who were
organizing, and looking for-- searching for their
disappeared loved ones, like children, husbands. And they became into the
public because traditionally, in a patriarchal
society, machista, in a society like
in Andean regions. So women are-- the rule
of women is also is just for
domestic labor, right? But the conflict changed because
they lost their loved ones. They have to come to the public,
and search for the disappeared. And these women that-- Renata's songs are kind of
giving homage and recognition of this Quechua
Indigenous women that are struggling for justice. And now, how this
violence from that era is still reactivating them
because this continuity of state violence
and the massacres that happened
recently in Ayacucho. These women are very
Indigenous Quechua
speaker. If you compare it with
other women's organizations from the era of the conflict
and military dictatorship, like in South Africa
and Argentina-- Madres de Plaza de
Mayo, for example. So they were very
much educated-- urban-educated mothers
and abuelas, right? But in this case, in Ayacucho,
these women were much-- they're monolingual,
some of them. I didn't know much about how
to deal with this human rights abuses, where to go
searching for support. And so they struggle a lot, face
severa
l challenge, and in order to bring its
organizations to survive, and struggle for justice,
truth, and memory. So as I said, this
women's organization, the first human
rights organization, was founded in 1983. Finally, like
Liberato Kani, Renata called for questioning
the democracy, as you see in this part
of this verse that's highlighted in yellow. You know, "Why do you boast
about a democracy that excludes, represses,
and discriminates? It always comes only
when you cast your vote. You complain
, they silence you,
they leave, and become devout. That democracy is
the corruptions that reaches everywhere. You should never normalize it. You should always question it." This is the girl that
is very powerful, and become an
influence at your age. She is now 22, but when
she became an artist, and started singing more-- Michael Jackson's
covers, and in Quechua. And that was when
she was 17 years old. And she is very popular now
in the country, and globally. So let's listen
part of the song. And
that's very
powerful, and I really like because it starts with
this Andean, very rich sound, and this voice in Quechua that's
talking about her family-- her grandmother and mother
who experienced the Civil War, and how they survive. And the continuity of
this violence, right? [NON-ENGLISH SINGING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [NON-ENGLISH SINGING] And the last musicians, is
a traditional music singer named Edith Ramos, a
native of Ayaviri in Puno, a Quechua and Aymara
lyrical soprano. She sings in trilingua
l Quechua,
Aymara, Spanish languages, proud of her Andean
traditional cultural heritage. As she said in an interview,
quote, "I'm not a rescuer--" someone who rescue like a-- collected traditional songs. "I make music that
exists, that has life, and that doesn't not-- and
doesn't deserve to be dead or forget because it is the
effort of our ancestors. It is the struggle
of the migrants who arrived in
Lima in the 1940s, and whose mounts were shot. They arrived with the shame
of being Quechua-speak
ing or Aymara. That music doesn't have to die." And it's very interesting
how these musicians-- Liberato Kani, Renata
Flores, and Edith Ramos-- are very proud of
their ancestry. They are very proud of
their cultural heritage, the language, the Indigenous
language that they use-- Quechua and Aymara, right-- while other young
people feel shame to express their
own indigeneity, or in their own Indigenous
identity, because racism. Because this ideology of
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] that deny Indigenous or
indigeneity. So it's very complex
ethnic relationship that bring just
pure and homogeneous way of being
Peruvian, patriotic, and one single Spanish speaker. And we have very diverse
Indigenous languages and cultures. Edith Ramos experienced
closely the police repression during the protests that
killed about 18 Indigenous civilians in the Southern
city of Juliaca, Puno. A month after the
massacre, she sings during the mass at the church
to commemorate the victims. As you see here, the lyrics. "L
et them shoot
their indignations. What are they looking
for by silencing them? What are you looking
for by bleeding them? What are you looking
for by breaking them up? And she says in Quechua,
[SPEAKING QUECHUAN] Let us never forget
our children who died. Together, we will always rise. The verses in
Spanish and Quechua resonated with the
most brutal massacre that happened in Juliaca. Let's listen. It's very powerful, and very-- I mean, touch my shoulder. It's going to touch
your heart also. It's
very powerful how she's
singing in this church, giving homage to the victims. [NON-ENGLISH SINGING] All these musicians-- and
I'm going to conclude-- all these musicians
produce their voices through traditional
and global music from the vortex
of this protest-- Edith Ramos from Juliaca,
Renata Flores from Ayacucho, Liberato Kani from Andahuaylas. They made clear music
from the provinces and the Andean traditions,
which broke the pattern of Lima as the leading producer
of mainstream music. Of co
urse, Lima's
music industry center also expressed
their positionality during the protests by gathering
the musicians to call for peace and, quote, "future of Peru
and our children," unquote. As one of the
musicians by the name Pedro de Ambrosio sings, quote,
"I am proud to be Peruvian, and I do not want more
violence in our streets." Unquote. But at the same time, this [...]
