Musica Against Drugs: Fighting AIDS with Salsa
Schneider, Cathy
The music echoed down Broadway as the salsa musicians drummed their congas, blew their horns, and sang on one of the busiest streets in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Men and women, old...
...Maldonado may have been a leader in the community, but he was already addicted to heroin...
...Puerto Ricans in New York...
...Confronting the deadliest consequences of urban poverty and demoralization, Musica celebrates life, builds solidarity, and gives some hope and even joy to those with HIV or already suffering from AIDS...
...That is how we got the idea for Musica Against Drugs...
...demic proportions in the recovery community...
...We started a workshop called Get Your Chops Together," recalls Maldonado...
...In another part of the building, there was a video exhibit of Williamsburg residents speaking about their lives...
...You have to offer people something to aim for...
...During this period Maldonado joined a street gang called the Keep Baysa gang politicized by the radical social activism of the time...
...A bearded poet took the microphone to recite passionate verse about poverty and drug abuse...
...Later, he learned to play the trumpet as well...
...During that time, he gave up both music and social activism...
...Musica Against Drug's emphasis on Puerto Rican identity and culture, as expressed though music and art, works because it builds on the legacy of previous struggles in the Puerto Rican community...
...It was at Boy's Harbor that he met and studied congas with Frankie Malave, who he calls "the greatest Puerto Rican congero...
...In 1986, buoyed by his return to music at Boy's Harbor, a social agency in Harlem, Maldonado quit drugs for good...
...Since he can remember, he played congas in the street and in the park...
...Using our culture as a tool facilitates organizing for us...
...The group is now creating a community dining hall for people with AIDS, replete with a nutritionist and a van to provide food to those confined at home...
...He had lost the discipline...
...Men and women, old and young, grabbed other members of a growing crowd and whirled them to a sultry salsa beat...
...Combine that with poverty and feelings of inadequacy, getting high was an escape...
...They revived "a sense of pride and identity in Puerto Rican culture," he recalls, "especially among those born in New York City...
...Later he MusicaAgainstDrugsfor emerged as a leader of the a "testimonio exhibition" student movement at Brooklyn's Eastern District high school...
...Others gorged on the plentiful array of entries, which included rice and peas, roast chicken, red beans and salad...
...We needed a place people in recovery could go and not be subjected to it...
...The Young Lords, a political organization that emerged out of Puerto Rican gangs in Chicago, had a particularly profound impact on young Cathy Schneider is an assistant professor at the School of International Service at American University...
...Colonization and assimilation in the United States had left many Puerto Ricans feeling alienated and lacking in self-esteem...
...Last year Musica Against Drugs was awarded close to a million dollars in federal, state, city and private grants...
...Musica Against Drugs threw this party to inaugurate the installation of the new art exhibit in their building...
...Desperate, he attempted suicide...
...Musica was born of the conviction, Maldonado notes, "that we could build self-esteem through culture and identity...
...Eventually, these musicians began to form recovery bands...
...Soda, juice and coffee were also available, but not alcohol or drugs...
...In 1968 Maldonado was elected president of the Aspira club, an organization designed to encourage excellence and leadership among talented Latino youth...
...Musica volunteers and paid peer educators began canvassing heavy drug-trafficking areas, giving users information on AIDS and referrals to detox programs and other healthcare facilities...
...He remembers his parents listening to boleros and plenas, while the kids in the street blasted music from WADO, the only Spanish-language radio station at the time...
...Some viewers signed up for the free art, poetry, dance, theater, photography and music workshops...
...The group's modest success offers a hopeful model for creative community organizing...
...Two children swung their hips to a rhumba, drawing the attention of several adults, who began to clap in rhythm...
...Too often recovering addicts find that after a lifetime of drugoriented social relations, they have lost simple social skills like dancing and conversation...
...To feel good about who you are," notes Maldonado, "you must know your roots...
...It was the Young Lords that shaped Maldonado's understanding of the relationship between culture, self-esteem and social activism...
...By the time he was a teenager, the music had become political, and addressed Vietnam, the barrio and social revolution...
...As he practiced the instrument that had given him so much pleasure in his youth, Maldonado felt a growing sense of pride and identity...
...Drugs were what was happening in the sixties," he recalls, "and there was a lot of peer pressure...
...He entered detox over 20 times, but each time he ended up back on heroin...
...His earliest memories involved music...
...Maldonado and several friends decided to broaden Musica Against Drugs, using music to bring people together and educate them about AIDS...
...Musica Against Drugs is the realization of the dreams of Manny Maldonado...
...Addicts were quitting drugs only to find they now had to face even deadlier prospects...
...The party was "clean and sober...
...Two years into recovery Maldonado discovered he had AIDS, a disease which derMannyMaldonadoat had already reached epin Williamsburg, Brooklyn...
...A photography exhibit included pictures from East Harlem, accompanied by the transcribed observations of a woman from the barrio, Next to it were sketches by several ex-drug addicts, each showing neighborhood efforts to fight drug abuse and AIDS...
...Several exhausted dancers entered the building-headquarters of a group called Musica Against Drugs-to cool off, and to contemplate the exhibition of Latino art...
...She conducted research for this article while she was an Aaron Diamond postdoctoral fellow at the Hunter College Center on AIDS, Drugs and Community Health...
...There is a lot of pain and suffering in drug addiction," he says, "that society doesn't pay any attention to...
...Maldonado grew up in the Puerto Rican part of Williamsburg in the 1960s-a decade of drugs, street gangs and social activism...
...Several professional musicians in recovery-including Ralph Irizarry, the timbale player for Rub6n Blades, Ray Cruz and TomBs Santiago of Cruz Control, and Maldonadobegan to get together and play during "12-step" anniversaries...
...Further, says Maldonado, "the Latin clubs are often about un i, drinking a lot of alcohol...
...For about 20 years, Maldonado was a heroin addict...
...Music also gave Maldonado a way to celebrate and socialize without drugs or alcohol...
Vol. 28 • September 1994 • No. 2
