The Beat of Bahia: Ian Espy Reflects on His Clémence Jouët-Pastré Brazil Travel Fellowship
As we drove down the winding roads of Salvador from the airport to my new apartment, my Uber driver suddenly blindsided me with the question: “why do you call yourselves African Americans if you weren’t born in Africa?” Although this question was unexpected, it also filled me with great joy because not even twenty minutes into my fellowship in Salvador, I was already engaging in the very thing I came to Brazil for: cultural connection.
The goals of my Clémence Jouët-Pastré Brazil Travel Fellowship experience were myriad. On the surface, the premise behind my excursion was to improve my guitar skills by taking lessons in afro-derived styles of Brazilian music such as samba and bossa nova while living in the historic former capital of Salvador, Bahia. But beyond that, I hoped to use the music and setting of the city itself as a valuable opportunity for a black American like myself to form meaningful pan-diaspora connections with black Brazil through cultural fixtures such as food, language, religion, and dance, as well as through dialogue about the past, present, and future of black Brazil. By visiting a city where the black diaspora population had (perhaps more strongly than anywhere else outside Africa) so strongly managed to safeguard the heritage of its distant African homeland despite centuries of repression, I hoped to better understand the history of this cultural preservation, to embark on an odyssey to rediscover my own roots, and to bring back a powerfully inspiring message of resistance to my own community. Along the way, I also hoped to improve my Portuguese language skills via the total immersion that was to come.
As the beginning of my fellowship drew nearer and nearer, I was excited but also a bit anxious –I knew almost no one in the city and very little regarding what to expect from life in Bahia. However, by an amazing stroke of luck, a friend I met early on in Salvador introduced me to a Brazilian-American woman whose grandfather was from – of all places – my home state of Mississippi. She took me under her wing, showing me around the city, throwing an impromptu birthday celebration for me, offering me a chance to temporarily teach at her English language school, and introducing me to countless new friends. Each of these friends showed me a new side of Salvador. One invited me to a service at her Umbanda terreiro, another took me to an Easter feast filled with dish after dish of traditional Bahian food, and yet another ended up recommending a better guitar teacher than I ever could have found on my own.
As a former UFBA music student and upcoming young artist in Salvador, my guitar teacher had a deep expertise regarding Brazil’s musical heritage. We decided to begin with bossa nova due to its relative ease for beginners compared to samba. After weeks of practice, my first song, Brigas Nunca Mais, became entrenched in my memory forever, and I soon progressed to songs from other genres such as A Banda and Cordeiro De Nanã with relative ease. I interacted with Brazil’s music scene far beyond just my music lessons. I got to dance to axé during carnaval and listen to Caetano Veloso’s new MPB album at Festival de Verão. I danced to samba in Salvador’s bars, caught an impromptu bossa nova concert at a friend’s party, and even befriended the members of a popular local choro circle.
In navigating these experiences, I was of course obligated to use Portuguese the majority of the time. Despite some tough initial experiences (trying to locate a lost suitcase as a foreigner isn’t fun), I found that my language skills rapidly improved and enabled me to engage in complex conversations pertaining to racism, resistance, and the preservation of black culture in Brazil, the United States, and beyond. I conversed with individuals ranging from professors to drag queens to rappers to retired American expats from Harvard to random partygoers. Just as I had come to admire Brazil’s afrodescendente culture, many black Brazilians also had an admiration for and a fascination with black culture in the United States. In having these conversations, I felt incredibly gratified. Here I was – a black American meeting with members of a distinct but related black diaspora group in Brazil and exchanging stories, culture, and mutual respect. One group, aided by its initially greater numbers, managed to more obviously retain the customs of its old motherland. The other, brutally stripped of its native culture, was forced to build an almost entirely new one. Despite the centuries of history and the thousands of miles that separated our modern homelands, we still looked upon one another as brothers and sisters in solidarity. I saw the shining pride that had preserved culture in one nation and rebuilt it in another. In moments like those, I wished deeply that all of black America could have been there with me, but I also realized that I could do my part in making that happen by spreading the word about Salvador.
Overall, my four months in Brazil were among the best I’ve ever experienced. I forged relationships that will last a lifetime, grew musically, and improved my Portuguese abilities. In the process, I also reconnected with my own heritage by praying to the gods my ancestors might have once worshipped, by dancing to the rhythms they once played, and by tasting the recipes they once cooked. I remain immensely grateful to call this experience mine.
Ian Espy, the recipient of the 2023 Clémence Jouët-Pastré Brazil Travel Fellowship, graduated from Harvard College in 2023 with a degree in Integrative Biology and a secondary in Global Health and Health Policy. Throughout his college career, he developed a deep interest in Brazil’s history and culture, particularly its music, language, and societal parallels with the United States.
Explore the Fellowship: Learn more about the Clémence Jouët-Pastré Brazil Travel Fellowship.
