A Close Call

Getting hit motivates me. It makes me punish the guy more. If a fighter punches me, I get back to him with three punches.
Roberto “Mano de Piedra” Durán


One does not go to a baseball game expecting to die. Now, let me state right off the bat that I’m exaggerating. But for one suspended instant, some three years ago, I thought my days had come to an end as I was entering Rod Carew National Stadium, here in Panamá.
I had been in the country for less than a year when a group of Panamanian students, all avid baseball fans, urged me to attend a local game.

As a boy, growing up in Los Angeles, California, my family lived within walking distance of the Coliseum. I was four years old when the Dodgers moved to the west coast from Brooklyn. My father, a baseball fanatic, thought he had died and gone to heaven. During the fours years the Dodgers played in the Coliseum—as their stadium was being constructed in Chávez Ravine—he didn’t miss a single home game, and I was always in tow. (Back then my father paid a quarter to sit in the bleachers, and I got in free.)

I arrived to the age of reason watching legends play: Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Johnny Podres, Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, Tommy Davis, Willie Davis, Maury Wills, John Roseboro, Jim Gilliam, Ed Roebuck, Frank Howard and, my personal favorite, Wally Moon. I grew up believing that I was destined to play third base in a Dodger uniform.

Sadly, at the end of the 1960 season, the team played its last game in the Coliseum. In spite of this, I admit that Dodger Stadium—where the team has played since 1961—is among the most beautiful places in the universe. In fact, I’ve asked my wife to sprinkle a portion of my ashes there, on the third base bag.

Although my introduction to baseball was glorious, I’m not a snob. I enjoy watching the sport played anywhere as long as it’s done with passion. Some of my fondest teenaged memories are of balmy afternoons in the stands of Granada, Nicaragua’s small stadium, watching béisbol. Thus, it was easy for the students to convince me to attend a Panamanian game.

Since my wife is not a fan, I went on this adventure alone. Being new to the city, the taxi ride seemed to take forever. We started to climb a deserted mountain road and I began to wonder if the driver knew where he was going when, suddenly, poised beautifully in a ravine, a stadium materialized. At once, the thrill of watching a well-played game of baseball started to course through my veins.

There wasn’t a soul at the box office, which I found surprising because it was a playoff game: Chiriquí against Herrera. I paid the $3.00 for preferred seating, presented my ticket at the entrance, and once inside the gates bought a soda and a bag of popcorn. I have to confess that the barren, unfinished lobby led me to question the condition of the rest of the stadium. Yet I’ve happily sat through games played in Nicaraguan cow pastures, so I was prepared for anything.

But I wasn’t ready for the scene that greeted me as I approached the end of the tunnel: a clear, pristine night; grass as green as green can get; loads of comfortable, empty seats; and a stadium that, in its architecture and interior layout, reminded me very much of my beloved Dodger Stadium. I had arrived in paradise.

The blissful view drew me like a magnet and, popcorn and soda in hand, I increased my pace. Then, the idyllic moment came to a crashing halt when a brute, probably in a rush to buy another beer before the first pitch, turned into the tunnel and bumped into me.

The popcorn went flying. Infuriated, I felt my hands tighten and begin to roll themselves into fists. My blood pressure soared and just as I was preparing to hurl the best insults in my arsenal, I recognized the offender—Roberto “Mano de Piedra” Durán, his face only inches from mine.

For those of you unfamiliar with the world of boxing, Roberto “Hand of Stone” Durán, in addition to being Panamá’s most worshipped sports hero, is ranked among the top ten boxers of the twentieth century. Throughout his career, which spanned over thirty years, he won five titles in five different weight categories (including the Super-middleweight belt at age 49), and he left sixty-nine opponents flat on the canvas.

I remember watching several of his bouts, particularly those against Sugar Ray Leonard. Durán was a relentless and ferocious puncher. And I can still recall how the stare with which he fixed his opponents—his eyes dark with rage and determination—could make me, or anyone else, for that matter, shudder.

And here he was now, Roberto “Mano de Piedra” Durán, staring menacingly at me. What made matters worse: he looked much larger and seemed a thousand times meaner up close. A painful, piercing shiver ran down my back.

It’s a commonly held belief that before dying one’s life flashes before one’s eyes. In this case, that didn’t happen. Instead, everything moved in slow-motion, and in my mind I could hear the ring announcer shouting into the microphone: “And in this corner, the pathetic challenger, weighing more than he should and terribly out of shape—Kid Silvio ‘About to Be Slaughtered' Sirias.”