musicians silenced the human rights abuses, and
promote, in some way, impunity for those perpetrators. Like hip-hop music,
Andean
music and the Quechua language itself have a political
resistance history. For years, the
Andean people of Peru have faced linguistic
and racial discrimination for speaking their
native language, with some of the most
violent oppression happening in the 1980s and 1990s. During this time,
many Indigenous groups were tortured and accused of
being part of The Shining Path guerrilla groups simply
for speaking Quechua, or because they or were
Indians and linked it to the backward and terroris
m. As time has progressed, the
imagination and ideologies toward Indigenous
peoples in Peru have improved nothing or little. To this day, many who
speak Quechua, Aymara, or other Indigenous languages
with Indigenous accents is still grappled with
racism and discrimination. In this context, music
was also a battle space for resistance and
political positionality, building solidarity networks
among Indigenous, Aymara, and Quechua communities between
rural and urban descendants, especially during t
he
so-called La Toma de Lima. Then the music
protest facilitate to spread the solidarity
beyond their physical context toward national and
international audiences. I will end my talk with this
video clip of sikuri musicians that homage to those
people killed in Juliaca. Sikuri is a musical style from
Peru and Bolivia consisting of [...] and drum accompaniment. The video shows various
groups of sikuris who, through their music,
expresses their solidarity with the victims and relatives
of the repr
ession carried out by government. And their music verse
say, "The day I die, the sikuri's not be missing-- dying fighting for our country,
seeing so much injustice. Quechua and Aymaras
always fighting together." [COMMOTION AND SIRENS] [MUSIC PLAYING] [NON-ENGLISH SINGING] I think we can end it here, and
I'm very open to talk with you, and respond to your
comments or questions. [APPLAUSE] Yeah, we have time
for a few questions. People should feel free
to raise their hands. Comments? Come on, don'
t be shy. [LAUGHTER] Yes, please. I don't have a
question, but I just wanted to say thank you
so much for teaching us about the struggle today. I never had the opportunity
to learn about this in school, but when I heard the protest
songs for the first time today, I felt the emotions of the
citizens who made them, and it really touched my heart. So thank you so much, sir. Thank you. Thank you for coming
and listening to it. I'm very glad that I
could share with you some of my own connection
with
my own culture also. And-- There's a lot of
different notes, especially of the different
artists who you showed us. And I plan to do more
research on them later. So I'm very glad I could
come to this presentation. Yeah. Thank you. They are very
influential persons. So you can follow them
and their music, and-- very popular. And I mean, they have this
conscious about who they are. They are not just
coming to embrace easily this global music, and for the
commercial or industrial way of consuming m
usic. They are using the music to
express their own resistance, and criticize the racism
and state violence, and that's very powerful. I mean, young generations
are doing that and changing the mentality
all the young generations and the future. It's huge. I mean, I feel proud myself,
being Quechua speaker, that these people are
changing the world, changing the generations
that have been shamed, and have been vastly
racialized for speaking their native languages
in urban centers. Thank you. Thank
you, sir. How about you first, and then-- Hi. So I feel like-- I have some questions. I feel like I have an unfair
advantage because I'm also Peruvian. At least, I consider
