Candela Latina by Shadman, Najelly, Taylor, Emily, and Patricia

Candela Latina is the only Latinx dance team at Fordham University. The dancers discussed their connection to their country of origin and how living in the Bronx and Queens has influenced their sense of identity. Dance is a crucial part of their lives and allows them to express their culture and fight against adversity. They enjoy dancing to traditional Latin music and also more modern styles. Being part of Candela helps them overcome imposter syndrome and find a sense of community. The group aims to sustain Latinx culture and resist the predominant whiteness at Fordham. However, they face challenges such as lack of funding and support from the administration. Their performances can be seen as too risque and they are sexualized and fetishized by their audiences. Despite these obstacles, they continue to advocate for the Latinx community through their performances. Supporting Candela and pointing out disparities is important to ensure recognition and care for Latinx students. Hi, welcome to the Latinx Performance Podcast. Today we are here with Taylor, Emily, Patricia, Shabmant, and Ajeli. We will be discussing the only Latinx dance team at Fordham University Rose Hill Campus, Candela Latina. We had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing four different dancers on the team, Catherine Tertullian, Nashaylee Moral, and Andrea Colon, and Cristal Monegro. We would like to begin with one shared commonality between all of our dancers, which is their connection to their country of origin. So Emily, where is Cristal from? Cristal is a Bronx native, but originally from the Dominican Republic. She feels that living in the Bronx has positively impacted her sense of belonging as a person of color. Catherine is also from the Dominican Republic, which was occupied by the United States in 1905 during the Roosevelt administration. During occupation, the Dominican Republic's customs economy became infused with foreign investment. Today, although the DR is not under U.S. influence, Dominicans have the idea of an American dream and yearn to come to the U.S. for a better future. The people over there long to have a life like we have over here so bad. Like they want, they have this idea of like an American dream, and like they want to come here, and they want to be similar to us, and they want to dress like us, and talk like us, and all this stuff. And then I feel like the ones, like me, that came from over there, from up here, like I wish I was in the DR. Like I wish I was that lifestyle. Although she was born in the Dominican Republic, she grew up in Queens, which is a very diverse borough in New York. She mentioned that although there were not many white people in her community, there was a mix of Latinx, African American, and South Asians. So when she came to Fordham, she experienced a culture shock. Wow, Nechele Morrell is also Dominican. She was born and raised in San Isidro in the Dominican Republic. San Isidro is located near the capital, Santo Domingo, where most of her family is from. In 2012, when Nechele was nine years old, she moved to the Bronx. That is so cool, Taylor. Andrea is actually from San Juan, Puerto Rico, but has spent a lot of time in Florida as well. She has a strong connection with her Puerto Rican heritage. Something all these performers have in common is their connection between their Latinx identities and their experiences as performers. Dance and other forms of movement can be a freeing and expressive experience for those who partake in it. In our podcast, it is evident that dance is a crucial part of these performers' lives and the ways they choose to celebrate their culture while also fighting adversity. In the following clip, we recognize the performers of Candela dancing to first a salsa song, as it then transitions to a merengue routine. As they move their feet, arms, and hips to the rhythm, you can feel the passion that they have for the dance, song, and where they are from. The history of these dances and how they have evolved to what they are today is really interesting. Taylor, what kinds of music does your interviewee enjoy dancing to while performing for Candela? Well, in Nechele's childhood, she grew up watching the carnivals in D.R., where dancers would dance merengue. She connected these memories to feeling more connected to her culture and the dancers she grew up watching when she performs the same dance. Crystal enjoys dancing to bachata, as she recognizes that it is an integral part of Dominican culture. Andrea is really excited to learn more about traditional Latin dances such as salsa, barracha, and merengue. Over the summer, she is planning to take dance classes in these specific dancing styles. Even though Andrea wants to learn more about these types of dances, she also enjoys dancing to more modern music, like Bad Bunny. Catherine also likes urban Spanish music, but she more so prefers dancing and choreographing traditional music because it adds to the authenticity of the culture and history of dancing. One essential aspect that I learned from Catherine is about the history of bachata and merengue in the Dominican Republic. For example, bachata wasn't always accepted into mainstream music, and merengue was even deduced to music made for whores. We did more research on this topic, and in a grad paper by Christina Borg titled Yora de Tara, Grave of Cari