“Solo Con Los Hoyos”:1 Conga Music and Re-MemberingCommunity in the African Diaspora

Alexandra P. Gelbard, Michigan State UniversityPresented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting

August 11, 2013

Introduction

This paper discusses the neighborhood of Los Hoyos2 in

the city of Santiago de Cuba as an African Diaspora

community of consciousness, and the conga music genre as the

cultural product that maintains social cohesion within an

African diaspora locale. Los Hoyos has the highest

concentration of African descended Cubans in the largest

city of Oriente (eastern) Cuba and the majority of its self-

identified community members are practitioners of African-

inspired Cuban religious traditions (Dodson 2008:64). It has

never been recognized as an official neighborhood with1 This translates to “Only With Los Hoyos,” with the language of “Los Hoyos” meaning “the holes”. This references the large amounts of dirt removed from the area used to fill in the marsh land at the northern end of Santiago’s bay that had become eroded by the latter half of the 1700’s (Millet et. al 1997:2-3). 2 The name “Los Hoyos” does not become colloqually used until the late 1790’s. Prior to that the zone that becomes Los Hoyos is referred to in several different ways. For the purposes of this paper, I will use the name as is to reference the zone for reasons that will be clarified.

1

strict boundaries, but instead “was consecrated in the minds

of the people” (Millet et al. 1997:3-4). It was one of the

first neighborhoods throughout the island where Africans and

their descendants formed mutual aid networks and cultural

communities to maintain their African descended identity and

were centrally involved in all of Cuba’s liberation

movements. In so doing, they formed communities of

consciousness: the constructed manifestation of peoplehood

inclusive of knowledge, beliefs, values, and behaviors that

reflect and transmit an orientation of individual and

collective self within the complexities of diasporic social

identities. Given that humans are inherently collective

beings, and consciousness as a component of identity cannot

be formed without a group, the formation of communities of

consciousness are an invariable part of being in diaspora as

a human response to the diasporic condition (Hamilton

2007:29).

Methods

To understand the relationship, formation, and

maintenance of Los Hoyos as a community of consciousness and

2

its conga as the eliciting cultural mechanism, I utilized a

qualitative multi-methods case study approach integrating

naturalistic cross-cultural field research techniques and

archival data. Sessions typically lasted from June through

August and occurred from 2003 to 2006, as well as in 2008,

20113 and 2013. The cross-cultural orientation holistically

influenced my approach to the field, integrating US social

science qualitative field research and a Cuban orientation

stemming from the Casa del Caribe research institute (Lloga

Dominguez 2013a: 2-4) that complimented methodological

approaches within an African Diasporic interpretive

orientation. Three methodological categories were engaged in

data collection: archival research, observational

techniques, and interviews. I used materials from the Cuban

National Library and the Elvira Cape Provincial Library in

Havana and Santiago de Cuba respectively, accessed

Santiago’s provincial archives, the city’s Cathedral

3 When we arrived to the site in 2011, the Cuban regulationsfor conducting research had changed unbeknownst to us, and we were relegated to “tourist” behaviors. I adjusted my work agenda and only collected data that adhered to those regulations.

3

archives, and personal archives of two community cultural

workers in Santiago de Cuba. The majority of archival data

used were secondary historical and sociological research

conducted by Cuban historians and researchers. I engaged

three categories of observational techniques: participant

observation, observing participation, and distanced

observations. Each technique provided a distinctive

positional viewpoint that was reflected in the descriptive

field-notes journal writing. Lastly, I conducted formal and

informal semi-structured interviews with conga participants

and community members. Entrée and rapport processes were

facilitated through participation with the African Atlantic

Research Team (AART) at Michigan State University under the

direction of Jualynne Dodson. Each team member participated

in the data verification stage for the project on Cuban

African-inspired religious traditions in Oriente and engaged

an individual research project that was related in some way

to the larger Team project on religion and culture amongst

African descendants in Oriente Cuba (Dodson 2008:9;

2010:168-169).

4

Defining Diaspora: A Sociological Approach

The concept of diaspora from a sociological perspective

can be a social form, a mode of consciousness, forms of

cultural production, an interpretive framework of analysis,

and a paradigmatic form. There are specific criteria that

define the concept and distinguish the movement flows,

socio-cultural constructs, structural relationships, and

identity formations found within a diaspora group.

