I was 21 when I met Silvio. He came in with soft acoustics and a luring voice eagerly painting me visions of the world – love, passion, fear, understanding and beauty.

    Ojala que las hojas no te toquen el cuerpo cuando caigan

He meddled in to the confined shelter of the 7^th floor buhardilla I called home with such sweetness it made every nerve in my body feel… something. Drowned in my own thoughts of solitude, I found myself once again contemplating the whiteness of the ceiling, the dancing shadows cast by the flickering candlelight, and somewhat distracted by the lingering trail of extinguished lavender incense. My solitude was a type that only comes with being and living alone in a foreign country; of those constantly-changing identities and the never-quenching thirst for freedom. The guitar chords vibrated and made me feel euphoric. I smiled.

    Para que no las puedas convertir en cristal

    Ojala que la lluvia deje de ser el milagro que baja por tu cuerpo

I ached. Ojala – hopefully. What was so hopeful? Nostalgia swept over me. The price for liberty and freedom’s desire was taking a toll on me. It had been for some time now. 

    Ojala se te acabe… la sonrisa perfecta

    Ojala pase algo que te borre de pronto: 

I was drowning in insecurities. I have been my entire life. Expectations in and of everything; the worst are the ones of myself. The wake-up call when “perfection doesn’t exist” came into focus? I’m still waiting for it. It’s so hard to let go. But can ideas truly be ‘erased’ – forgotten, negated? Can heartbreak or a person? Can the past? Can we ever ‘unfeel’? 

    Una luz cegadora, un disparo de nieve

I didn’t want to be blinded. On the contrary - once we have seen, it is impossible to ‘unsee’. Once you have felt things, or tasted the confusion – of an identity, of ‘truth’; or once you have felt the flight of independence, of knowledge, of breaking your privilege and gender normativity. What if you realized it was all a farce? It resonated in that city: the pretension, the idea of eternal romance, the elegant flair… Paris. My Paris that truly never slept. My Paris, where the soft rain never ceased to keep my long hair in an untamed state of frizz. My Paris, where I never stopped admiring the elegance with which elderly women wore their wool hats and fur coats as they shopped the fresh organic morning street markets. My Paris, where I didn’t mind being so broke my dinners often consisted of rice and lentils, or 1 euro baguettes with marmalade, as long as it meant I could continue speeding on my bike across the Seine at 2am gazing at the looming obscurity of Notre Dame in the distance, or speeding along its banks chasing the fire set upon the sky by those endless sunsets. I had tried so hard to establish myself but it was in that process that I began the journey to finding myself, to believing in myself, to being proud of myself. Ojala. It was a long, difficult process.

    Ojala por lo menos que me lleve la muerte

It takes courage to wish for death. I know. I have contemplated it. And suicide. But I have realized life is only a choice, and the act of living itself rebellion. I want rebellion.

    Para no verte tanto, para no verte siempre

    En todos los segundos, en todas las visiones

    Ojala que no pueda tocarte ni en canciones.

But songs can touch you. They do. That was La Nueva Trova’s reason for being. It’s what it did to me. It’s what it continues to do 50 years later: ever-alive and ever-descriptive re-instilling hope, a sense of belonging, and a passion unlike many others, echoing the realities and injustices that Latin@s continue to be dictated by: sexism, oppression, racism, colonialism, imperialism, exploitation, U.S. hegemony.

La Nueva Trova was born in 1965 amidst the ashes of the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Led by Noel Nicola (d. 2005) and the still-alive figures of Silvio Rodríguez, writer of “Ojala” (1975), and Pablo Milanes, who celebrated his 72^nd birthday on tour in Manhattan this past February and whose “Mis 22 Años” is said to have birthed the movement, this progressive enchanting concoction of poetry and political symbolism functioned as a reclamation. It reclaimed what it meant to be Cuban, an identity that might have been lost in the face of a counter-culture that sought liberation from a government that had implemented “freedoms” (including the ever-successful literacy campaign which nearly doubled Cuba’s literacy rate). It reclaimed the situation Cubans found themselves in – poverty, political discontent and refugee, and holding a nationality from an idealist country that was suffering a repression, isolation, and aggression from outside forces, mainly the United States.