For Mi Guitar, Cathartic and Melancholic Expressions in Dominican Bachata Music and Dance, she discusses the history of bachata as a guitar-based music and dance form created out of poverty and social change following the assassination of Trujillo and the fall of the oppressive dictatorship in 1961. Borg argues that bachata is an expression of class struggle and the suffering that may come with it. This includes the changing nature of gender and sexuality. However, bachata talks about pain and life challenges. Expressing it through dance allows for joy communicated through shared experiences, as one can realize pain and feeling through fast-paced dancing, whereas merengue historically has been seen as a symbol representing the spiritual journey of the Dominican people since their independence from Haiti. An important aspect when analyzing performance is considering the location. Candela Latina is the only Latinx dance group at Fordham University, which is located in Rose Hill, Bronx. Although the Bronx, New York, is well known for its diversity, it feels like a different community as it is a gated PWI, or predominantly white, institution. Nechele expressed feeling out of place when she came to Fordham. Yes, so I have my big orientation. I wanted to get out because I felt so out of place. I like being, I like the feeling of being out of state because you know the campus and like the nature and everything, but then I just didn't feel like I belonged because it's a predominantly white institution and there's not that much of diversity. So I just felt like this is not for me, but then after joining Candela, I started feeling like more like in place, like I belong because I had like my small community of people that are like similar to me. I would like to connect this to a scholarly journal titled, Predictors of Imposter Phenomenon Among Talented Ethnic Minority Undergraduate Students, by Bridget J. Petit et al. Students of color are more likely to face imposter syndrome because they don't feel a sense of belonging in a community that doesn't reflect their ethnic culture and racial identity. In my interview with Catherine, we discussed how being Candela Latina helped her push through those feelings of imposter syndrome because she found a sense of Latinx community within the dance group. And as the president of the dance group, she hopes to give that same sense of community to incoming Latinx students. Crystal has attended minority serving institutions all her life until arriving at Fordham. While beginning her college journey, she remembers struggling with imposter syndrome and having to deal with negative comments and stereotypes from her white peers. Probably like when I first started at Fordham, I felt like an imposter, sort of. Like I didn't really belong and I didn't, I don't know, I just didn't know what to do with myself, sort of. Like I didn't know where I could place myself. Initially also went to a minority serving high school, so the transition to a PWI was difficult. As mentioned before, joining Candela Latina helped Ms. Shaley feel more like she had a community at Fordham. Andrea also felt this when she came to New York. Just as the article Border Art by Ila and Sharon talks about crossing the physical and cultural borders between Puerto Rico and the U.S., our dancers too crossed borders when they came to Fordham, a PWI. Andrea talks of the culture shock that she experienced when first arriving at Fordham coming from Puerto Rico. Because being Puerto Rican, you're like, oh, like I'm raised along a lot of like Americans. I went to like an American school, like I'll be fine. But then you get here and it's like, bro, no one understands. No one's like, you can sympathize and stuff, but it's like not the same. Because of this culture shock, one important thing that Candela does among other aspects is that it becomes a safe haven for Latinx students and dancers as it attempts to cultivate community inside of an institution that might not always approve of our ideals as students of color. In this way, Candela is a form of resistance or decolonization as they try to go against the grain of what is expected of them at Fordham to conform to white and westernized values. Music and dance is a form of expression for these dancers as it relates to their identity as Latinx women and men. They're not afraid to show that regardless of the standards being placed on them. You're definitely right, Najeli. Crystal notes that there is a different kind of appreciation and understanding from Candela's audiences when they are majority people of color. I don't know. They're just, they're very supportive. Like they're very, they're always just like cheering us on and like being excited for us. And I don't know, I feel like they understand more in terms of like when we do like cultural dances and when we do like different dances as well, like literary folk and stuff like that. In this way, decolonization is evident in the way that students of color at Fordham feel recognized and cared about through Candela's work. To add on, in Border Art, Sharon mentions the rubber soles function as sculpture, fashion, and design, and the act of walking around the base protesting is a performance in itself. The footprints and dexical evidence of transgression speak of their makers' deeds, their values, and their political imperative. Puerto Ricans walking on and leaving their unique imprints in