The Lunchbox Moment Pt. II - Music
As Aguardente opens up about culture, we’re sometimes given abrasive reminders that not everyone is ready to embrace something different.
My “lunchbox” Journey continues focusing on music and stories of immigrants. A friend after reading my last blog post commented that it seemed incomplete. I told her it was a lifelong journey with multiple chapters. Those words would come to a painful truth recently at Aguardente during our Day of Portugal celebration. We were celebrating Day of Portugal, a national holiday in Portugal that is celebrated annually on June 10th, the day of the death of poet Luís de Camões. We had planned on three days of live Portuguese music as part of our three-day celebration program. We focused on the songs that remind us of our homelands and the experiences of starting a new life in a new country. The musicians were asked to pick songs that express the anguish that comes from feeling out of place, while also celebrating the homes we have found and the ones we have yet to discover.
During the evening of our second day around 5:30 p.m., the front patio was full of guests enjoying tapas and live music. When I noticed a gentleman approaching the band, I was in the middle of a conversation with guests discussing our mission and why we opened Aguardente. When all of a sudden, I heard the gentleman yelling at the band to stop playing that type of music, he found it revolting with a horrible beat. Who listens to this noise? Let’s play something we all can enjoy. I approached the neighbor, came to find out, and asked what the problem was. He said the Latin music we were playing was the problem. I apologized and told him it was scheduled to stop at 8:30 p.m. as not to disturb his evening, but regarding the type of music, it was Portuguese and we were celebrating my homeland. The conversation ended badly with him threatening to report us to the local license board.
“We are about having positive conversations about being a citizen of a world without borders”
It’s hard to describe the days that followed, but I found myself in a very dark place, depressed, distracted, moody, unengaged, on planet Mars. “Why?” I kept asking myself. With moments of total depression and wanting to hide from everyone around me and the place I had poured my heart and soul into, Aguardente. Only to realize that I had endured a ‘lunchbox moment’ at Aguardente, when I shared my music lunchbox on the front patio of my tapas restaurant, people judged the music from my home country where I was born, music that told the stories of our culture. I received funny looks — even an outright protest. They said your music is “weird” or “unpleasant,” that it sounds “jarring ” or “raspy. And as if lunch was a meal eaten with your ears, like a bad rock concert or high school band, I had been stared at as an object of exotic fascination. My music lunchbox was just too different. I was just too different.
My heart recovered days later after I reminded myself what I say at Aguardente: We are about having positive conversations about being a citizen of a world without borders where we celebrate what makes us unique. At Aguardente, we share food, spirits, art and music, celebrating our unique cultures and stories no matter how painful.
Always keep an open mind —