Backed by science and coronary heart, Moms Clean Air Force, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group whose purpose is to guard clear air and youngsters’s well being — and EcoMadres, their Latino neighborhood outreach program — educates households about why they need to care about local weather disruption, air air pollution and poisonous chemical compounds, and engages them in taking motion to protect their futures — all with the assistance of music.
With information that Latinos in the USA are disproportionately impacted by climate change, an initiative known as EcoMusica was born.
As a part of EcoMusica, SonTierra, a multi-ethnic ensemble of Latino musicians whose identify means “we’re the Earth,” carry out tunes that supply hope and encourage listeners to succeed in out to legislators and leaders. The music performed at outreach occasions incorporates a lot of Latin music kinds: cumbia, banda, bolero, merengue, balada and Andean people.
They are going to be performing on the annual EcoMadres Summit in Las Vegas on Sept. 12, Mothers Clear Air Drive tells Billboard Family.
Who’s SonTierra? With an age vary of about 11 to 64 years outdated, the multi-generational band consists of Edgar East (Panamanian), Edgar Solís (Mexican), Gabriela Valdivia (U.S.-born; Brazilian mom, Mexican father), Karen Stein (Colombian), Leo Roldán (Argentinean), Marián Vivas (Venezuelan), Stephanie Rivera (Cuban), Valentina Weihe (U.S.-born; Mexican mom, Puerto Rican father), Valery Figueroa (Venezuelan) and Víctor Lara (Mexican).
“I wished SonTierra to incorporate youth and youngsters at an expert, high quality degree as a result of we’re working for his or her future,” Stein, each a performer and the group’s supervisor, shares in an interview with Billboard Household. “And if we’re going to realize belief with Latino communities, we don’t simply have to return in and sing at them. We’ve to sing with them. Together with individuals of assorted generations and of assorted ethnicities, it is very important make Latino communities really feel like, ‘Oh, we could possibly be [a part of this].’ They’ll determine with somebody on stage.”
The collective of musicians launched a 12-track, largely Spanish-language (with some English, on a couple of bilingual songs) album of originals and covers, titled EcoMadres, on Earth Day 2023. The album is offered to stream on SoundCloud.
Stein had a hand in penning 9 of the dozen songs, all of which tackle local weather change, air air pollution, ecosystem destruction, environmental justice, taking motion and discovering hope.
EcoMadres tunes embody “Mama,” which she says was written impressed first by her musician mom who sang to her, after which by Mom Earth, with the lyrics “Hoy este arrullo es para la madre tierra/ Que tiene fiebre, que tiene fiebre y no la escuchan, no la escuchan/ En su agonía, en su agonía” (“Right this moment this lullaby is for Mom Earth/ She has a fever, she has a fever/ And we aren’t listening to her agony”).
Different album tracks embody “Corrido p’al Congreso” (“A Corrido for Congress”), a message to the U.S. authorities in mariachi type with corrido and ranchera rhythms, and “Legado” (“Legacy”), written from the attitude of youngsters looking forward to their future, within the type of bolero. “El pico del tucán (“The Toucan’s Peak”) is ready to a cumbia beat and tackles a troublesome subject: fixing “the dilemma between what people need and what the earth must proceed to maintain us.”
Born and raised in Colombia, Stein is the Iowa area coordinator for Mothers Clear Air Drive and EcoMadres. Her coronary heart and roots are in music.
She grew up on a rural farm. On a name with Billboard Household, she cites she’s from and her mom as the explanations she’s a musician.
“The placement the place we grew up was so remoted, [with] no electrical energy, so there have been only a few distractions. I grew up paying a whole lot of consideration to sounds,” together with the sounds of nature, animals, and the lads on the farm milking the cows, says Stein. “They’d discuss to the cows and oftentimes they might sing to the cows. They might simply hum,” typically to pop music and typically to conventional songs.
In the meantime, her mom was a skilled classical pianist who “ended up on this godforsaken nook of Colombia,” Stein jokes. “After all she hauled a piano down into the farm, proper?”
As a younger baby, Stein would choose up her mother’s knack for music.
“She found that since I used to be younger I used to be in a position to carry a tune, and so she would harmonize with me since I used to be very, little or no, and that skilled my ear to take care of a melody,” says Stein.
