La Gua Gua 47: A salsa song compuesta por una latina poderosa, Alba Martínez

This story is part of The 47: Historias along a bus route, a collaboration between WHYY’s PlanPhilly, Emma Restrepo and Jane M. Von Bergen.

This article is written in a combination of English and Spanish. To read entirely in English, click or tap here o para leer en español, haga clic o toque aquí.

Alba Martínez is a lawyer, former executive and now, a songwriter.

“La Gua Gua 47” — the 47 Bus — is her newly released song, written to honor the summer day in 1985 when she rode the SEPTA bus to 5th and Lehigh to find the heartbeat of Philadelphia’s caribeña community.

Martínez, a native of Puerto Rico, had just arrived in the city from Washington D.C., where she had earned a law degree at Georgetown University. There on the busy street she found her community in her new hometown.

She felt the energy. “Cambió mi vida”, dijo.

“Y al bajarme en la 5 y Lehigh había un combo tocando frente al Centro Musical. La música entraba por las ventanas de la gua gua, había mucho colorido, mucha gente abrazándose, saludándose, mucha energía”.

And that energy was what she remembered at her piano when “La Gua Gua 47” moved from her heart to her fingers. It features local pianist and producer David Colón, Venezualan vocalist Leo Gruber, as well as trombonist Humberto Alicea, a beloved Philadelphia musician who passed away in December.

With a beat that moves you to dance, the salsa song tells the story of “a very important moment in my life,” Martínez said. “It tells the story of my arrival and my sense of loneliness.”

The 47 bus had taken her home.

“It was such a profound thing. It’s an image that will always be with me,” she said. “I get off and there I am in another world. Era como estar en América Latina”.

From the bus to the board

Martínez had moved to Philly for a job at Community Legal Services, and from there she built an impressive resume in her adopted city — a resume all the more impressive considering how difficult it is for women in general, and for women of color in particular to move into leadership positions.

Según el informe de 2020 del Foro de Mujeres Ejecutivas de Filadelfia, en octubre sólo dos mujeres, ambas blancas, tenían el título de CEO en las 100 principales empresas que cotizan en la bolsa de la región y de esas dos, una ya no ocupa ese cargo.

Martínez moved from law into top leadership positions at Congreso de Latinos Unidos, the state’s largest Latino health and human services nonprofit; the Philadelphia Department of Human Services, and the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey, which is the region’s largest fundraising and community impact organization.

In 2008, she pivoted to the for-profit finance world, advancing to ever-more responsible positions at The Vanguard Group.

Martínez se retiró de esta organización financiera en diciembre pasado para regresar a su “norte”, el trabajo por la justicia social. Ha comenzado su propia organización sin fines de lucro, Sol Impact Ventures y está en la Junta del Comité de Taller Café. Fue un giro de 360 grados desde ese día de verano hasta hoy que ha vuelto a lo que mueve su corazón.

The move onto the board of the community-based arts and culture organization returned her back to North 5th Street. In one way, it was a full circle. When Martínez had just moved to Philadelphia in 1985, she called the center to find the Latino community in her new city. On the other end of the line, she found a sympathetic ear as she described her longing to connect.

“He received me so effusively over the phone,” she recalled. “He said, `Look nena, run to 5th and Market, get the Route 47 bus and as soon as you get to 5th and Lehigh, get off. You’re going to see my building on the corner with a big mural.’ That same day, I ran out, rode Route 47 and it opened a whole world for me.”

When Martínez arrived in Philadelphia, the Latino community was primarily Puerto Rican. Since then, she said, the Latino community has grown larger and more diverse “con una representación mucho mayor de Sur y Centro América además del Caribe. The Dominican community grew big here since that time.”

“Una de las cosas que me entusiasma muchísimo es ver la nueva generación de líderes y estoy bien entusiasmada en empezar a trabajar con ellos ahora que estoy pensando en mi futuro y en el trabajo que quiero hacer”.

The beat of opportunity

Many of the Latino leaders she first met are still active, she said, but “in addition to that, I see a generation of people who are in their thirties, in their 20s, their 40s doing a very impactful job in terms of social justice, culture, immigration issues. Philadelphia did not have that diversity of leadership that we have now.”

Different groups have different priorities, she said. For example, Puerto Ricans, who have American passports, don’t experience the same legal immigration issues as people from Central and South America, but “when we come to the United States, many of us, not all of us, face the same disadvantages that other immigrants face — racism, difficulty getting a job,” Martínez said.

“Yo creo que las similaridades son más que las diferencias”.

“For me, the root of the vast majority of all problems that we face in the Latin communities in Philadelphia is the lack of economic equality and the lack of access to capital, both personal capital and capital for business,” she said, “so that’s the space I’m interested in working in.”

Even as Martínez pursued her leadership roles, she never neglected her other passion, music. In Washington, D.C., she joined an Andean music group and played the charango, which is like a guitar, and the bomba, a drum. In Philadelphia, she performed with “Corazon al Sur,” or “Heart of the South,” which played at street festivals.

These days, she is reconnecting with music, music composition. and production. “I was shocked a lot that I did not find — and again we are talking about looking for a community that is difficult to find — women who could record my productions.”

“Quiero hacer algo para poder aumentar la visibilidad, el apoyo y el acceso de mujeres a la música”, dijo. “Porque estamos viendo una realidad donde no hay suficientes mujeres en el espacio de producción”.

“All that money in music production is going into the hands of men,” she said. “There aren’t enough women participating in that economy.”