(McClaurin 2008:357). Theoretical approaches to the larger

concept of diaspora frames this idea as the dispersal of

human groups within the larger global social structure, and

specifies a particular diaspora group that contextualizes

these forces in practice. This definition is critical to

understanding the boundaries and distinctions between

sociological ideas of migration, transnationalism, and

diaspora.

The term diaspora, first used in the bible to describe

the forced migration and exile of Jews from their homeland,

insinuates the basic criteria of a diaspora group: forced

dispersion from a homeland to one or more locations, a

5

relationship to the homeland that is either real or imagined

depending upon the generation, alienation within the

hostland, a sustained collective memory of the homeland, and

an active perception that one day they will return to their

land of origin (Cohen 1997 2-3; Safran 1991:83-84; Butler

2001: 189-192; Reis 2004:44). The process of dispersion also

indicates a diaspora group’s presence within a contact zone:

a geographic locale defined by geo-spatial and historical

commonalities, in which various cultural groups encounter

each other under stratified conditions of power, wherein the

behaviors, comprehensions, and epistemologies undergo a

process of encounter, conflict, and negotiation producing

new forms of being specific to that site and modes of

interaction (Long 2008:9292, 9295). This insinuates that a

common theme of a diaspora group is the socially

constructive processes of reality and new forms of cultural

expressions that maintain a unifying collective orientation,

or a consciousness to maintain their concept of origin and

collective identity.

6

This process called transculturation4 describes the

negotiated interaction processes of socially constructing

reality amongst various social groups within a contact zone,

to produce modalities of behavior and cultural phenomena

distinctive to the space and contributing knowledge frames

under stratified power dynamics (Long 2008:9293). In Cuba,

this process occurred at the start of the Spanish colonial

conquest, and transculturative contact between various

African ethnic groups such as Kongo5, Lucumí, Arará, and

Haitian African, as well as other groups such as the

Spanish, French, Chinese, and Indigenous Taino and SubTaino

groups occurred throughout the island in various

combinations and socio-historic waves. Each regional zone

saw distinctive forms of contact, participants, and context,

4 Ortiz gave us the language of transculturation as an alternative to acculturation, the popular social scientific term of that time, and a response to the work of Hertzkovitzwhom he highly revered. 5 Amid the Kongo ethnic grouping, there is a large variety of smaller ethnic identities. The population distribution was dependent upon the particular region and time period. For a detailed discussion on African ethnicities in the Americas and the complexities in the naming of ethnic groupings, see Gwendolyn Midlo Hall’s work, Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links (2005).

7

which developed complex layers of transculturation, social

constructs, and cultural phenomena tied together through

nationhood and island space.6 The African Diaspora, the

Americas, and historical phase of colonial conquest expanded

and developed this process on a much larger global scale.7

Diasporas facilitate the formation of contact zones and

transculturation.

The African diaspora is a phenomenon of central

importance to understanding our contemporary world and

especially the Americas. As a phenomena, it is the global

composite of dispersed African and descended people,

distinguished by social and geographic space and common

historical experience that manifests connectedness.

Contemporarily, the African Diaspora is defined by

political, economic, and socio-cultural forces developed

within the modern frame of capitalism that significantly6 See Robin Cohen and Olivia Sheringham “The Salinece of Islands in the Articulation of Creolization and Diaspora” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 17(1):6-17, for a discussion on islands, spatial boundaries, and cultural contact. 7 Charles H. Long’s entry on “Transculturation and Religion”discusses this process in relation to pilgramages as an example of pre-colonial transculturation (2008:9293-9294).

8

influences the “social construction of peopleness and social

identifications” (Hamilton 2007:10). As a concept, the

African Diaspora is considered a: “mode of analysis – an

approach to history, a method of inquiry – rooted in the

historical experiences [of its members]” (2007:4). It is

also a condition of being within the process, as individuals

and groups are active in producing, consuming, and

challenging cultural patterns (Patterson & Kelley 2000:20).

The Hamilton Paradigm for studying the African Diaspora

offers four sociologically grounded conceptual propositions

that frame research on this phenomena: dispersion into

(forced, semi-forced/voluntary, or voluntary) and geosocial

mobility within diaspora; structural inequality, oppression,

and racialization; a conception of Africa as homeland, both

real and/or imagined; and lastly, the formation of

communities to maintain, socialize and transmit a multi-

layered consciousness that is creatively expressed through a

cultural product (music, art, literature, etc.) (Hamilton

2007:10).