myself to be. I was raised in Lima since
13 until basically recently. Coming from Lima-- my family
is actually from Argentina. I was born there, but, you
know, again, as I said before. Coming from Lima, specifically
I kind of grew in what I call the [...],, which is anything
that happens in Lima, is that even Peru,
question
mark? And the question that I have
is, at least seeing my friends and seeing their families, even
no matter kind of the class or the background in Lima, I
feel like there's such a fear to even talk about-- even talk about what those
years were like outside. The province with
this question, I feel like it's either
an easy answer, or you just talk about
it for hours and hours. But I noticed that in the
interior of the country, there's not so much this
fear to talk about it, or at least not a fear
of
saying this is something that happened, while the media
just wants to, like, let's just forget about
it, which obviously creates these complex parameters. Sendero Luminoso comes from
this [SPANISH] of the interior. And of course, we just end up in
the same spot that we started. Do you think that there's
a form for Peru as a whole, but really for Lima to
create this social taboo and the stigma? I consider my generation. I see it happen way
more with my friends, but I feel like, outside
of that
obvious shift, how do you think we can
consciously kind of start to look towards, no, we need
to talk about what happened, basically? Thank you very much
for the question. Yeah, I'm very optimistic. And I think the
young people are very in charge to change this, what
our parents and grandparents-- I mean, didn't
want to recognize, that we are living in
a country, and have diverse ethnic,
linguistic differences. And we can come
together in some way to build a better, more
respected relationship
between us-- between Peruvians. With recognizing, I
think, first of all, we have to recognize
what we are in the past. And we have to be
conscious that-- respectful, and not forget what
this narrative-- this narrative that doesn't help us about this
white and black perspective, right? This two-- This polarized
vision that doesn't help us to recognize who we are
in the past, and how, between our brothers
and sisters-- you know, implicate-- were
involved in this past Civil War. And we have certain
responsibility, even that we are just
civilians, right-- with our silence, with
the indifferences. All these are something that
we have to recognize, and ask ourselves what we can do in
order to contribute and change this so that future
generations, our children, can grow up in a more
better egalitarian society, in the condition that
they can respect and learn from each other just
this idea of vocalizing. And they're-- I always see
like those who are elites and conservative, they are
proud of t
he past Inca society, right? They're proud of
this Machu Picchu. They're proud of the
diversity of food. But they also despise
it and those people, Indigenous people who are
bringing up and sustaining this culture. So that's not being
respectful about whether you have this diversity of people. And people who are surviving And as you say, for some
people, like in Ayacucho, violence is everyday
life because they are part of the memory. Ayacucho has been
militarized and devastated. And so they live
with that trauma. And for those who
didn't experience it, or experienced more
peripherally-- so it's, of course, not the same. They don't want to see the past. They don't want to debate. They don't want to talk about,
and they pass the page, right, to forget, and that's
promoting silence. And you are not
recognizing what's really happening in order
to bring new dialogue and debate, right? And children have, of
course, learned about this. It's really hard. Thank you. I think you have questions?
