Inteview with Bobby Sanabria from Bronx Music Heritage Center (BMHC)

Behind The Scenes

The Bronx Music Heritage Center

As I was taking an Insta-story right outside of the Bronx Music Heritage Center (BMHC), my interviewee Bobby Sanabria caught me in the act. Bobby  is Co-Artistic Director of Bronx Music Heritage Center alongside Elena Martinez. After I briefly laughed off that slightly awkward moment, we entered the affordable housing complex in which BMHC is temporarily located. The Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation (WHED Co.), a community development organization, is the parent organization of BMHC.

As we entered, Bobby led me around the current exhibit, “Las Tres Hermanas: Art & Activism.” This exhibit chronicles the contributions that three Puerto Rican activists have made to social justice and political movements in New York City. These three activists, Evelina, Lillian, and Elba, also happened to be sisters. According to the informational pamphlet co-Artistic Director of BMHC Elena gave me, “they understood that maintaining and expressing one’s culture was an act of resistance and an affirmation of Puerto Rican identity.”

In the background of the exhibit tour, there was a piano lesson being provided to black and brown youth from the community. During our interview, adults started taking piano lessons following the children’s session. Bobby told me that the residents who live in the affordable housing complex do not have to pay for the classes. Bobby also expressed how he is interested in engaging more residents in the BMHC programs.

BMHC is a partnership of the community. It offers cultural programs that reflects the cultures of the communities that they serve. This mission is close to Bobby who is an music heritage educator and historian. Since he grew up in the South Bronx during the 60s and 70s, he has a lot of knowledge of how it has changed. For him, music is closely linked to culture and history.

As a Yonkers native with parents who were raised in the Bronx during the same time as Bobby, I felt like some of his stories were familiar. Specifically, the way he talked about the Bronx during the 1960s and 1970s as a place where culture and crime simultaneously took place. There were bodegas playing salsa music, while at the same time, a “junkie” or drug user would be visible in broad daylight. Bobby balanced the interview by including stories of Latin popular culture and music with the more heavier subject matter. The combination of stories that Bobby told painted an honest picture of what the Bronx was like when he was growing up.