“The only decade I feel nostalgic for is the ‘70s,” says photographer Reynaldo Rivera from his Los Angeles home. “There’s a dreamlike thing in my psyche about the ‘70s as this magical time even though I had this horrifying experience. My father kidnapped me and my sister, took us to a village in Mexico, and left there from ‘69 to ’75. It’s like an Oliver Twist story. This lady took us in and used to sing Toña la Negra songs. Music was my babysitter at a time when I would have had mother, my aunts and uncles.”
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After singing a few lyrics to Toña la Negra’s bolero “Arráncame La Vida” Rivera shares the translation by text: “Rip the life from me / With your last love kiss / Tip it, take it, tale me heart / Rip me life and in case the pain hurts you / I must be from not seeing me / Because at the end, your eyes, I took with me.”
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“This is what influenced me,” Rivera says. “Music opened the door that allowed me to create an environment where I’d want to take photos. Being into all this Mexican super tragic music created this baroque me, this person that’s over the top emotional. From Toña la Negra, and later Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday, I sought answers that told me to take a beating and still love it!”
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