I think part of what you said
answers part of my question. I was curious. I was just kind of trying
to wrap around the context because I'm just trying to
figure out what was separating people from, I guess, the rural
in the urban areas from kind of further understanding it. But his question kind of makes
me understand that better. So I have a few
comments, I guess. But one being that I'm curious
what exactly about universities and the education system
was seen as criminal? Especially because I t
hink it is
interesting-- like, if there's a split between urban
and rural areas, it seems like colleges
would be in urban areas. Right. So I'm curious about
how that dynamic works. And one observation
that I-- that, to me, is sad and interesting
is in the beginning, you talked about how that
native art and music was used in a cultural--
in a community setting, and a
community competition. And it was kind of about love,
and it's about storytelling. And then people come
along and pervert it to be
about revolution. And I think it
becomes a common story about any type of art form,
but it just kind of sad that that happened. And the last thing I'll say
is it reminds me a lot of, I guess, helping
me contextualize. I'm Puerto Rican, and I've
learned a little bit about-- I still need to learn more
about the struggle of the Taino people. And just the-- even
growing up, my family-- like, parents got divorced. My father's side is more
African-Puerto Rican and Taino, and my mom's side is kind
of m
ore Spaniard and white, I guess. So there's always
kind of a question of a separation between
the white Puerto Ricans and the darker Puerto
Ricans, or the Taino people. And so it reminds
me-- that helped me-- helps me contextualize it now. Right, right. There's such a clear otherness. So I can see how
that plays into it. Yeah. I didn't talk about,
but this concept that some scholars call like
racialization of geography, how geographies and spaces
are very isolated sometimes. And I think that's
r
eally happening, I mean, in Peru and
everywhere, that-- where certain people consider
that certain areas, or regions, or provinces as unmodern,
or premodern or uncivilized, or Indians. And of course, that
division, exclusions created more disparities--
social disparities, and less opportunity, of
course, for those people who lives in this marginalized
sectors and areas. And education is a
good point to analyze how how exclusive education
can be opportunities-- can be for those who have
access in
urban centers for basic education,
mainly in Lima. But those who are in
rural areas, provinces, they have to fight for
opportunity, first of all, to move to urban centers,
and be able to access. And I can say many things about
from my own history as a child growing up in this
rural isolated community in the vortex
of this conflict, and having this
opportunity to struggle for going to high school,
and then to the university. And it's a tremendous
responsibility for those who come from
underprivi
leged sectors because we have this commitment
to our family, our community, our people. It's not just because
you have to know this individual way of thinking
that, oh, I want to be someone. I want to be artist. I want to be a film
maker, or whatever. This is my own development in
order to get a degree, a job, et cetera, right? But for those who come from
these underprivileged sectors-- and being more
conscious, like me. So we're struggling. You know, it's a
commitment, getting a PhD. It's not j
ust a degree. It's a struggle to
know that we have to contribute to our
community, that we have to belong to certain
community, nations, ethnic groups, that we
have to work for them. And that' what I'm doing. So I spent like 10 years
in the United States, and now I go back to my country
to teach students, and learn from them, and helping
musicians like this, and visualize in academia,
because they have been struggling in different areas. But also, the opportunity
that other people that follow, l
ike me, there are many kids
waiting for opportunities. They can follow my pathways,
and they can have this chance to go to the educations,
and to have some education, and support their family. That's what we do. And I think that it's more
commitment than the state, or these policies. And that's not going to help
you much because they don't invest much in the education. They invest more in armed
forces, for security, or police repression. buying all these
weapons to repress protesters or demonstr
ators. And we haven't seen
that in the country with this current government. But thank you very
much for the questions. Just a comment for what
you said about specifically the governments, I feel like
it's the same of like spending more money to
military and police instead of like education,
because see what happened in Peru recently with the-- I can't remember
the name right now, but the class that
wants to like-- or the project that was
presented in Congress to cut funding from cinema. Right.