9

Hamilton’s conceptual propositions for studying the

African Diaspora define the macro social forces, which

contextualize and influence the formation of social

identities. All work simultaneously and intersectionally,

impacting the lives, experiences and identities of those in

diaspora. To utilize these propositions, one must first

specify the historical context of dispersion as different

phases and sub-phases of movement. The first, demarcated by

the trans-Atlantic trade in human chattel, also can be

referred to as the maafa dispersement. This Kiswahili word,

which references the historical moment of forced human

trafficking occurring from the late 15th century until the

late 19th century and embodies the memory of pain,

suffering, and exploitation that characterized this

dispersement phase (Hamilton 2007:4). The second major

dispersion phase referred to as “the New African Diaspora”

or the diaspora of imperialism, is demarcated by post-

colonial movement and is generally semi-forced/voluntary

and/or voluntary (Okpewho 2009:5). The latter phase could

10

not have existed without the former, yet both have

distinctive experiential modalities that characterize them.

This research focuses upon communities formed during

the maafa dispersement, which populated the Americas with

millions of Africans from throughout the continent under

conditions of forced migration and racialized oppression.

Although the trans-Atlantic slavery trade characterized the

macro dispersion, there were dynamic movement flows within

diaspora, what Hamilton refers to as geosocial mobility

within the diaspora’s circulatoriness phenomenon (Hamilton

2007:2). I am particularly interested in the formation of

communities of consciousness and the cultural products,

specifically music, that are used by members to socialize,

generationally transmit, and maintain a diasporic

consciousness as part of identity formation. An African

Diasporic consciousness is collective, evokes memory

constructs, needs cultural mechanisms to foster interaction

and social cohesion, draws from religious practices and an

African cosmic orientation, and is oriented toward self and

collective liberation. It is multilayered, evoking an

11

abstracted sense of belonging to the larger diaspora,

continental, national, regional, local, and neighborhood

constructs of identity.

Communities of Consciousness: “Los Hoyos del Africa”

Santiago de Cuba was one of the seven original sites

established by the Spanish conquistadores, founded in 1515.

It served as the original capitol of Cuba, and a center

point for the Spanish colonial expansion as they moved

throughout the Americas in search of material resources due

to its strategic location along the windward passage (Pérez,

Jr. 1995:26-27). The first three hundred enslaved Africans

were brought to Cuba through Santiago in 1521 from Haiti

(Bacardí 1972:88) most likely dispersed between the Santiago

del Prado copper mine 10 kilometers northeast of the city

and within the city of Santiago. Though specific demographic

data is limited, we know there was an established enslaved,

freed, and self-liberated African presence in the Santiago

area from that point onward.8 Within Oriente, two main8 Self-liberated Africans and descendants were referred to as cimarrones, and formed palenque communities in the mountianssurrounding Santiago and Oriente. There is contradictory data as to how early these communities formed, but they were

12

categories of diasporic community formation occurred:

palenques or rural self-liberated communities within hard to

reach areas of the mountains,9 and cabildos de nación, an

organizational mutual-aid society structure imposed by the

Spanish colonial order.

Community formation amongst African and descendants in

Santiago de Cuba began as early as their forced arrival.

The necessity to establish social relationships to give

meaning, social support, and make sense of their empirical

reality and identity (Bruhn 2005:1-2) was especially strong

under conditions of oppression and enslavement. Colonial

archival records indicate the presence of self-liberated

palenque communities in the surrounding area as early as 1530

(Franco 1973:49-51) living with remaining indigenous Taino

peoples and actively engaging in emancipatory activity

against the colonial presence to maintain their liberated

established minimally by 1540 according to communications sent back to Spain by the colonial authority(Franco 1973:49-51). 9 Oriente (eastern) Cuba is the most mountinous region throughout the island. This contributed to its isolated access to the rest of the island (by land) and facilitated the space as an ideal location for the development of palenque communities.

13

state. These communities served as the nucleus for

transculturation, as African and Indigenous were negotiating

and establishing the habitualized patterns of interaction to

be unified within this new colonial reality (Dodson 2008:36-

37, 40-41). The majority of Africans brought to Oriente

were of Kongoloese origin, as they were targeted

specifically for their mining skills to work in the Santiago

del Prado copper mine (Hall 2005:19-20).

