I Am Monumental: The Power of African Roots

I remember when I was working to establish El Museo del Barrio. I went to the Arts Council in Washington, D.C., and presented the project. I explained that El Museo del Barrio means the museum of the community, right? The head of the culture program looked at me and said, “You are not a museum. Why are you calling yourselves that? Who told you that you were a museum?” And I said, “Why are you asking me that? I’m telling you – it is a museum.” And he replied, “Well, that doesn’t fit our definition of a museum, and for that reason, we can’t support you.” Now, if I had accepted the definition they gave me, I would’ve shut the doors on our project and turned it into another school program created by our community. But I knew that El Museo del Barrio was the beating heart of our people – of our communities, our mothers and fathers. And if we couldn’t get official backing, then the support would come from our community, from our people. The first exhibition was built around mundillo – the lacework made by our mothers. We launched it without institutional support, because we had already decided it was a museum. Not because someone told us we had to meet certain qualifications. Our community in El Barrio understood the importance of our traditions and stories in strengthening our youth for the future.

C&AL: What message would you share with young people accross the African diaspora working in the cultural field today, amid so much precarity and imbalance?

MMV: I believe we must be clear about who we are. We must define ourselves, and decide – right now – how we’re going to organize to build the future we want. Part of the oppressive system is stopping you from doing your thing. From creating. From thinking. It paralyzes you. It makes you live in fear. What we’re facing in this country right now is tough – I think it’s the first time we’ve seen it play out this way. So the question is: this is happening – yes – but what are we going to do? How will we position ourselves? What will we create? What does it really mean to be in a community that holds and supports one another? As I said: it’s a responsibility we carry. You carry it, I carry it. Regardless of age. We’re building a better future for our people, for our families. I have two granddaughters, and I want a better world for them. Everything I do is to help make this world better. And to celebrate – it’s not just about resisting and fighting. No! It’s also about enjoying who we are, honoring the power of being and having the courage to envision a future for those who come after us. And when we celebrate who we are, what we’ve done, and what we’re going to do – that’s where the inspiration comes alive.

We’re working on a project we decided to call Soy Monumental (I Am Monumental). When we look at ourselves historically – everything we’ve endured, everything we’ve created, everything we’ve done – we have to acknowledge: we are monumental. We are who we choose to be, right? We’ve reached places that – let’s be real – our parents my grandparents never reached. And what I’ve done, I didn’t do it alone. I did it because I had a mother and a father, a grandmother, and the stories of my grandfather. So, we are the continuation of the roots that we are.

Olga Chapman-Rivera: That continuity is everything. Modernity has often sold us that idea of inner, individual force. But it rarely connects that force to the ancestrality Marta speaks of. Capitalist systems have elevated the myth of individual effort: that you’re unique and special, all those things… but what’s really vital for our communities is to stay rooted – in our families, in our ancestors, in the people who shaped us. That’s what grounds us and sustains us in difficult times. When it feels like what’s happening in the world is too much to handle, that connection – navigating life collectively, from within community – is what gives us stability. What I would most want to tell young person is: look to your people. Know who your people are, who your community is, your tribe, your family—past and present. Yes, there’s work we each must do indivually. But there’s also work that can only be done collectively. We hold each other up in networks, in solidarity. That’s the way it goes.

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Translation: Jess Oliveira

Marta Moreno Vega is an educator and professor of African and Latino studies. She was the second director of El Museo del Barrio in 1969 and co-curated the exhibition 500 Years of Puerto Rican Art at both El Museo del Barrio and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She was the founder of the Association of Hispanic Arts and a Rockefeller Fellow, which led her to establish the Caribbean Cultural Center in 1974. She stepped down from her directorship three years ago to live full-time in Puerto Rico.

Olga Chapman-Rivera is a publicist and communicator with an focus on the intersectionality of gender and Afro and LGBTTQ+ communities. She is an expert in brand development and planning through hyper-targeting audiences, culture, polyculturalism, and digital transformation. She is part of the team behind Corredor Afro.

Nicolás Vizcaíno Sánchez is an Afro-descendant artist who lives in Bogotá, Colombia. He occasionally exhibits and writes as part of his conceptual art practice.