Her household ended up transferring to Costa Rica, the place Stein had music classes and sang with the Costa Rican Symphony Choir, and she or he was awarded a scholarship to attend Grinnell School in Iowa. Earlier than she uprooted, she discovered as a lot as doable in conventional guitar method from the enclave of Latin-American artists who have been residing in San José on the time. “It was at a time when there have been a whole lot of navy dictatorships in Latin America, within the early to mid ’70s,” she recollects. “Costa Rica was a politically impartial nation. Numerous the artists who have been outspoken towards governments, they have been musicians. They have been theater individuals. They have been writers. They ended up in Costa Rica. I had a whole lot of combined emotions in regards to the States due to the USA’ involvement in supporting a few of these governments that have been making artists escape. However I used to be on the identical time fascinated. It was simply, you recognize, everyone needs to attempt to perceive this nation.”
“That’s the start of why I consciously linked to music,” she says, “although I studied biology and French. And as quickly as I bought my grasp’s within the sciences and horticulture, I made a decision to change again to music and turn out to be a full-time musician. These are the roots: rural upbringing and political. The timing of political upheaval in Latin America put me within the path of a deep reference to a big number of Latin music kinds.”
“It’s been dwelling once more to go [back] to music,” says Stein, who’s the founder and director of Artes Latinas, a consortium of a number of completely different ensembles.
Since 2019, she’s been concerned with Mothers Clear Air Drive, who finally requested her to affix the EcoMadres initiative.
“It is a highly effective group of girls,” Stein tells Billboard Household, including that they act on simply the suitable stability between “the guts and the mind.” “I feel it has to do with our work being centered on youngsters. I imply, it retains us susceptible. We’re not afraid of being susceptible as human beings whereas we’re being purposeful and arranged {and professional} in our environmental work. The mix may be very highly effective.”
Stein says, “The Latino neighborhood, whether or not they nonetheless communicate Spanish at dwelling or not, or Portuguese … No matter area or nation — you know the way various Latin America is, it’s extremely various … However no matter the place we’re from, there’s one factor that we reply to, and that’s music. In a visceral manner.”
EcoMusica’s use of dwell efficiency at neighborhood outreach occasions regarding local weather disaster has turn out to be “a software to construct belief within the Latino neighborhood,” she explains.
“It is a software to begin reaching the Latino and Latina neighborhood just a little extra extensively than we had been, as a result of that was additionally on the thoughts of Mothers Clear Air Drive on the time. How can we develop? How can we make our program related to Latino and Latina communities who’re disproportionately affected by these items that we’re engaged on, the air air pollution and the environmental justice points and local weather results?”
The crew’s hope is that the music naturally resonates with these most impacted by local weather disaster.
As Stein factors out, the group can “acknowledge the opposite actuality is that the communities which can be most impacted by the local weather disaster and by air pollution are individuals who for whom performing on local weather is a luxurious.”
“We’ve to know this,” she says. “They’re not on the degree of with the ability to dedicate 10 hours every week to preventing local weather disaster. No, they simply stopped on the grocery store and purchased 30 bottles of bottled water feeding the issue that we’re having, as a result of they’re afraid of the water air pollution coming from their faucet. They simply got here dwelling from working three jobs. How can we get them to signal a petition? The belief has to return first.”
Stein emphasizes that the environmental justice work they’re collectively doing “resonates with each member” of SonTierra, and praises every musician’s contributions.
Gabi Valdivia, the youngest member of SonTierra, performs with the group on the 2024 EcoMadres Summit in Phoenix, Arizona.
Courtesy of EcoMadres
“I need to say that what stands out to me is how outstanding each particular person within the group is, and the way honored I’m to have them there as a result of they’re not simply good musicians,” says Stein. “And I’m speaking in regards to the 11-year-old woman. And I’m speaking about this 18-year-old younger girl and the 22-year-old younger girl, after which us geezers … The remainder of us are seasoned touring musicians. However every one in all us has a objective for being in SonTierra.”
Stein provides, “I want to inform all of the communities who learn this: You don’t should be Latino or Latina if you wish to convey us to your neighborhood since you need to work on local weather points or environmental justice points as a area organizer for EcoMadres and Mother’s Clear Air Drive. In the event that they need to invite SonTierra to the neighborhood, it doesn’t should be a Latino neighborhood. It may be any neighborhood. It may be an African American neighborhood. It may be an African neighborhood. It may be an Asian neighborhood. It may be, you recognize, the Methodist Church in New York Metropolis.”
Those that want to study extra, or to affix Mothers Clear Air Drive’s battle towards local weather disruption, can discover sources and find out about motion factors on the organization’s official website.