When it comes to the unknown, many are too timid to even try to navigate around what they don’t know. After all not knowing the outcome of each move you make is a terrifying thought. Just like when you move around a house with the lights off, the simple idea of falling and busting your face open incites enough fear to almost everybody right back out through the door they came from. Then there’s Dabrali Diaz, the woman who went from dancer to full fledged author with the release of her first book “The Music From Our Country.” Dabrali embraced the challenge of the unknown, looking to be grand with her presence and most importantly, effective and impactful. When trying new things, Dabrali often keeps one of her mothers favorite sayings in her mind; “if you’re going to do something, you do it right.”
Growing up in Washington Heights, Dabrali wasn’t just chilling out and about living the typical inner city life as a child, “My life was very much school to home, and then home to school.” However, that would prove to be the foundation of her finding ways to break barriers in her journey towards being legendary. “My way of being active, was to be involved in community outreach programs.” Between dance schools, performing arts, sports camps, there was nowhere that you wouldn’t catch her between the fifth and eighth grade as she put herself into the community. “Growing up I was definitely the overachiever, straight As, class president, enrolled in everything, that was me.” Clearly the ability to focus on her work has always been an advantage, and although she grew up to be a fantastic writer who has self published a book, Dabrali will be the first to tell you there wasn’t too much of an interest in writing for her while she was growing up.
As a naturally Spanish speaking child, there was a bit of a barrier that prevented Dabrali from being thoroughly engaged in her English classes. “Every time that I wrote an essay, in my head I’m thinking about it in Spanish, and then what comes out is sometimes incorrect as far as grammar and pronunciation.” Moreover, her first teachers didn’t resonate with her since they couldn’t relate to the environment that she comes from. Naturally that’s a given, being that middle aged white men and young hispanic women don’t tend to be in the same territories. She does admit those issues were short lived though, “If anything I felt that more in elementary, for middle school I went to school up in Dyckman where it’s even more Dominican, so I saw teachers that were latino and of the same demographic as me.” From there, her eyes were opened as her teachers were able to show her that writing could be cool via poetry slams and open mic events which she took an admiration for.
Although the seeds were planted and the respect for craft of writing was all the way there, make no mistakes, Dabrali is a dancer and music aficionado at heart. Musical inclination is hereditary for her, with her dad being a DJ, and even Dabrali herself serving as a first chair violinist for an orchestra. With all that musical DNA, it’s without question the love for music runs deep. So deep that it inadvertently led her to pursue writing while working at a dance camp. “We were looking up books on dance and music, and there were books on the waltz, ballet, bollywood, and even Cuban salsa, but I didn’t see anything on Bachata.” Knowing that kids who come from the same background as her deserved representation, Dabrali took matters into her own hands and decided to put her money where her mouth is and put out “The Music From Our Country,” which is still the only children’s book about bachata.
The lack of representation in media and the educational system gave Dabrali some push to get the job done. With the disconnect between students today and picking up books to read, she recognizes the importance of giving kids from minority demographics a story to champion, especially one that celebrates their uniqueness. One answer she offered was that it is imperative for creators to create for those who will say “me too,” when you explain your background interests and stories. “It’s about being your most authentic self and realizing you’re not alone, if we continue to celebrate one another then that celebration only continues, positivity is contagious.” In many ways this book made Dabrali an ambassador of both the communities in uptown New York City, and the Dominican Republic, two places full of life, but hardly ever given any attention.
Dabralis vision for bringing her book to life was clear and she was doing it with intent, but most importantly, with passion. Her focus on this mission was to work through her community, being a self published author came with the responsibility of getting down and dirty to promote and give this project a heart beat. Doing that required a lot of outsourcing and networking. Dabrali used anything she could to her advantage, reaching out to her intimate network of educators, local bookstores, making Facebook posts. As fate would have it, by the time Dabrali set up a pre-order system with no release date, she ended up with over 100 pre-orders. Her dedication to both the people of her communities and on a larger scale, hispanic and black people, was both necessary and completely of her own will, it was a job that she knew had to get done.
Although Dabrali knew she had the vision about the book, she didn’t exactly know when, or how it would happen, just that it would. Giving herself a timeline but no clear deadline, was something that kept her on track, but not overwhelmed, which easily could have happened considering that there was a societal shutdown in the middle of production. “I didn’t want any pressure with writing this book, I was doing it for fun, also with the purpose of creating a legacy.” Luckily for her, the pure energy she put into the conception of the idea came right back to her in the form of support systems and great karma. All that passion continued pouring back out as her vision of the family, which is based on her relatives, was able to be brought to life by J. Donatella, a black woman who is an illustrator that she got connected with via Facebook. “Doing my research I saw that less than 15% of books highlight people of color, and I want to increase that, and I’m part of the solution, and J was it, and she made it happen.”
The cycle of all that is amazing for Dabrali at the moment did take a while to come back to her though. After finishing college, Dabrali came back to the city and got into the white collar office work. Although she worked hard and progressed up the corporate ladder, she knew things weren’t adding up “I realized it wasn’t the life that I wanted, and I thought it was, I felt there was definitely something missing.” Having been the captain of the national performance team for her sorority and stepping out the dance scene for a while was truly tough. “During that time I wasn’t happy, I ended up no longer working that corporate job and refocusing my energy on what makes me happy.” That was she began volunteering at “Salsa in Queens” dance studio and reignited some of that fire, eventually she realized that her happiness was coming back along with it, and so the decision was made that she’d be dancing again. So now for the past four years, Dabrali has been dancing full time and evolved into what she coined a “dance author.” And her path back to that passion of hers has opened up many avenues for her to take “Although I’d love to, and I probably will, dance all my life, I know there’s going to be a day where I have to move on.”
As it’s shaping out, moving on is looking like an easy transition for Dabrali. Through consistency and initiative she’s been able to sell hundreds of books, even sending out packages which reached to Puerto Rico and Spain. Further expansion to the rest of the diaspora is in her plans and she plans to do it the same way, through word of the loudest mouths in New York City, the uptown demographic. Since the release of her book, Dabrali has taken some time for herself, taking retreats and filling in the gaps with work because as she says, rest and improving yourself aren’t mutually exclusive. As it stands now, the slate is clear for Dabrali to do whatever she pleases, and it’ll certainly be impactful since for somebody who never did as much as put out a video on youtube, Dabralis splash onto the scene has been tremendous, impactful, and most importantly of all, unapologetically her.
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