The insults that had been on the tip of my tongue dropped like leaded weights into the pit of my stomach. My hands—once tense and ready to cause some damage—became slack and weak, like a baby’s. And although I had every reason to be enraged at Roberto Durán’s carelessness, not to mention at the loss of my popcorn, I stepped aside, and muttered:

“Disculpe, señor. It was entirely my fault. I’m so sorry I got in your way. That was very clumsy of me. Please, sir, go ahead.”

Roberto Durán grunted, “Gracias” (I think), and disappeared into the tunnel.

That night, while I repeatedly thanked God for sparing me, I divided my attention between the game and my discreet observations—from a safe distant, of course—of the antics of Mano de Piedra Durán, who sat behind the Herrera dugout and cheered wildly for the team.

The game was indeed exciting, going down to the wire with Herrera winning in the ninth inning thanks to a two-out, two-men-on, home run. And throughout those nine innings, just in case Roberto Durán ever glanced my way, I stood up and rooted for Herrera every time they scored a run.

A Review of Julia Alvarez’s ¡Yo!—Revisited

One way to define a writer is she who is able to make what obsesses her into everyone’s obsession.
Julia Alvarez, “Grounds for Fiction,” Something to Declare


Julia Alvarez is the writer that holds the greatest influence over me. In my own work, I try to emulate her. But when I do so, I take the verb “to emulate” directly from its Latin origins—emulatio—which, as practiced by the writers of the Renaissance, implied an attempt to improve on one’s models. It's the best way for an artist to pay tribute to his or her influences.

I freely admit that the structure of Bernardo and the Virgin is deeply indebted to Julia’s third novel, ¡Yo! Rummaging through my bookshelves recently, I rediscovered an appraisal I had written of this novel. I came up with this piece at the request of the editors of Cold Mountain Review. The review originally appeared in the Fall issue of 1997, and because I still treasure Alvarez's novel, I’d like to share my take on it once again.


¡Yo! by Julia Alvarez

The publication of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (1991) marked the auspicious novelistic debut of Julia Alvarez, a writer who would become one of the foremost exponents of an increasingly visible and talented corps of Latino and Latina authors. The García Girls is bittersweet. In the novel, the pain of expatriation resides alongside the joys of the characters’ discovery of their new selves as they adapt, seldom without considerable trauma, to a new country, a new culture, and a new language. Told through the eyes of Yolanda García, Yo for short, the narrator does not spare the feelings of her subjects: she tells the family story in its entirety, blemishes and all. As readers we become witnesses of how cultural displacement, rather than uniting a family, can serve as a divisive force. Nonetheless, the humorous and compassionate moments are what one remembers most upon turning the last page of the book.

In her second novel, In the Time of the Butterflies (1994), Alvarez brings to her American readers the moving story of the Mirabal sisters, code name Las Mariposas, whose deaths at the hands of Rafael Trujillo’s henchmen marked the beginning of the end of the second-longest one-man dictatorship in the history of the Americas. Reaching back into a dark episode of her former country’s history, Alvarez succeeds in her attempt to immerse her readers in this tragic event in the lives of the Dominican people. She accomplishes this despite the political, cultural, and linguistic barriers that would normally make the telling of such a story impossible. The Dominican-American writer performs a miracle of almost biblical proportions: she brings the Mirabal sisters back to life, making their sacrifice meaningful to readers outside of the Latin American culture.

Alvarez’s third novel, ¡Yo! (1997), is, perhaps, her greatest feat as a novelist. This work further examines the life of Yolanda María Teresa García de la Torre, the narrator of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents. The problem for Yo, however, is that now the tables are turned on her. Instead of having the freedom to continue being the storyteller, she is now the subject of sixteen different characters who seek to paint the portrait, unflattering at times, of the artist.

¡Yo! is reminiscent of the second part of Don Quixote de la Mancha. Like Cervantes’s novel, Alvarez’s work begins with the characters’ acute awareness of themselves as literary personages. They know that they have been written about, and they are not happy about it. Angered at their lives being appropriated for fictional fodder, the members of the García family are horrified by Yo’s newfound celebrity status. Yo is constantly on book tours; she appears on television talk shows to continue exposing the family dirt. Her “novel” is studied in college classrooms and, worst of all, they can no longer speak to their daughter and sisters without first contacting her literary agent. But this is only the beginning.

