Rewilded Dreams: Remapping a Tourist Zone in Paseo
By Safina Center Environmental History and Music Fellow Priya Parrotta
©Priya Parrotta
Sometimes, when the world is not what we yearn for it to be, it is time to draw new maps.
In a recent blogpost, I described the experiences a group of students and I had as we wandered through diverse locations in San Juan, Puerto Rico: the urban forest; the shopping mall; and the winding, picturesque alleys of Viejo San Juan. I relayed the gist of the discussions that we had about island environmental history and politics in the process. I described how we utilized our shared knowledge of Caribbean history, ecology, and geopolitics to creatively respond to, and resist, the ever-growing list of environmental injustices which coastal communities encounter, particularly in the face of climate change and disaster capitalism. These conversations were firmly rooted in facts gleaned both from scholarly research and from lived experience. But sometimes, I believe that it is important, restorative, and deeply helpful to cast aside the obstacles of the present, and imagine, without obstruction, the world in which we want to live.
One of the neighbourhoods we did not visit during our peregrinations was Condado, the highly commercialized tourist zone where I was born, and which has motivated my historical research over the course of the past few years. Condado is one of the neighbourhoods in San Juan with the highest density of hotels, casinos, restaurants and boutiques. As an immensely popular vacation destination, it is a place where highly consumer-driven fantasies are realized, and more-than-human life is systematically ignored.
These difficult realities have seeded in me wishes which are the very opposite of what most travelers imagine this neighbourhood to be. One of my recent albums, Paseo, was born out of a need to in some way ‘map’ those yearnings. The songs in this album seek to ‘rewild’ this commercial beach zone. In other words, it has been a way to reimagine Condado as a place where the more-than-human world can live and thrive; and where environmentalists can find one another, and connect with hope and joy. I’ve often dreamt of what Condado would be like if its would-be green spaces turned into urban forests, and its social spaces transformed into meeting places for coastal activists.
My journey as an environmental musician in general began when I was first exposed to the discipline of human geography—to the idea that ecosystems are deeply shaped not only by physical realities, but also by the way we, as humans, perceive them. A core premise of human geography is that, if we wish to understand the reasons for environmental degradation and injustice, we need to look not only at what is physically occuring the ecosystems in question, but also at the ways in which these places have been constructed for us by different forces in the public sphere. The commercial press, for instance, plays an enormous role in constructing and cementing (so to speak) certain assumptions about what beach zones are ‘supposed’ to be, and who they are ‘for.’ These assumptions further reverberate in tourism advertising, in television and film, as well as in popular music. Together, these forces present a formidable threat to the more-than-human life on coastal zones. The type of tourism I have seen throughout my life in Condado is the direct result of that human geography—that set of constructions which, soon enough, has an immense and highly disconcerting impact upon how coastal zones are treated.
As I just mentioned, the world of popular music is very much complicit in this process of ‘constructing’ the beach as a consumer’s paradise. This topic merits its own post—indeed, its own study—but for now, suffice it to say that when we hear mention of beaches in popular music, it is rarely in the context of treating these ecosystems with true dignity. But what if this weren’t the case? What if music about coastal zones instead made it easier, not harder, to imagine them as truly peaceful, and truly biodiverse places? Paseo has been my way of exploring this question.
As is the case with all my albums, the songs in Paseo are composed using musical influences which resonate historically and culturally with the messages in the lyrics. In this case, the dominant influences are jazz, bossa nova and flamenco: genres which, taken together, convey a sense of style, creativity and yearning. Paseo is thus an album which dances along the divide between what coastal neighbourhoods are and what they could be.
As the album is titled Paseo, its progression is a walk of sorts through the neighbourhood. We begin with “Normandie,” a crumbling hotel by the sea which is slated for renovation, but which I’ve always wished could be left alone, so that nature could take its course within it. (I also describe the Normandie in a previous blogpost).
“Barista” is the celebration of a semi-fictional café in which one can immerse oneself in environmental philosophy, and meet others who share a desire for the island to be respected, and for people to come to consciousness. “Inquiry” is not located in a particular place, but rather meditates upon a question that I’ve contemplated so many times while walking around this neighbourhood.
“Patio” is set in an abandoned lot that, like the Normandie, is about to be bought and “re-developed.” The singer sneaks into the lot with a friend, and marvels at the little forest that has begun to grow within it.
Lastly, “Luna laguna” is a love song to a lagoon which opens out into the sea. The singer recognizes that this place will always be a cradle where one can reflect upon what the world will be.
In a way, Paseo is a dreamscape which transforms a very complex neighbourhood into a true ecological, intellectual, and emotional home. I hope that it can serve as a reminder not only of the power of the imagination, but also the important role that music has to play—for better or for worse—in ‘mapping’ the diverse ecosystems and sociopolitical geographies of our world.