Ozomatli Playing in the crowd

I just saw Ozomatli in Philly yesterday and they were beyond awesome! What a fun group, with guapo musicians and great musica pa la raza! Thanks to my BFF I spent the evening sipping an ice-cold beer, enjoying the mild summer night looking out over to the Ben Franklin Bridge, and checking out the musicheads who ventured out to the festival piers on Penn's Landing. Thankfully Ozomatli performed first, riling up the audience and making me sweat to their funky Latin, ska, cumbia, rock, hip hop fusion. I have been into this group ever since I read a snippet about their first album in the magazine, Urban, The Latino Magazine. A big shout out and thank you to the guys for making my night!

Latinos Will Not Be Televised...

We all know that Latina faces and voices are few and far between in any popular media, though as I am quickly learning we are quite a force in cyberspace. This became more evident to me when I sat to do a research paper in which I surveyed televisions shows from the beginning of the boob tube to today and noted that only a small percentage of actors, performers, or television shows starred known Latinas or were geared to the Latino audience. I did not cover radio however, and being from New York where today you find a range of Latino music radio stations (on FM no less) I felt perhaps we are at least acknowledged. That is until I moved to Philadelphia and nary a salsa or merengue was to be found on the FM dial. In moving to Philly I quickly resorted to my grand collection of CDs and mixed tapes, and finally to Itunes for my dose of musica Latina.

Upon moving to this town I also found myself drawn to NPR. I started to enjoy Car Talk and Fresh Air and This American Life until I realized, I almost never heard stories about Latinos (that wasn't about immigration) nor did I hear the familiar sonido of our voices reporting the news or any other cultural event.

I remember oh so long ago as a teenager meeting Maria Hinojosa when she came to interview students participating in a NYC teen newspaper summer program. I remember to this day her distinctive voice, her tape recorder, and how she pronounced her name "Ma-rrreee-aa Ino hosa" and how embarrassed I became of my own lack of a distinctive Latino voice (or so I thought). Since our meeting I followed her trajectory through the media world up until now when I have the pleasure of hearing her once again on the show, Latino USA. Thankfully the Internet is providing a bridge where other popular media has forgotten or continues to diminish the needs of the community of Latinos eager to experience their culture by any means available...