As we work our way through fifteen more exposés on Yo, we hear from a cousin, a former teacher, a former student whose story she plagiarized in order to receive tenure, Dominican campesinos whose lives she impacted during writing retreats in her country of birth, and we even hear from a mentally disturbed stalker who has pursued Yo for years and whose obsession with the fictional author has increased thanks to her fame. The stories charm, enchant, and at times bewilder the reader. Yo, as portrayed by these wonderfully constructed and varied narrative voices, is a complex individual. She is vulnerable and very sensitive to any sort of criticism. Yet she can also be remarkably strong when confronted with injustices, poverty, death, and abusive or failed relationships.

What emerges from the narrative is a skewed portrait of the artist, one that is full of contradictions that seem irreconcilable. Still, the stories are told with Alvarez’s key signatures: humor, passion, and compassion. At the end, we sense that we have experienced an astounding narrative juggling act. Like Cervantes, Alvarez knows that humor can probe deeply into tales of startling truths and wisdom. And also like Cervantes, she performs a literary miracle.

The Highway Through Darién

It’s okay to get jacked and head out on the highway, but I’ve been there and I can tell you that the fast lane is littered with countless smoldering wrecks.
Hunter S. Thompson

Writing is hard work.
William Zinsser, On Writing Well


Were the editors of Agenda magazine really that desperate?

One of the benefits of living in Panamá and subscribing to La Prensa is that you receive several attractive, glossy publications every month. They’re included free as part of the package. But to be honest, most of these magazines lack substance. Nevertheless, I do enjoy looking at the photographs of the young and beautiful as well as those of the rich and influential at their parties.

As with most magazines around the world, Panamá’s are full of ads. This month’s Agenda is selling Maseratis, Dior 44 Diamonds Crystal Watches, BMWs, Hugo Boss suits, and ocean liner cruises along the eastern shore of South America.

On occasion, the editors include genuinely interesting articles. In their most recent issue, for instance, there’s a piece by Ana Alfaro, La Prensa’s literate food critic, about her tour of Robert Mondavi’s vineyards in Napa Valley, California.

But also in this edition there’s a woefully undeveloped article titled “La carretera de la discordia” (The Highway of Disagreement). In it, the author, Jaime Raúl Molina, writes in favor of the construction of a highway that would travel straight through the heart of Darién. This dense rainforest—once considered impenetrable—separates Panamá from Colombia.

The issue of cutting a path through this unspoiled jungle has been debated since the first half of the twentieth century. And at present, it is a source of disagreement between two presidents—with Álvaro Uribe of Colombia strongly in favor, and Panamá’s Martín Torrijos opposed. Polls show that the majority of Panamanians are against the project.

In “La carretera de la discordia,”—a startlingly concise two page article, including ads—Molina scoffs at the concerns Panamanians have about the highway. The fears of Colombia’s decades-long war spilling into Panamá, of the creation of another route for drug smuggling, and of diseases being spread because of increased human traffic are all, according to the author, irrational

Molina does admit, nevertheless, that the concern over damaging Darién’s ecosystem is, by far, the one Panamanians mention most. And the author proceeds to assure his readers, in a mere seventy words—I counted them—that there is nothing to worry about.

The gist of Molina’s argument? We tore down jungles and rainforests to build the Canal and this brought us prosperity. Building a road through Darién will do the same. And the financial benefits will far outweigh the environmental costs.

He also mentions in an earlier section of his article that if we build this road, the dream of a completed Pan American Highway, a road that runs without interruption from Alaska to Argentina, will finally be fulfilled—thus opening Panamá to the world.

Was Jaime Raúl Molina sober when he wrote this?

I confess that I’m against the road. Once the path through Darién is cleared, the rainforest will be altered—irretrievably so. But I’m also pessimistic about environmentalists winning this war. The chorus of those in favor of the highway—composed mainly of apostles of the economic windfalls of globalization—is growing stronger each day.

But that’s all the more reason the question needs to be discussed—and with earnest. The stakes, with regard to the preservation of one of the last remaining wildernesses in the region, are indeed high.

Did the editors of Agenda truly consider Molina’s pithy effort worthy of inclusion in their magazine, not to mention of prominently promoting it on the cover of February’s issue?

The folk from Agenda, which I place among Panamá’s best magazines, should keep the ads for the Maseratis and the Christian Dior 44 Diamonds Watches. (In fact, when I become a best-selling author I may decide to buy a couple of each.)

They must, however, become more selective about the articles they publish—especially when they explore such vital matters.

