Music of BBIA Peoples in the General Music and Choir Room

Music of BBIA peoples in the General Music and Choir Room

(BBIA stands for Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian)

As the discussion about the inherently racist aspects in the origins of minstrel repertoire continues, I find that I need to create a list of alternative repertoire along with reviewing which songs I will probably not use anymore. In my elementary classroom, there is no space for them. As an elementary teacher, I rarely find the appropriate space to have discussions about specific pieces of music and their historical context of injustice, discrimination, and dehumanization of a race. I also don’t feel I have the tools yet, I am working on it, to guide this kind of discussion with my upper elementary students and their families. For these reasons, I am excluding these pieces from my curriculum.  

Stories are important and they help us relate to others' reality and allow for a plethora of diverse voices. For these reasons, I tell you a little bit about me so you can understand my passionate motivation behind this movement. 

I am an immigrant from “the middle of an (un)forgettable spot in the Caribbean” (pardon the Hamilton reference, I couldn’t resist). I have spent almost the same amount of years in the United States as I did in the Dominican Republic, my beautiful home island, before moving here to follow my husband and our pursuits of higher education in music. 

I am an Afro-Latina that often gets mistaken as African American until my accent gives me away. I recently filled the census and couldn’t find a “box” that explicitly would describe who I am ethnically. 

The English language makes me nervous and insecure. I tell you this not looking for empathy but for you to understand some of your Latinx students and their families. If you noticed that you are not getting the same level of engagement from your Latinx students and families than from the other racial groups in your classroom, language could be a reason. I tell you this in hopes to motivate you to create spaces where your students that are like me can feel comfortable using their voices. 

Because of my personal experience as an immigrant in this great country, I feel strongly responsible to create representation opportunities through all aspects of my classroom teaching. The music that I select for my students to interact, is one of the most powerful opportunities that I have to promote the diversity inside my classroom and outside in our community. 

When approaching my learning process and later the teaching process of the repertoire, I try as much as I can to recruit members from the community that we are representing. They are our best source to help us appreciate their culture and to stay away from appropriating it instead. I remember that I am not an expert at everything about music. 

By doing this, it is my intention to bring us closer to the culture we are learning about. The multicultural approach to cultures often makes me feel like I am only allowed to enjoy the culture from outside and the culture seems out of reach. A culturally responsive approach allows me to get close to the culture that we are celebrating.

Part of my personal growth has been to use my voice to amplify the diversity present in my classroom and community that often seems invisible. Being willing to be vulnerable, make mistakes, and learn from them, takes courage. Be courageous!

As you reexamine the repertoire that you are hoping to teach in the future or perhaps you are reviewing your memories of the previous repertoire taught, allow yourself to see them through different lenses. There might be scenarios, spaces where certain pieces of music can be used to lead discussions about equity and social justice but if that is not the desired outcome and if we don't have the intention or the necessary tools to do that work then restraining from the use of these musical pieces is advised. I will go as far as saying that not giving space on stage to these musical works is the best way we can all practice social justice and equity. 

In other words, depending on the age of your students, you might be able to address some of these more controversial titles in order to teach about the injustice and discrimination of the time in which these pieces were first published without performing them. If you don’t have the tools to teach the historical context of a piece and frame it this way, perhaps staying away entirely, is the best thing to do. 

Here are two documents created by colleagues for you to review if you have not seen them yet. 

• 2020 List of Pieces to Be Reconsidered or Removed compiled by Kelsey Millerschin Gamza
• Songs with a Questionable Past compiled by Lauren McDougle

I will follow by providing two resources that you can use instead that promote visibility and representation of the diversity in our classrooms. 

• This is a list that Sage Po-Ruff put together by crowdsourcing in a Kodaly Educators Facebook group. 

• This list is a compilation of several reading sessions I put together for the ACDA Colorado Chapter. For these selections, I did research about the composers, their origin, and cultural representation. This is just a starting point.

Educators, we have the responsibility of deciding the music that our students are exposed to inside our classroom and by exercising this responsibility we can also influence their decision about the music they listen to outside of our classroom. At the end of the day, it is your decision to choose the music you teach in your classroom, I hope you do what is right for your students. The resources that I provided for you are not by any means comprehensive or perfect but they offer a starting point for you to start looking for more diverse, culturally responsive, and equitable options when searching for music for your choral and general music classroom. 

Everyone has a list of music they would like to perform during their career, I hope some of these make it into your list. 

Our students and their families trust us to make decisions about their education while they are inside our room following our music standards. For this reason, as a colleague and a mom of two teenagers, I plead to you to keep justice, representation, inclusion, and equity insight when making decisions about curriculum and every aspect of the life of your classroom. Keep the humanity of your students at the center and not the piece of music you are choosing to teach. These marginalized communities have suffered enough for centuries, we shouldn’t perpetuate that suffering in our classrooms. It might seem like a lot but when you change the lenses from where you see things, it becomes natural and organic.