I remember seeing so many
comments saying, oh, it's fine. They're cutting
away from cinema. They should use that
money to create jobs. And all I could
think of was, what do you think that money was for? And like, I don't know. It's just commenting-- it's
this idea, I feel like, where the populace at large--
because the same thing happen-- it's like any sort
of money you spend in like education or
cinema, they're like-- it's like they think
of it as this idle pursuit. And I also wonder, why do pe
ople
ignore like this money also creates jobs? It also brings
forward the country? I don't know. Sorry, I'm just saying like-- No, I think it's
a perfect comment. I mean, because these
initiatives from Indigenous cinematography are
bringing not only this different perspective. They are bringing
their knowledge. They are bringing a cultural
practice and knowledge system, how these
Indigenous peoples want to represent themselves
in their own knowledge systems that can dialogue
with this Western pe
rspective, right? And it's a recognition, right? It's civilization that can
bring more rich and more united country with having
this diverse, different perspectives, right? And yeah, we can continue
talking about these issues. But this is something
that's currently going on. Yes, please? Do you feel supported
at your university in terms of the message
that you're sharing? And second, in the 10
years that you were here living in many
university communities, did you feel that among
the people arou
nd you, that there was also this-- for example, the artists
that you shared-- that there's this
pride that's growing? Did you feel-- among
Indigenous people who have migrated to the United
States from Latin America, do you feel that
they're shifting into a consciousness
a similar way? Oh, thank you very
much for that question. And it's hard to talk
about for myself, as my journey has been
very difficult also. As a child growing
up in rural area, and then later in
urban centers, I feel very much
the racism and
linguistic discriminations. And I feel also shame
for myself being Quechua, and living, growing up
in Lima in high school. But that changed when I
get into the university-- in the public university-- a
very prestigious university in San Marcos in Lima,
where I could find also other people like me. And they are proud
of themselves, and they-- some of them
may be not recognized, but they are children of
displaced people, workers, laborers. And that's how I become proud
and conscious
about where I come from, where I am as a
child of Indigenous peasants, migrants, and Quechua speakers. But I think, more
intellectually, I developed my thinking in
my graduate PhD programs in UC Davis in California, where
it's a really important-- one of the first department of
Native American studies, where I took several classes and
seminars on Indigenous studies. And my classmates were more like
Northern Indigenous scholars, students. And I learned a lot-- you know,
these different basic con
cepts and Indigenous perspectives
that I became proud of them, and incorporated
in my research that can bring more
rich interpretation and rich reflections on Peru's
history, religious history, and how problematic it
is talk about Indigenous. Here, very free to
talk about that. But in Peru, it can be. You talk about, like you
mentioned about the university where I'm teaching now. It is not-- there is no space
to talk about the Indigenous or even racism. And there is no part
of the curriculum in
our courses about racism,
or anti-Indigenous racism, or Indigenous perspective. But I'm there not to
bring all this knowledge, and theoretical, and
methodological approach from Indigenous perspective that
kind of offer a different perspective also for those
students who are coming also from provinces-- from
successful families who can send their children to these
private universities, and they can change you, and
I can open up a space for them in my classes, in my seminars,
or organizing events-
- like you guys have here. And that's good. I really appreciate that. And that's something
that I'm working. Thank you for your question. Yes, please? I'm from Colombia. And I am very happy
to have come today. I know that, following
your [...] here. And I was very curious about
how you got this support. How do you get to [...] here,
especially since you said you have [...] for years. I feel that sometimes the
educational opportunities for [...] even harder. So I was wondering if you
could talk a
bout that. Yeah. I think most of the students
coming from Latin America is where they have always
this cultural shock, right-- the first contacts, the
first months and years. So yeah, I had that, and-- but also, as an Andean
Indigenous scholar, I always-- I come from a community, and
belong to a certain community. And wherever I go,
I build a community. I engage a search for
community, a network. And that's what I
have been doing, and that's how I
survive in this country. So I did the same
in Me
xico City, where I studied also the
master program in anthropology. And in California,
also in Davis, I had a community of,
as I said, my classmates from Indigenous backgrounds-- more like Northern
American, backgrounds and also from friends and
colleagues from Latin America, from the Andean regions, and
some classmate from Cusco. And you guys, some of
you are going next year. And I had one of my