Otherwise, few readers will take their publication seriously.

Translating Ana Castillo

The violent repression of our spirits and sexuality has gone against our molecular connection with the Earth. We continue on this mummified track because the process of alienation and denial that has been violently imposed on humanity has existed for so long, we’re numbed into apathy. We have forgotten but it is not too late to remember.
Ana Castillo, “Resurrection of the Dreamers,” Massacre of the Dreamers.

The only interesting sort of translating is that of classics.
Boris Pasternak


My coursework for the doctorate in Spanish complete, I was in the process of writing my dissertation when Prof. Charles “Chuck” Tatum, a pioneer scholar in Chicana and Chicano literature—and one of the finest persons on this planet—invited me to take part in a course he was teaching.

That experience altered my life.

Having spent years immersed in the literature of Latin America and Spain, I had no knowledge that Latinos and Latinas in the United States were producing incredibly accomplished and beautiful works—in English. That semester I read several books that continue to haunt me to this day, including Ana Castillo’s brilliant first novel, The Mixquiahuala Letters.

Since then, I’ve been preaching the glories of Latina and Latino literature with the zeal one usually finds in religious converts.

Regarding Ana Castillo, throughout the years I’ve included her writings as required readings in my classes. And at present I’m a faithful reader of her weblog entries. I also subscribe to her email list. It was precisely through this list that I learned that she needed help translating a few of her poems into Spanish.

Generally, I dislike translating. Years ago I prepared the Spanish text for John Annerino’s bilingual publication, The Wild Country of Mexico/La Tierra Salvaje de México. Because the author is a friend, and I was well acquainted with the excellent quality of his photojournalism, I agreed to take on a task which, in the end, I much enjoyed. I do, however, tend to agree with Boris Pasternak’s assessment that translating is akin to copying someone else’s paintings. Because a translator is duty-bound to preserve the integrity of the original text, there is little room for personal creativity.

But translation does allow you to take a glimpse into an author’s thoughts; and because this represented an extraordinary opportunity to rummage inside of Ana Castillo’s creative process, I responded to her call.

After exchanging a few emails, Ana agreed to trust me with the assignment. My first task then became to help her choose several poems for translation from her most recent work: Watercolor Women, Opaque Men, a novel in verse.

(Early in our communications, I learned that Ana needed the poems translated into Spanish so she could read them at a poetry festival that’s taking place this week in Granada, Nicaragua. This is my second hometown, the city where I spent my adolescence. The coincidence still staggers me.)

The poems of Watercolor Women, Opaque Men narrate a woman’s journey to selfhood and independence, in spite of facing considerable hardships and limitations because she's the daughter of migrant workers. The verses also tell the stories of a few of the people that the heroine—known throughout only as Ella/She—encounters along the way. As usual, Ana narrative is enthralling. What’s more, in her usual boldness for literary experimentation, she bends the boundaries imposed by genres, marvelously so.

In Watercolor Women, Opaque Men, Ana revisits the themes that preoccupy her: motherhood, family, the plight of exploited workers, the importance of recording and honoring the stories of our ancestors, a woman’s right to be strong and independent, the contributions of Mexican immigrants to U.S. society, the right to love without restrictions of age and gender, and the quest for self-discovery.

After reading Watercolor Women, Opaque Men—a book I highly recommend—I made a list of the fifteen poems I felt would go over well with a mostly Central American audience. Out of my suggestions, Ana selected four: “Lord and Lady of Sustenance,” “Mamá Grande,” “Cipactli: Woman as Monster,” and “Tonalli.”

The translations, as I had expected, proved quite challenging. When rendering poetry into another language, verses will always lose much of their telling rhythms as well as the more subtle nuances of meaning. Nevertheless, I gave the project my best effort and had a lot of fun in the process.

I’d like to share a few samples from my “collaboration” with Ana Castillo. In this excerpt of “Lord and Lady of Sustenance,” the heroine recalls how in spite of the ceaseless hardships she and her family experienced in their lives as agricultural migrant workers, there were a few tender moments that redeemed them:

I held on to the little things,
stashed in crevices,
to pull out when I really needed them.

The time, for instance,
when my mother kept both of us in
to cure my chronic ear infection.

She warmed olive oil on the hot plate,
poured it in my ear with a borrowed dropper
and used a luxuriant piece

Of cotton from an aspirin bottle to keep it in.
I remember the aroma of her flour tortillas on the comal.
As for my father:

He leaned over and whispered,
“You look just like your mother—
the prettiest woman

I’ve ever known.”
He kissed me on the brow.
That was how he said he loved me.


