How I Made It: Las Cafeteras

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We know La Bamba is a song that's over four hundred years old. That song survived because people sang that song. They didn't know how to read, they know how to write, but they just passed it on. How are people going to know our story at Chicanos, mestizos, brown kids, mixed kids. If we don't tell our story, how are we going to survive for four hundred years? And every art form, there's people who hold on to what they believe is tradition, and then there's people who are trying to like evolve

From Futuro Media and RX It's Latino usay I'm Maria Inohosan. Today one of our How I Made It segments, this time with East La band Las Cafeterias. Las Cafeterias made a name for themselves with their politically charged lyrics set to traditional Mexican and Afro Mexican instrumentation.

The group from.

East La fused a base of Sonharocho with rock, ska, spoken word and hip hop, telling the stories they grew up with and the realities they still see every day in their.

Communities and black and brown fighting together.

One day, I'm singing in English, Spanish and in Spanish. Their message has reached the ears of listeners all over the world, from the stages of the Hollywood Bowl all the way to New Zealand. On today's edition of our How I Made It Series, we check in with three members of the group, Denise Carlos, Ector Flores and Danielle French. They tell us about their beginnings, their work to tell and preserve brown stories, and they break down one of their songs, I'm not Your puppet.

I'm daniel French.

I play harana keys, I sing, and I spit and whatever else the band tells me to do.

My name is Ector Flores.

I play harana terreceta, I dance a patiado and I sing with a little bit of spoken word of rap rap rat Hi.

I'm Denise Carlos and I play the harana primera, I sing and I dance abat. We are Lasta.

I always tell people who don't know Confidettas. I always say, if Leela.

Downs and go go Bordello had a baby in East La, that would be last Confidittas.

It's La music. It's all the things that reflect the way we grew up.

What we're doing is carrying immigrant stories, Chicano stories, Brown stories, and that's what we want to keep on doing.

We offer a reimagination of what it means to look Mexican, to sound Mexican, to speak Mexican. Because even in Las Cofetera's if the experience varies, the language style varies, that self imposed identity varies.

In a way, I think it reflects the pressure cooker of life in La and so of course the music we create is influenced by how we grew up. The sounds, we heard, the foods we ate at other people's house.

You see us, and we don't look like Mexicans. We don't look like Spiliy Gonzales.

Right.

We speak English, we speak Spanglish, we speak Spanish. We dance, you know, Narteno style. We do staff atiallo, but then we also do ska and cumbia and you know rock. And I think what we offer is a discomfort and a reimagination of what it means to be American, to look American, what that sound is, what that story is.

Pasca that comes from the East Side Cafe. It's the space that Denise and Jose Gano, the drummer and percussionists in our band. They were part of a bunch of students who helped found the space, and so when we were starting to play music there, we would go play everywhere coffee shops, on the streets and the corners or wherever, and people would say, oh, here the caffeteros from the cafe.

But we had women and the crew, and they're like, we're not calfordos, we're caffaderas.

And we're like, yeah, even though we have men in the group, let's take on the feminine identity because we all come from a woman, so it's a great way to honor that we all have feminine inside of us. We fell in love with this style of music called so which is in Afro Mexican style of music.

It comes from this mix of West Africa, the Mecca, and the indigenous peoples of southern Vera Cruz and the Sotavento region, and you have the Spanish and Arab influences. Is about telling stories. It's about call and response. I tell a verse and sing it back to me, so we make sure we're listening to each other. We talk about the real things going on in our life. And I think that's where Las Capetra's story takes flight, because then we say, okay, they're telling their stories. But we

As a Chicana was being told that the way I placed on Ha wasn't correct and it was disrespectful because I spoke Spanglish because I didn't understand everything I was singing about.

We used to dress up like we used to dress up in all why where the Sombreros? But we stopped doing that because we're not how to We're not from Betakruz.

We don't say we placed on Haidocho music.

We are grounded in Hadrocho, which taught us your story is important and vital, taught us that we are valid right and for that we are forever grateful.

But we are not had choice.

In Las Cafeterras, and through so I was given this platform, in this vehicle to no longer be ashamed, to be able to be proud, and to be able to make connections with people all over the world.

The more we create that space in our band where everyone can express themselves and be who they are, the more I feel like we've created this space outside on stage for the listeners to say, hey, no matter where you're from, homie, like get up and dance. There ain't

That's such a powerful thing for young people of color to be able to do, and to do it in a way that we're not apologizing for do it in a way we're not ashamed, but being proud of our own existence and our own stories.

And it's almost chasle A Yia.

We recorded a song called I'm Not Your Puppet, which is based on a song called I'm Your Puppet.

Which we love, but we just added one word, not I don't know you.

When I think about oldies and now, there are tragic love songs, but a lot of this stuff is about, you know, really unhealthy relationships. So we were strategic and trying to pick songs.

That we loved that could be flipped a little bit.

I'm just too.

Old.

These are something I guarantee you that no matter whether you're black, white, brown, Asian, wherever you're from, if you've been in America that long, like you have that story, you have that connection to this.

Song, dude, just what I have to.

I do anything for you, but I'm not your.

Part of the things that we do in blas Confidea is we always like to perform spoken word, We like to do perform hip hop pieces. Anything you know, everything you need I knew all that this is y'all get down on one knee.

It can be a permit.

We decided to write a little piece just to include something different.

Would be silly. You can be your soul man and listen to Ron Man show you how to slow dance.

I think it kind of expresses this connection between Detroit and the folks who created that music, and Los Angeles and Mexico, and it kind of unites this continent and unites our stories and reminds us it's just a thin line between our cultures.

I think saying I'm.

Not your puppet.

I can love you, I can sherish you, and I also expect the same bag. It's just hoping that people listen to this song and say you can love fiercely, but remember to love yourself fiercely and never to just be held by anybody's strings.

No matter what happens. We got to remember to do the things that give us joy. And we can critique the people in power. We can critique each other and ourselves and talk about what matters and do it in a way that still gives us energy and life and motivates us to not just say what's wrong, but to go make things right. We can't just preach to the choir. And also we can take a message that we never thought would resonate with somebody who has a different color

All black and brown, because that got caught three strikes.

And when they get out, they get so they can ride to their future, back to their past the.

Store, and some spaces appreciate that more than other spaces. We've been told to stop playing and stopping political, and people have walked out of our shows. Making people uncomfortable is not the goal. Making people reflect on why they're uncomfortable is what's valuable.

Conflict is a natural thing, you know, how we deal with conflict becomes the unnatural thing.

Growth is always going to be uncomfortable, and so what I'm hoping for with our music is not that we make people angry or that people walk out of our shows, is that we're able to end the discomfort.

Growth the voices of Denise Carlos, Ector Flores and Danielle French from the East La band Las Cafetires. This episode originally aired in November of twenty twenty. It was produced by Genie Dalgo and edited by Miel Macias. It was mixed by elishiba Ittu. The Latino USA team also includes Victoria Estradra, Renaldo Leanos Junior, Andrea Lopez Grusado, Joni mar Marquez, Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent, Noursaudi, and Nancy Trujuillo. Our co

Latino USA is made possible in part by California Endowment and building a strong state by improving the health of all Californians, The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and funding for Latino USA is Coverage of a culture of health is made possible in part by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

You want me to move on? Or do you want me to?

We can move on?

Thank you, thank you.

You're tired of hearing me? Sware? Okay, here we go in three two one