professor, Zoila Mendoza, who teaches Quechua at UC Davis-- and Andean knowledge-- I was
her TA-- te
aching assistant. And so we had this music
group [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] no, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] which
is kind of Beautiful Living, something like that. So we had this
musical group, and we had organized social
musical occasions, and performed several events. Because my friend from
Cusco, she sings in Quechua, we have representation, NYU,
working with a group on racism, and in Bolivia. And she's a professor
now in Philadelphia. And Zoila Mendoza. So yeah, we have this space. And when I moved to Ne
w York-- and, of course, this
is a multiethnic city. It's like Latin America
all in one single city. And so you have this
chance to interact, connect with
several communities. And I found this
Quechua community here-- a huge Quechua-speaking-- about
10,000 Quechua speakers in this [...] that I found, mainly
from Ecuador and Bolivia. And we have also among
some Quechua scholars. We are organizing this Quechua
Alliance annual meeting-- the activists, academics
are involved to organize and recogniz
e our heritage,
and building a community-- Quechua community [...] right? So yeah, and that's how I
started new linking, connecting with this Quechua Collective
of New York, for example-- an organization
based in Brooklyn founded by Peruvian
academia migrants who migrated-- who immigrated
to the United States in New York in the late 1970s. And she started
teaching first Quechua. And then later, she
visited the NYU-- no, the New York Public Library. And she was looking for
some book on Quechua. S
ince she didn't find
any books in Quechua, so she decided to start
writing, storytellings, and children book. And then later, she
decided to teach Quechua. So if you are
interested in Quechua, so you can take classes with
her and the group-- the team that she is leading. The Quechua Collective
of New York is its name. But also in NYU, there's
a Quechua program teaching by Peruvian Cusqueño, Odi
Gonzalez, so professor of Andean culture and society. And yeah, I found this
community among scholars,
Andeanists, activists. So I feel like my experience
here in the university was very successful in
terms-- on every level. So although I always
struggle with English, my mind work like
double-- sometimes triple. But I feel proud of sharing
my own cultural knowledge. [APPLAUSE] Maybe speaking of
that, you had mentioned you wanted to share just a
little bit to finish us off? Yeah, I can share
a demonstration. [APPLAUSE] I may borrow your
chair, if possible. [RUSTLING] [TUNING GUITAR] So I rescue t
his
guitar because when I have to move to Lima,
in July I left my guitar. So it's unfinished, so I have
to tune several times to-- and it's uncommon guitar. It's called puro guitarra. It's a Quechua word. Puro's a Quechua for the
short neck, as you see. [TUNING GUITAR] Let's play a bit. [TUNING GUITAR] Ready? We have just two persons in
the world this kind of guitar. And my maestro guitarist from
Ayacucho is very old now. When I was doing my field
work in a small community in Ayacucho, I met him
,
and he has this similar-- like this guitar. And it was made for a
particular musical genre. Not about pumpin, but also he
started playing pumpin music-- that music that I showed you-- the different carnival genres. And so I started
learning with him. And since I was-- since I success, so he
decided to make one for me. And so that's how
I got this guitar, and his name's [...] You can
search in Google and YouTube, and he plays beautifully. So [...] OK, so I'm going
to play this pumpin music, and
I'll try to sing. For a while, I
didn't sing Quechua. This song is a testimonial
song, which is in Quechua, and it's talking
about the mothers searching for the disappeared
in several places in Ayacucho, and going to the military
base, going to the morgue-- is the morgue the name? Morgue? Morgue. Morgue. Thank you. And local authorities,
offices, asking for their loved ones who
disappeared, as you said. OK. What is the name
of the song, sir? [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] It's in Quechua, but
it will be
translated like, They Disappeared. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] [ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC] [SINGING IN QUECHUAN'] [APPLAUSE] Thank you very much. Let's just give one
more round of applause. [APPLAUSE] I just wanted to say, if
you're coming to Peru, I would be very
happy to welcome you. And-- although I'm
teaching in Lima, but often conduct my research
in the Highlands region of Ayacucho, Apurimac, and
eventually in Cusco, so-- following this young musicians
who are changing the world. And some of you are
t
raveling next year. So please feel free to
reach me out anything when you want to learn in advance. So I will be very happy
to respond, and help you with anything, including you,
my friend-- what's your name? Tomas. Tomas. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] in Lima. Oh, in Cusco. But thank you so much. Thank you, Jeremy. And thank you to the
School of Visual Arts. I'm very happy that we had these
conversations, and something that you can keep in mind that-- share with you today-- anything about politics,
cult
ure, music. Thank you. Thank you so much. [APPLAUSE]
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