My translation into Spanish of these poignant verses resulted in the following:


Me aferré a las cosas pequeñas,
ocultas en las grietas,
para sacarlas cuando de verdad las necesitaba.

Como la vez, por ejemplo,
que mi madre se quedó conmigo en casa
para sanar la infección crónica de mi oído.

Ella calentó aceite de oliva sobre el calientaplatos,
lo echó dentro de mi oído con una cuentagotas prestada
y empleó un pedazo exuberante

De algodón de una botella de aspirinas para mantenerlo dentro.
Recuerdo el olor de sus tortillas de harina en el comal.
En cuanto a mi padre:

Él se agachó y susurró,
“Eres igualita a tu madre—
la mujer más bonita

Que jamás he conocido”.
Me besó en la frente.
Así era como él decía que me amaba.


The poem “Mamá Grande” has a surprise ending that proved a fascinating exercise in translation. In English, the verses read:


Then, without having asked,
made an announcement,
requested the father’s permission,

Or even wondered if the girl would have consented,
Mamá Grande cut the braid with her
sewing scissors.

With a sharp zas,
unrecoverable and no way to retract,
gone just like that.

“Here,” Mamá Grande said,
handing over the severed tresses,
“One day you’ll need a few pesos,

“You can sell this.
When all accounts are made,
you will always be your most reliable resource.”


The translation:


Entonces, sin haber consultado,
dado un indicio,
pedido el permiso del padre,

O haberse preguntado si la niña hubiese estado de acuerdo,
Mamá Grande le cortó la trenza con sus
tijeras de coser.

Con un agudo zas,
irrecuperable y sin manera de retractarse,
cercenada como si nada.

“Aquí tienes”, dijo Mamá Grande,
entregándole la cabellera tronchada,
“Algún día necesitarás unos pesos.

“Puedes vender esto.
Al fin de cuentas,
siempre serás el recurso en que más puedes depender”.


And in the poem “Tonalli,” the narrator defies convention by falling in love with the main character, Ella, a much older woman. In English, the verses read


“She’s older than Mamá”
clucked my sister,
pointing out the obvious,

Who has been cuckolded more
times than she can count
and does not understand that faithfulness

Doesn’t depend on social requisites
of appropriateness, like age or status.
But on knowing what you want

And recognizing it,
if you are lucky enough
to have found it.


The translation of these seditious verses:


“Es mayor que mamá”,
chistó mi hermana,
señalando lo obvio,

Que ha sido engañada más
veces de las que se pueden contar
y no comprende que la fidelidad

No depende de requisitos
de lo que es apropiado, como edad o posición social.
Pero en saber lo que uno quiere.

Y reconocerlo,
si uno ha tenido la suerte
de haberlo descubierto.


Admittedly, the translations were quite rushed, and neither Ana nor I had the luxury of time to consult with one another in order to further polish them. Nevertheless, I’m satisfied with the results. What’s more, as if getting Ana Castillo’s visto bueno wasn’t reward enough, she had the extraordinary kindness to send an email to the members of her list in which she recognized my work. Her message reads, in part:

Mis apreciados lectores y amigos, dear readers and friends:
I trust this greeting finds you all in good health and spirits.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the many individuals who responded to my request for translations of Watercolor Women, Opaque Men excerpts. It was nearly overwhelming & much appreciated.

I'd especially like to thank the novelist, Silvio Sirias, author of Bernardo and the Virgin for formally taking on the task and for the translations. In the process of his endeavor I was invited to submit work to a periodical in Barcelona. So, sometime in the future we'll see Mr. Sirias' translations there w/ my original work.

The periodical Ana refers to is Paralelo Sur and it’s available both online and in print.

This was, for me, one of those rare occasions when working with a person one has greatly admired from afar was everything one could’ve hoped for, and more.

Honoring the Lost Songs

We find greatest joy, not in getting, but expressing what we are. Men do not really live for honors or for pay; their gladness is not in the taking and holding, but in the doing, the striving, the building, the living. It is a higher joy to teach than to be taught. It is good to get justice, but better to do it; fun to have things, but more to make them. The happy man is he who lives the life of love, not for the honors it may bring, but for the life itself.
R. J. Baughan

Among all men on the earth bards have a share of honor and reverence, because the muse has taught them songs and loves the race of bards.
Homer

I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. What I have in my heart must come out; that is the reason why I compose.
Ludwig van Beethoven


It was the most amazing funeral I’d ever witnessed . The stands of the baseball stadium were packed, and the police struggled throughout to keep those who were not friends, family, or important dignitaries off the field.