the sand represented each citizen's disapproval of U.S. occupation through a military presence in Viejas, portraying their footprints as a performed art. Similarly, Candela performing salsa, merengue, bachata can represent a resistance against the predominant whiteness or Americanization of Fordham and portrays Candela as a vessel for the Latinx community to sustain their culture. Candela's performances also advertise to the Fordham community and outside spectators the importance of having such a team as it can bring together not only those with Latinx backgrounds but also those unaware of the challenges marginalized groups face. Having these groups together in one space starts to fade out the misconceptions surrounding Latinos, Latinos. Although Candela is a form of resistance, it doesn't mean that they don't face many obstacles due to the PWI and administration. One of the challenges that they face as the only Latinx dance team at Fordham is lack of funding. Many of the dancers, especially members of the e-board, have to pay out of pocket if they want to make certain events for their dancers or Latinx students on campus. For example, Catherine said for one event they spent up to $300 and did so without reimbursement. The lack of support is disheartening and frustrating as the dancers observe other groups such as Flava and Dejites receiving better treatment than them. For example, Candela Latina are unable to get any of the designated practice rooms for dancing. Rather they are stowed away in a small music room in the kingly second floor without a mirror to practice and the proper ventilation needed. The other dance groups at Fordham are usually given priority when it comes to booking actual dancing practice rooms. Also, Fordham administration haven't given them an event to perform at. An event to perform at, one incident in particular that stood out to us as interviewers, is that in order for the dance group to dance at a basketball at basketball games, their dances have to be reviewed beforehand because it can be seen as too risque. This is very upsetting to hear for the group considering that another Fordham dance team always performs at basketball games even though their choreography can also be denoted as risque. It is interesting to note the fact that Candela Latina, a cultural club, was called out for their costumes and dance movements. Bachata, Merengue, and Salsa are all heavily hip-centered forms of dance so the team genuinely cannot change their dance to conform to people's negative opinions as it will be taken away from the significance and authenticity of the dance. Crystal mentions that Candela Latina's members have more curvy body types which can lead them to be sexualized and fetishized by their audiences. Even from a professional standpoint, women of color are still subject to sexualization due to their non-neurocentric features. And there was like a time when we did like the basketball game for example, there was like the person, I don't know their name, I don't know what they work out, but like they thought that the dances that we did were too promiscuous and like I don't know like too, it wasn't right or something like that and that as a group of like Latina women or like whatever we should, like we should show ourselves better or something like that. Did I say that? Yeah. So yeah, so we've had people tell us that some of our performances are a little like on the risque side and they don't really approve of it or they don't really, I don't know, they don't really appreciate it but I personally don't care because I feel like there's other teams on campus or there's other people that perform other risque performances and they're not judged as the same way we are but just because we are Latinx and people already see us like as sexual, people already oversexualized us, like everything we do is obviously going to be 10 times more oversexualized than any other team on campus. As you just heard, Catherine speaks about how people have fantasies about Latina women as these curvy sex symbols yet mentions how other dance groups are able to let things fly without being looked at through the male gaze and appreciated for their performance. This sexualization also exists in Dominican culture as women are expected to stay home, cook and take care of the children while men become educated and work. For Soda Deras, Christine Arce mentions this photograph is in fact witness to their multiple stories, to their roles in the background as what Poniatowska calls bundles of misery as well as in the foreground as nurses, generals, warriors, spies, cooks, wives, mothers, daughters, lovers, prostitutes and companions. Like the Soda Deras in the Mexican American War, Catherine and her teammates are not just dancers but advocates for the Latinx community united by their performances. We hope this podcast has shed some light on Candela and the Latinx performance dancers that are involved in Candela here at Fordham. If you want to support Candela, please visit their Instagram at Candela Latina FU and go share some love when they post as well as any events they might be dancing at. Also, if you are in a club, organization, on campus, be the ones to invite them to dance at any of your events. And don't forget to point out any disparities when it comes to the administration and Latinx student organizations. Thank you for listening and continue to support Latinx artists. Bye!