Cabildos de nación as a structural form originated in

Seville Spain in 1393 throughout the southern Iberian

Peninsula as a way of regulating and organizationally

stratifying the minority ‘Gypsy’ and African Moor

populations. It was a response to civil and ecclesiastic

political power, as well as the historical conditions

following the Moors’ 800-year occupation of Spain. Although

the structural intent was to segregate populations and allow

the Sevillian government to avoid providing equitable

services to these marginalized groups, cabildos de nación served

as social spaces of religious and cultural expression and

maintenance within a hegemonic power structure (Barcia

14

Zequeira et.al. 2012:11). The concept of cabildos within

Cuba was twofold: a cabildo served as the town council within

colonies under the Spanish crown implying a layer of

subservience to the Spanish continental homeland, and a

cabildo de nación that functioned as a mutual aid society for

enslaved and freed Africans and descendants. In the context

of the Americas, unlike that of Spain, the colonial

authorities placed social restrictions upon Africans

allowing them only to gather on Sundays and festival days

(2012:11-12).

The first formally recognized cabildo de nación in

Santiago de Cuba was the Cabildo Congo, reflecting the

majority Kongolese (amongst the African and descended

populations), founded on September 27, 1616, registering 29

men ages 44-67 years old. However, archival records also

reflect that in 1535 a recognized Spanish citizen who lived

in a home next to that of the King Congo, reported a loud

drumming party coming from his home (Barcia Zequeira et al.

2012:n5, 42), indicating that there were already gatherings

and community formation in effect. Archival records dictate

15

that all members were formally baptized in the Christian

faith,10 could read and write, and speak Castilian Spanish.

This cabildo served as the central hub for 11 sub-

organizations, each semi-autonomous cabildos with individual

leadership structures, but all ultimately accountable to the

Cabildo Congo “Rey Melchor.”11 Three of the micro-cabildos

were registered under Catholic churches and the rest had no

specific parochial affiliation.12 The Cabildo Congo

however, was under the generalized affiliation with the

Catholic Saint San Benito del Palermo as part of the

hierarchical structure that paralleled a municipality, but10 All enslaved Kongoloese taken from the African continent were “legally” baptized (if they were not already Christian converts) before they were put on ships to the Americas (Heywood & Thorton 2007:5-6)11 The position of King Congo was the only crowned leadership role amongst Africans and descendants in all of Cuba. The title was named after the Melchor, one of the 3 Kings to visit the baby Jesus who is typically depicted as phenotypically dark skinned and originated from continental Africa. 12 Catholicism was not a new religion to the Kongolese due to the contact and conversion of the Kongo Kingdom’s Queens and Kings by the Portugese as early as the 1480’s and therefore, the vaneer of Catholisism or affiliation does notnecessarily negate the practice of indigenuos Kongo-based religious practice. Rather, there developed a distinctive mix of Catholic and Indigenous spiritual practice (Thorton 1998:17, 35; 2001:89, 102-103)

16

formed to regulate the free African and descended population

that was steadily increasing (Almaguer Andreu 2010:55). The

relationship between Kongolese and Catholic structures had

already been established on the African continent with the

presence of the Capuchin priests and conversion of the Kongo

Kings and Queens in the late 15th century, and the formation

of a distinctively Kongoloese Catholicism was practiced

alongside and incorporating indigenous Kongolese religious

traditions (Thorton 1998:17,35,53-57). The transculturation

process and adaptation to familiar social structures between

the Kongolese and Iberian colonial powers had already been

in effect for around one hundred years before it was

continued within the new Cuban context.

The Cabildo Congo and its affiliated micro-cabildos

were all located within the northern peripheral zone around

the center of the city now considered the Los Hoyos

neighborhood. As more Africans and descendants gained their

freedom, they began requesting properties in and around the

King Congo beginning in 1666 (Bacardi 1972:111-112). These

initial requests mostly came from women, while official

17

registration membership in the cabildos appear to be

exclusively men that opens the question of gender

dynamics.13 Yet these organizations were a nucleus for the

development and maintenance of Kongo-based “way of life”

that saw no separation between religious expression and

cultural practices. Ritual drumming that occurred during

gatherings were an essential part of fostering community and

maintaining social cohesion. It was also a space for re-

membering: a collective space of interaction wherein ritual

behaviors relating to African inspired cultural practices

are performed (Dodson & Gilkes 1995:520-521).