While the old trova sang in celebration of Fidel and Che’s heroism (“Y seguir de modo cruel // contra el pueblo conspirando // para seguirlo explotando... // y en eso llegó Fidel” – Carlos Puebla), this new trova understood and questioned what price people were willing to pay for the paradox of ideals and suffering. It romanticized images of their beautiful landscapes and richness of their culture, becoming a medium through which to make their way home, to the Latin American comfort and ameliorate their heartache. It united the sentiments of Cubans within Cuba, those in diaspora, non-Cuban Latin@s (similarly victimized by their fellow oppressive, corrupt, and violent governments). Beyond Latin America, it invited individuals whose passion and agency of human rights and freedoms – such as U.S. civil rights freedom fighters or people affected by the repercussions under communism – to unite and develop passion for their countries and their struggles.

Personally, this new trova has become an outlet through which I can seek comfort, a medium through which I have developed a new sense of pride in my roots, my Mexican origin, and my identity. Latin America, I realized, was so diverse, so ignorantly and impossibly categorized under one name, one color, one language. It is not a single-sided story of what is commonly portrayed in the media: good fighters, corrupted governments, close-minded and conformist Catholics, poverty, sexism, violence, drug chains, machismo, immigrants. Latin America embodies passion, fury, heritage, suffering, radical politics, brilliant intellect and undermined educational institutions, pain, and hope. Ojala. 

Suddenly, the conservative notions of Cuba my suburban childhood had socialized me to know as “Cuba” changed and become intellectually informed: the a taboo of prostitution, poverty, illegal cigars, and of defying political revolutionaries turned into an embodiment of oppressive discourses with the leading colonialist story of exploitation, to dignifying the role and aspirations of such activists and rebels – Fidel, Che, the Zapatistas, Sandino – who had sought the advancement of their people; history had never the story through this lens.

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Cheering on the Mexican National team in the quarter-finals against Netherlands, July 2014. © Valeria Vera

It was in the 11 months I was away as a student in my beautiful Paris that I realized I had been in diaspora my entire life, never “really” Mexican and never really wanting to be “American”, nor Chicana, nor Latina. I wasn’t just a borderlands child. My upbringing had been very narrow-minded. Even ignorant. La Nueva Trova opened my eyes to the might of social movements within Latin America that have sparked such transcendent and resilient responses in the face of oppression and injustice; to the powerful musical culture and art it embodies; to the unity and wakefulness of the resistance throughout.

Fifty years after La Nueva Trova’s first big hit, “Mis 22 años,” twenty-five since the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, and thousands of Cuban émigrés later, it continues to be sang, to be loved, to comfort, and to inspire. I think it’s pretty obvious why. It isn’t just about romanticism or false authenticity. Rather, it continues to be symbolic and to paint beautiful images of freedom, of hope in the midst of disillusion, of unity, of pride and survival in the diaspora, of the current generation’s understanding that maybe Latin America hasn’t changed much. The same oppressions continue to be there, if only just led by different people. The U.S. continues to exploit its resources and criminalize its individuals. This generation longs for the authenticity it lacks, while La Nueva Trova’s music and lyrics do, reminding us about the beauty of feelings and poetry, and the magnificence in suffering and in defying oppression.

Solitude isolates, it confuses, and it depresses; but all of these forge a platform through which change can begin. While La Nueva Trova was a political and social response to a period 50 years ago, the situation it responded to might not have ameliorated and may very well be in place right now. Additionally, while it speaks to a reality detached from mine, it has become quintessential to my identity and my thirst for my Latin@ culture, providing a validation of hope reminding me that even in my “diaspora” I am not isolated nor alone and that in the larger context of the diversity and passion that is Latin America, I can unite. Its relevance continues and so do its reclamations.