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Nashua Public Library highlights resilience of Puerto Rican culture

Jorge Santiago-Arce leads an Afro-Caribbean music workshop at the Nashua Public Library on Saturday, Jun. 7, 2025.
Lau Guzmán
/
NHPR
Jorge Santiago-Arce leads an Afro-Caribbean music workshop at the Nashua Public Library on Saturday, Jun. 7, 2025.

The Friends of the Nashua Public Library have been highlighting the city’s diverse cultures through their “Passport to the World” program. Most recently, the library highlighted the resistance of Puerto Rican culture with dominoes, food, story time, and even a Bad Bunny look-alike contest.

About 4,000 Nashua residents are from the U.S. territory, according to census data.

As part of the event, children made red hibiscus maga flowers out of construction paper and pipe cleaners. Organizer Jasmine Torres-Allen explained that the flower is a symbol of Puerto Rican identity.

“It's actually also another symbol of resistance and resilience because hurricanes happen,” she explained. “This flower in particular is resistant, and so we use it as our symbol of resiliency.”

Jorge Santiago Arce, left, teaches attendees how to play the Clave at the Nashua Public Library on Saturday, Jun. 7, 2025
Lau Guzmán
/
NHPR News
Jorge Santiago Arce, left, teaches attendees how to play the Clave at the Nashua Public Library on Saturday, Jun. 7, 2025

Musician Jorge Santiago-Arce hosted the Afro-Caribbean music workshop. He has been doing this workshop in libraries, schools and other venues since 1987. He explained that it explores the music of different African cultures that met as they were enslaved as agricultural workers. The music, too, is a symbol of resilience.

“This is about geopolitics, politics, and this is about immigration,” he said. “This is about the good results, the good things about immigration, the encounter of cultures, the interaction of different cultures.”

The workshop itself included 47 instruments – including a chequeré percussion gourd, clave sticks, a tumbá drum and a cowbell

Audience member Carmen Lewis learned how to play the cowbell. She’s from Ponce, Puerto Rico by way of Massachusetts and came to the library’s event to spend time with her family in Nashua. She said that learning about the African influences of her heritage made her feel proud of her roots.

“I enjoyed playing the cowbell,” she said, in Spanish. “I didn’t know that I could hold a rhythm.”

Musician Jorge Santiago-Arce says that’s the point of his workshops. He’s also from Ponce – which is known as the birthplace of traditional Puerto Rican rhythms like bomba, plena and danza.

A toddler joins in the music workshop taught by Jorge Santiago Arce at the Nashua Public Library on Saturday, Jun. 7, 2025
Lau Guzmán
/
NHPR News
A toddler joins in the music workshop taught by Jorge Santiago Arce at the Nashua Public Library on Saturday, Jun. 7, 2025

He said music comes through the blood. This means everyone – from a toddler to a grandma – can join in.

“The message that I'm trying to convey is that it doesn't matter where you come from, we have something to learn from each other,” he said. “We have something to share from each other.”

I cover Latino and immigrant communities at NHPR. My goal is to report stories for New Hampshire’s growing population of first and second generation immigrants, particularly folks from Latin America and the Caribbean. I hope to lower barriers to news for Spanish speakers by contributing to our WhatsApp news service,¿Qué Hay de Nuevo, New Hampshire? I also hope to keep the community informed with the latest on how to handle changing policy on the subjects they most care about – immigration, education, housing and health.
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