Spread the Word!

Little Kariana who is just three years old is one of thousands of Puerto Rican children living in poverty today. Her sister, who is six years old is also another addition to the rising statistic. Their family has recently attempted to get away from the bad economy that has greatly affected Puerto Rico. They have found a way to move to New York, and after three months of being homeless are finally starting to make progress in finding a home. This is only one example of the kind of serious issues children in Puerto Rico are facing each day.

Some of these children are beginning to receive opportunities for chances at better lives than the national average is getting now. Currently, over 58% of the child population is below the poverty line at the age of five. Aside from poverty, issues that are increasing rapidly and greatly influencing and affecting the children of Puerto Rico include: adolescent drinking, suicide and homicide, teenage pregnancy, human trafficking, poor educational outcomes, neglect and abuse. In order to drop the rates and increase the number of children who experience positive life outcomes, the National Council of La Raza (The Race) has teamed up with a program called Kids Count. The project for Puerto Rico is trying to improve the information gap which is the primary factor for why society is getting worse, and not better.


KIDS COUNT is not only in Puerto Rico, but it is a national organization that has different projects attesting to the appropriate needs of individual states. For example, in Puerto Rico, the most imperative issue with children is poverty. I say this because this is the issue that, on average, tends to lead to all the other issues.

So, how do we help?

Through the Casey Family Services Program in Kids Count, volunteers can help provide fostering, life skill services to help families and young teenage parents. It will also help to prevent abuse and neglect. Many people in Puerto Rico do not know that this program is available, therefore many people do not know they can be a part of it and help spread the word. Those who do know about Kids Count need to inform others that can benefit from it.

Another serious issue that celebrity, and Puerto Rican native Ricky Martin is addressing is human trafficking. He says that the island is used as a transit point for smuggled children. While this is a major issue, many natives are unaware of the dangers that it has been bringing to the children. The importance of the status of the children in Puerto Rico must be made known to those in power in the United States so that they can receive help.

Poverty levels are at more than 60% for the entire island, and are at the base for why the greater issues have commenced. If help doesn't reach the Puerto Rican children soon, the numbers will only rise, causing crime and suicide rates to rise as well. The domino effect is evident to parents on the island, but it needs to be made known across the rest of Puerto Rico and the United States.

We need to act now to spread the word.

The New Old Sound of Plena

Artists like Daddy Yankee and Don Omar have made reggaeton, the musical blend of reggae, salsa, meringue and other Latin music influences, a popular form of music in all of North America. Reggaeton became extremely popular in Puerto Rico in the early 1990s and spread like wildfire to the United States with the song “Oye Mi Canto” by Daddy Yankee and Nina Sky in 2004. While other artists and songs were known in some areas of the United States, this song spread nationally and was the first reggaeton song to break the Spanish-English barrier. Despite all the popularity surrounding reggaeton and its artists, there are other forms of music and artists in Puerto Rico who are not getting the recognition they have earned. They need a voice to spread their music and the soul that lies behind it.
Saxophonist Miguel Zanón has recently released a new album based on the classical Puerto Rican plena and for the first time has combined it with the All American jazz sound. Plena is a classic folklore originated in Puerto Rico and rose to popularity in the 1920s.

It uses drums, maracas, tambourines, guiros and other wooded instruments to create a very rhythmic and soulful sound that is native to the island. While it is not gaining popularity in the United States yet, it is regaining its strength in Puerto Rico after modern music like reggaeton had recently taken over. Not only are artists like Miguel Zanón recovering some of Puerto Rico’s nationalism through this type of music, but they are introducing new music to Puerto Ricans, jazz. Despite these two music forms always having similar sounds, they have never been combined before, and artists are beginning to create a new sound, just like what was done with reggaeton, without losing the island’s individuality and roots.
Plena is the music that originated on the streets of the poorest towns in Puerto Rico. It isn’t the type of music that is played in a club where partners can get together and dance to it. This has probably attributed to the loss of interest in such important cultural music. Today, the people of Puerto Rico and the United States want music that they can create their own dances to, such as the “perreo” associated with reggaeton. Dancing associated with plena usually involves line-dancing or large groups gathering to listen to the music more than dance.
Plena is not well-known in the United States, and it lost its popularity in Puerto Rico for some time, but to the natives of the island, the “cool thing” to do is go to a street corner and listen to a man sing and play music with a bottle of rum about the good or bad in his life. With the incorporation of new jazz sounds, artists are hoping to gain the popularity of people all over the world, but they do not need it. The most beautiful thing about this form of music is that the artists are not money-driven. They will not set aside their pride or defy their Puerto Rican roots to satisfy the needs of listeners. Plenazos, as the artists are called, are changing and experimenting new sounds such as jazz to create new traditions for the island so that the music can be preserved for eternity.