One by one, the eleven coffins entered, carried on the shoulders of adoring fans. One team of pallbearers was comprised of Diablos Sucios, donning, of course, their colorful—and to me sometimes frightening—costumes and masks. Others wore the traditional, and more solemn, montuno outfits. Women dressed in polleras danced alongside, stepping elegantly to the irresistible rhythms of a live band that played cumbias.

People from all walks of life—from the raspado vendor to Martín Torrijos, President of the Republic—congregated in La Chorrera that day to pay their last respects. And mostly everyone sang and danced as tears streamed down their faces.

I’ve never witnessed anything like it.

To be honest, though, I didn’t actually see the funeral. But in my mind, the picture—as I listened to the live report transmitted over RPC Radio—was absolutely clear. The following morning, the photographs of the event that were published in La Prensa confirmed that what I imagined had been right on target.

On Friday, January 13, Panamanian folklore suffered a tragic loss as Carlos Issacs, better known by his stage name, Ñato Califa; the long-time singer of his band, Lucía Chia Ureña; and nine other musicians died in a traffic accident while en route to a playing engagement.

Ñato Califa was the inventor of La Cumbia Chorreana. In life, he had requested that his funeral be a celebration of that which he most loved: Panamanian folk music. His musician friends, his family—in fact, all of Panamá—complied. And in spite of the high spirits of the music being played during the services, it was impossible, even while listening over the radio, not to shed a few tears.

Later that afternoon, Alvaro Alvarado, one of the RPC Radio’s most noted reporters, lamented that Panamanians had waited until after Ñato Califa’s death to honor him.

“We need to bestow such honors on our artists while they’re still alive,” Alvarado stated emphatically.

He then went on to declare that with the sudden passing of Ñato Califa, Panamá was losing, irreplaceably so, a glorious representative of its folklore. Alvarado then made an impassioned plea for the government to intervene on behalf of the preservation of Panamanian musical traditions, to fund and implement programs that teach young ones to play the melodies of artists such as Ñato Califa.

Is it really the place of government to fund exclusively imitative forms of artistic expression? Other than comforting adults who yearn for the certainty that something of their era will endure the passage of time, is it fair to train a culture’s youth to parrot the artistry of previous generations?

True artists always strive to improve upon the work of previous generations. This is how art grows and flourishes.

Ñato Califa did just this. He surpassed those who taught him. Thus, it seems to me that the best way to pay tribute to his memory would be not only for Panamanians to remember his work, but to pay homage to his life by allowing new musical expressions to grow out of it. (For fans of American folk music: think of Woody Guthrie and the heights to which Bob Dylan took his legacy.) To have a brigade of Ñato Califa clones might be reassuring for some, but it would add nothing to the evolution of Panamá’s folklore.

Although I am a newcomer to Panamanian culture, this nation’s folk music excites me. It is beautiful, charming, lively, and highly diverse. And we do, somehow, need to preserve what is being created today. Thus, a better alternative to Alvarado’s proposal would be for the government to seek international as well as private funding for Panamá’s ailing museums. After all, these institutions are, in theory, responsible for safeguarding a nation’s past, including its folkways.

The modernization of the isthmus’ museums is imperative, now more than ever. At present, they are passive depositories of artifacts where visitors walk around to stare at “stuff.” Panamá’s museums need to become research centers, where archives are available for those interested in studying the contributions of artists such as Ñato Califa. (The Smithsonian would be a perfect model—on a much smaller scale, of course.) In such an environment scholars can spend days, weeks, months, or even years studying recordings and ensuring that future generations have an authentic and emotionally fulfilling grasp of the evolution their folklore.

While I agree with Alvarado that the government should promote the development of future artists, it should also give them the freedom to express what’s in their hearts, without imposing a preservation agenda.

Lastly, revisiting Alvaro Alvarado’s claim that Panamanians had waited too long to honor Ñato Califa: what took place in Chorrera’s baseball stadium that mournful day, the overwhelming outpouring of affection, clearly demonstrated that this musician had thoroughly loved his craft as well as his fans. And everything about that morning—every song, every dance step, every tear—indicated that, in life, Ñato Califa’s passion for his music and the people it touched had been fully reciprocated.

There can be no greater honor than that. We should all be so blessed.