What were some of the kinds of ways that Alianza represented Islam as
something that was familiar to Puerto Rican culture? How did the
celebration or demonstration of Islam in Alianza reflect that culture? Okay.
We would invite people, of course to Alianza. We would give the Khutbah
in Spanish and in English, okay? Which h was not done anywhere.
We had bilingual publications, which my husband was the head of.
We had
dinners in front of the
place or give away food, or we would give away baked goods or
we'll sell some baked goods in front. And the Eid celebrations
were
very much reflecting our culture.
And you know, culture is a multi faceted thing because the culture is
not just music and the food you eat. Culture is music,
the food you eat, the manner in which you speak,
how you treat people, how they treat you.
So
the celebrations, when you went to the Islamic Eid celebrations,
we would have those things we were familiar with, the food and everything.
We had the congas, which are like drums but they're tall, and we
had congueros who played the drums for us. And, we had...
We even played some of the music. We didn't try to be...
We didn't overdo it, but a little of the Puerto Rican music.
We had people
actually recite poetry.
The...
I'm trying to think of the Nuyorican poets. We had
some stuff from that, and we had the play. We had a play
they'd put together which made us laugh. And so they really
made us feel happy in this time of Eid
because we were imbibed with what was familiar to us.