AN OPEN LETTER TO THE DEAN OF THE COLLEGE CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Dear Stanley:

I just read on the CCM website your open letter from June 3 addressed to the CCM community regarding CCM’s support for the Black community and for all people of color.

The term “people of color” is one with which many of us Hispanics with Caucasian racial roots take issue, for being wrongly included in the much-too-generalized “people of color” racial group.

My 50% Cuban-born late parents, late aunts and uncles, and most cousins have skin pigmentation no different to that of my wife, her family, and many of our Caucasian friends. On my father’s side of the family both grandparents, born in Cuba to Basque and Catalan parents were as white as my mothers’ stock of French and Catalan immigrants to Cuba.

Many of us identify as Hispanics and many as Latinos. That identification has much more to do with cultural factors than with skin color.

If I were a Hispanic with skin color tinged with brown I would wear it with as much pride as I do my Basque-Catalan-French heritage, cultural background and racial characteristics, which for Basques and Catalans and French and many Cubans of my acquaintance consist of many factors other than pigmentation.

CCM and many others of our cultural institutions are trying in good faith to catch up after years of ignorant neglect of underrepresented minorities. For your part in that you have the respect and gratitude of many Hispanics and Latinos of all hues, mine included.

Respectfully,

Rafael de Acha

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”