Due to the colonial regulations, cabildos were not

permitted to gather on days other than Sunday and for

certain Catholic Saints day festivities. On these festival

days, the cabildos were permitted to parade through the

streets, dancing, singing, and playing drums in costumes

along set routes throughout the northern zone of the city:

13 A definitive conclusion on gender dynamics is beyond the scope of this paper. I can only speculate based upon what the historical data suggests and contemporary dynamics within the Kongo-based religious communities that women have“unseen power that is no less” (See Dodson 2010:174-177).

18

the area that is considered Los Hoyos. Cabildos went out on

the Day of Kings14 (January 6), San Juan (June 24), San

Pedro (June 29), Santa Cristina (July 24), Santiago de

Apostol (July 25), and Santa Ana (July 26) (Millet et al.

1997:5). The Kongoloese were not unfamiliar with these

holidays15 and in particular, the July 25 celebration of

Santiago de Apostol/Saint James Major. This holiday

venerated Santiago de Apostol’s successful conquest to

reclaim the Iberian Peninsula from the African Moors; his

spirit was evoked when King Alfonso I of the Kongo kingdom

gained the throne in 1509 in the name of the Catholic church

(Thorton 1998:32-34). These facets of memory, religious,

and cultural practices connected through three different

land spaces among the Spanish, Portuguese, and Kongolese,

now evoked and present within Oriente and Santiago de Cuba,

was a significant component of the developing consciousness

14 This day was especially important as it is when the Cabildo Congo crowned their King “Melchor” (Almaguer Andreu 2010:79).15 Halloween/All Saints Day (October 31) was considered to be especially significant merging the indigenous Kongo religious practices and Catholic in honor of ancestor spirits (Thorton 1998:30-31)

19

amongst the African and descended population as trans-

continental habitualized behavioral patterns within the

early processes of colonial contact. Within the island land

space of Oriente Cuba, the process of sedimenting typified

categories of behavior within the presence of a colonial

social structure included the cabildos de nación as part of

Santiago’s social reality. The inclusion, albeit marginal,

of African and descendants in a geographic space established

their presence and religio-cultural behaviors as part of the

social and organizational reality. Their presence within the

Los Hoyos zone fostered a conscious connection to place

through socio-interactive activities, which elicited

identity concepts of being and expressions of belonging

amidst their marginalized status within a colonial society.

Conga and Carnival: Habitualization and Tradition

The presence and stratified participation of cabildos

during Catholic festival days established the habitualized

pattern of performative socio-musical interaction. The

behavior of marching through the streets of Los Hoyos in

African-inspired dress, drumming, singing, and dancing by

20

cabildo and community members became an established part of

social festivities and antecedents of what would

contemporarily become the carnival celebration during the

last week of July. The “festival of mamarrachos”16 was

initially a “celebration of the common people” occurring

over the late July Catholic saint days beginning as early as

the late 1600s (Pérez Rodriguez 1988:24). It continued

throughout the centuries though was considered a practice of

the African and descendent populations, becoming inclusive

of outlying plantations whose enslaved Africans and

descendants would carry the plantation’s crops into Santiago

for sale or export. Once in the city, they too would

participate in the mamarracho festivities and participated

in the cross-group interactions amongst African and

descended communities added another layer of differing

ethnic, religious, and cultural exchange.17 By the end of16 The word “mamarracho” in spanish means “a ridiculous looking person, mess, sight” (Webster’s New World Spanish Dictionary 2008:221). 17 With the onset of the 1791 Haitian Revolution, French plantation owners transplanted their livelihoods to Oriente,bringing their enslaved Haitian African workers with them. They populated both the mountainous areas throughout Oriente, and developed whole sections of south-west

21

the 19th century, the mamarracho festivities gained

popularity with the upper classes eventually “penetrating

the salons and theatre houses of the upper classes […]

including their participation in the streets wearing masks

and costumes” (Pérez Rodriguez 1998:22). The socio-cultural

behavior of parading in the streets to African-inspired

drums, dances, songs, and with costumes centered amongst

those living within the Los Hoyos became sedimented as a

Santiago cultural tradition: it fostered community and

social cohesion, solidifying the importance of Los Hoyos

within the larger social order of Santiago de Cuba and

Oriente.

The performing groups stemming from cabildos de nación,

called comparsas, became fully integrated into the popular

culture expressions of Santiago de Cuba at the turn of the

20th century as Cuba transitioned into post-colonial

nationhood. Carnival celebrations now included comparsas

from many neighborhoods, factory workers representing their

Santiago. In the 1830’s Chinese indentured servants were also brought to Santiago de Cuba, and populated the far north-western boundary of the city, which included part of the Los Hoyos zone.

