El Pendón Estrellado
75 years after President Franklin D. Roosevelt commissioned a translation of The Star Spangled Banner, audio and video versions of the song are gaining new attention -- thanks to some trailblazing Latinas
By Marisa Arbona-Ruiz
What? There’s a “Star-Spangled Banner” in Spanish?
Yes, the official translation is now 75-years-old and drawing attention from a new generation of audiences, just as we’re redefining democracy and inclusion in the American Dream.
When I saw the video of Jeidimar Rijos’ stirring a cappella solo of our national anthem en español, I was moved by waves of emotions.
My first reaction was sheer thrill over the brilliance of the performance’s stripped-down power. Standing at a single microphone, donned in dreads and street clothes, the Puerto Rican singer gives a rich and soulful delivery in this first-ever video recording of “El Pendón Estrellado” (“The Star-Spangled Banner.”)
The video itself is at once striking and poignant in black and white. With just a handful of still shots added, the video amplifies the faces and scenes of Latino essential workers; their humility captured in every expression and their humanity carried on every note by an artist from an exploited US territory with neither statehood or independence.
The next wave of emotion brought me a flood of memories about how this historic yet little-known translation of the anthem came to be. And -- full disclosure here -- it reminded me of my small role in helping bring the anthem to life decades later for an exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH) in 2012. The exhibit was the work of my friend, the one and only Marvette Pérez.
Clotilde Arias with Argentine composer Terig Tucci from Movie Radio Guide, March 16, 1942. Courtesy Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
War-time commission
The song began as a bold idea: In 1945 the U.S. State Department, with a push from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, commissioned a Peruvian immigrant, Clotilde Arias, to translate the anthem into Spanish. As World War II raged on, Roosevelt was keen on spreading U.S. values throughout Latin America and making assimilation easier for a new stream of immigrants.
“Unfortunately, he died before he could hear the Spanish translation... and it became forgotten,” says Gloria Romo Edelman, founder of We Are All Human, the foundation that launched the video performance of the song. It kicked off a recent live-streamed music and pop-culture festival, Altísimo Live to benefit COVID-19 relief efforts for Latino farmworkers.
By 1945, Arias had established herself as a woman ahead of her time. She was 22 when she immigrated to New York in 1923 from Iquitos, a remote Peruvian port town on the Amazon River. Arias became an activist, a journalist and an educator. She was also a professional musician, composer, copywriter and advertising company manager, holding her own in a world of men. She wrote jingles in Spanish for the likes of Campbell Soup, Coca-Cola, Ford and others. She was every bit a chingona. And, a single mom.
In 2006, Roger Arias, II found his grandmother’s drafts of the anthem tucked away in a storage box in the garage. Suddenly, his father’s boyhood memories of listening to his mamá working on the anthem at the piano came to life before his eyes. It was a piece of history he couldn’t let die.
He eventually caught the attention of Marvette Pérez, then a determined Smithsonian Institution curator.
Pérez was a cultural anthropologist from Puerto Rico with a larger-than-life persona and an unforgettable, booming laugh. She had a wicked sense of humor and a side gig in music, singing and playing a variety of instruments, especially congas. She made her mark as the curator of Latino History and Culture for the Smithsonian, spearheading such exhibits as !Azúcar!: The Life and Music of Celia Cruz.
Cantigas at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, after singing “El Pendón Estrellado” (“The Star-Spangled Banner”) to open the exhibit “Not Lost in Translation: The Life of Clotilde Arias.” Joined by Arias's son Roger Arias (center), and his adult children Michelle Arias and Roger Arias, II (to his right). Photo courtesy of Cantigas.
Merging Music and Journalism
As a journalist, it’s surreal when your life unexpectedly merges with history. By the time Pérez got the green light to curate an exhibit about Clotilde Arias translating the anthem, I was her new housemate in the Washington, D.C. area, and she was a frequent guest percussionist with a group I sang with, Cantigas. The group was an accomplished a cappella ensemble directed by our mutual friend Diana Saéz. We were in our heyday, uniting communities through the music of Latin America and our common connections. So, when Pérez needed a soundscape for "Not Lost in Translation: The Life of Clotilde Arias," Cantigas was commissioned for the first-ever recording of “El Pendón Estrellado” and to perform it live on the exhibit’s opening day.
Diana Sáez conducts the Cantigas recording session of “El Pendón Estrellado” (“The Star-Spangled Banner.”) Photo courtesy of Cantigas.
Some 20 Cantigueros gathered onto a theatre stage as a full chorus to record it in four-part harmony arranged by Phillip Silvey. Sáez did her magic, synchronizing our hearts and vocals into a textured body of sound. Pérez beamed. In fact, honoring Clotilde Arias and her spot-on translation had us all glowing. Just so you know: I don’t like war anthems. Or that The Star Spangled Banner was written by a slave owner. But that melody – borrowed from a British beer-drinking song – has found a bittersweet place in my heart. On that stage, I got chills as the harmonies flowed.
Marvette Pérez speaks at the press conference for “Not Lost in Translation: The Life of Clotilde Arias” at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Photo courtesy of Marisa Arbona-Ruiz.
Bittersweet is how I describe the joy of my American experience tinged with the pain of racist attacks, oppression, toxic masculinity and exploitation. We’re far from “… independence for all,” but, listening to the song again, I’m reminded that what we’re doing with protests and marches is shining a light on the nation’s history of abuses against people of color and the poor darker side of abuse and the chokehold of corporate greed. I’m stoked by today’s collective awakening, and I celebrate the rising tide of women making an impact.
The new attention for “El Pendón Estrellado” should also remember Marvette Pérez, who lost her life a year after the Smithsonian exhibit opened. She would’ve been thrilled that We Are Human produced the anthem video after discovering the museum’s webpage of the exhibit. She would have loved that the video features Rijos, a fellow Boricua who’s also the 2019 winner of La Voz – the Telemundo version of one of her favorite shows, The Voice.
It’s almost as if Pérez had playfully orchestrated the anthem’s revival herself, from above. Maybe she did. I can see her grinning now.
Editor’s Note: You can listen to Marisa trace the history of “El Pendón Estrellado” -- and her role in a recording a version of the song for the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, on NPR’s Alt.Latino podcast
Marisa Arbona-Ruiz is a bilingual Emmy and Telly Award-winning producer, journalist and voiceover artist working in long-form storytelling for news magazines, documentaries and educational media. She is a contributor on NPR Music and NBC and a contributing co-host of NPR's Alt.Latino podcast. Marisa is a former Vice President of Women In Film & Video of Washington, DC and a former Communications Co-Chair of Women in Film & Television International (WIFTI).
Photo credit: Joe Henson