The Manhattan Beat: Nosotros Festival at the Bowery Ballroom

New York native Alynda Segarra dreamed of a local music and arts festival that would speak about a radical Latinx activism to fight systems of oppression. She made the dream a reality with the first-ever Nosotros Festival, which took flight at the Bowery Ballroom on November 4, 2016. Brujas, the Bronx’s feminist skate collective, co-hosted the evening, which featured Segarra's folk-rock group, Hurray for the Riff Raff, along with "son jarocho" folk fusion group Las Cafeteras, son-inspired rock band Making Movies, punk rock band The Downtown Boys, drag performance artist Lady Quesa’dilla, Nuyorican poet Bonafide Rojas, youth poets, speakers and many progressive minds. Afro-Latinx DJ Bembona closed out the night.

According to its website, Nosotros was a festival dedicated to uniting Latinx people of all backgrounds to bon in the namde of art, expression and protest. "We are meeting each other at the intersections of race, gender, nationality and all other identities that are often erased from the popular representations of Latinx people. Our mission is to create an alternative to hopelessness in the face of a xenophobic, racist, homophobic and sexist political climate. We wish to provide a platform for social justice workers and artists alike -- an opportunity to share their work with a proactive audience. Creating a response to these turbulent times is reclaiming our narrative and continuing the work of our ancestors. Our event hopes to unify Latinx people and to provide a space to share our work, our stories and to contribute to the greater cause of changing our society. We hope our movement will attract Latinx visionaries, who will leave rejuvenated and inspired with new knowledge of ways to counteract the hatred we face. Nosotros is dedicated to empowering our youth and standing in solidarity with all oppressed people who are fighting for a better world."

One dollar of every ticket sold was donated to Urban Word, a New York City organization that provides platforms to promote youth literacy.

Glossary:

Latinx (pronounced “la-TEEN-ex”): a gender-neutral alternative to Latino, Latina and even Latin@, referring to people of Latin American descent.

Nosotros: a Spanish word that translates into English as "we."

Nuyorican: People of Puerto Rican-descent who were born and raised in New York.

Son: the first Afro-Cuban musical form, essentially a marriage of syncopated African rhythms and percussion with Spanish-derived melodies and string instruments.

Son Jarocho: a regional folk musical style of Mexican Son from Veracruz, a Mexican state along the Gulf of Mexico.