22

employers, and some of the traditional African descended

cabildo groups participated in the official juried parade for

monetary prizes. From the 1910s through 1950s, the musical

practice of the mamarrachos, utilizing percussive elements,

transitioned to become the conga music genre we know today

with alterations to the drum shape making them easier to

carry as people paraded throughout the city, and shifts to

the base rhythm with each neighborhood altering it slightly

to distinguish and represent their distinctive ethno-

cultural combinations (Gali, 2013). The addition of the

Chinese horn in the early 1920s to lead the interactive

call-and-response songs between the music players and

community participants revolutionized the genre and

represented an aspect of national cultural inclusion of

Chinese indentured laborers (López 2013:214). Los Hoyos

remained at the epicenter of these musical innovations and

interactive parades, maintaining a distinctive rhythm that

was knowingly drawn from the religio-cultural ceremonies of

the neighborhood’s cabildos (Fieldnotes 2013).

23

The onset of the 1959 revolution and shift in the Cuban

social order heralded this important cultural expressive

behavior within Post-Revolutionary Cuba. In the

restructuring of the nation’s formal organizational

arrangements, an important emphasis was placed on the conga

genre and comparsa groups. The long-established comparsas

in Santiago were given focos culturales, or cultural houses, to

serve as rehearsal, storage, and community spaces

acknowledging the significance of these practices to

community cohesion (Robbins 1990:289-291; Fieldnotes 2013).

The formalization of carnival, celebrated during the last

week of July is the culmination of annually rehearsed

comparsa performances. The costumes, dances, flags,

banners, musical selections, and themes are presented in a

formal juried parade, with prizes awarded for each of the

aforementioned categories. But the comparsas also maintain a

community function, “going out” in informal street parades

throughout the year, affording community members the

interactive experience of dancing, singing, and

participating in their distinctively Santiagueran

24

“traditional popular culture” (Fieldnotes 2013; Lloga

Domínguez 2013b: 11-14).

In the July 2013 field session, I focused centrally

upon the pre-carnival conga events, or “visitations,”

activities that are remnants of the cross-cabildo encounters

that occurred during colonial times. One neighborhood conga

would gather its community members and arrollar18 to another

community where they would engage in a “musical battle”

singing and playing pre-rehearsed songs that contained

clever “insults” to the other group. The crowd would

usually determine through applause and cheers who had won

the battle. In the three weeks leading up to the start of

carnival, these visitations became more frequent, with each

neighborhood visiting the other and members of non-

participating groups attending to get the inside scoop on

what would be played in preparation for the juried Carnival

competition. Los Hoyos would never leave to visit; they

were always visited, the space populated by Los Hoyos18 This describes the shuffle step that accompanies the conga rhythm. All participants engage in this basic rhythmetic step, though I was told, all cannot necessarily do the movement properly (Fieldnotes 2013).

25

community members and those from the visiting neighborhood.

I also observed that as each of Santiago’s conga groups went

to visit another neighborhood, they would always pass

through the main thoroughfare of Los Hoyos. As they would

pass the Los Hoyos foco, groups would either enhance their

playing style with a stronger, more effervescent rhythm, or

forego playing all together and pass by. The choice of

either acknowledgement toward the Los Hoyos conga was

indicative of the centrality of Los Hoyos in the world of

Santiago’s conga genre and a competitive call to the Los

Hoyos conga; typically the Los Hoyos directorship would

stand in the doorway of foco to see how the other congas

would engage (or not). The space would fill with people

from all over the city numbering into the thousands,

affording people from various neighborhoods the ability to

interact with one another when they wouldn’t necessarily do

so unless personal intimate relationships were previously

established (Fieldnotes 2013).

With the common knowledge that the Los Hoyos conga

group and rhythm is the “most traditional” and “best” in the

26

country, the engagement of space and interaction with the

group, despite a pre-arranged meeting between two other

community groups demonstrated and recognized both the conga

and community as a center locale for this African-inspired

cultural practice. The “tradition” of Los Hoyos rooted

within the African and descended populations, engagement of

space and place, and participation in a cultural activity

initiated from the early presence of Africans in Santiago de

Cuba, re-members community to their African heritage within

a multi-ethnic Cuban national identity. In so doing, the

interactive participation elicits a consciousness that is

diasporic yet distinctively Cuban and Santiagueran, centered

within the community of and only with Los Hoyos.

27

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