Delgado is one of the best in the world in the sport of breakdancing, which will be included in the Olympics for the first time this summer. His parents considered him a failure. About someone who apparently was never good enough – and yet always believed in himself.
Omar Delgado, stage name “RoxRite”, embodies breakdance of the 1990s. He never attended a dance school.
Muriel Rieben
October 1990, San Francisco: Omar Delgado is eight years old and homeless. His home in the Mexican city of Guadalajara is far away, and now he spends the night in a car, an ancient Lincoln.
Two years earlier, Delgado migrated from Mexico to California with his parents and older brother. The father hoped to find work on wineries here. The family initially lived in cheap hotels. But then the money ran out, the father didn’t earn enough, and from then on they slept in the car. Every night they had to find a new hiding place, sometimes parking among the vines in Napa Valley. Just don’t attract attention! After a month they found a new place to live; they only had one room, which the four of them shared.
Today Omar Delgado is 42 years old, he lives in Bern with his Swiss wife and leads a comfortable life. Looking back, he speaks of his youth as a hard time, one that shaped him. Delgado says: “My childhood taught me to be disciplined and to persevere.”
It was only thanks to these qualities, he says, that he achieved his big goal: to become one of the best break dancers in the world. He became world champion several times and still competes. And he passes on his knowledge: Delgado is the coach of the break dancers of the Swiss national squad.
Hip-hop has given the oppressed a voice in the United States
The media calls Delgado’s dance style breakdancing, in the scene it is called breaking. The dancers are called B-Boys and B-Girls. The movements are energetic, idiosyncratic, combining acrobatics with dance.
When Delgado dances to rap, he spins dizzyingly quickly on his head, twists himself in knots, and does handstands one-handed. He is only 1 meter 65 tall, an advantage. He is nimble and strong; perfect conditions for B-Boys.
Delgado speaks English, his voice is gentle and quiet. He says: “When you come from a poor background, you have the feeling that everyone is against you. You have so much to prove. Whatever you do, it’s never enough.”
His story is that of an immigrant who always had to assert himself: Delgado danced his way out of poverty.
It all started with a radio. When Delgado’s brother Héctor came home from school, he played rap songs by Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg or MC Hammer. Omar, who only knew Latin music, heard hip-hop for the first time. And fell in love with this music. At a school dance in the fall of 1994, he saw some of his Mexican classmates dancing to it. He was fascinated and wanted to belong.
Hip-hop has given a voice to the oppressed in the USA: African Americans, Latinos. In the 1970s, the music movement emerged as a subculture in the New York City borough of the Bronx – and was carried from the ghettos into the world. Rap music and breaking were part of this movement.
Delgado also found perspective in breaking. His origins as an immigrant became irrelevant; it was only about his skills and the music. He watched older classmates break, sat in the stands of the sports hall during school breaks, tried to memorize the sequences. At home he then practiced the sequences with three friends and thought up new movements.
Delgado kept his hobby secret; he was still a beginner and felt inferior. Until he was challenged to a duel at school, an unofficial dance competition. Delgado danced better than his opponent, and his classmates who watched voted for him. He had won his first battle.
Money was still tight in his family, conditions were cramped, and the feeling of not belonging was omnipresent. Mexican gangs fought each other in San Francisco in the 1990s; it was a brutal and bloody conflict. It was about territorial claims, drug trafficking and power. Some of Delgado’s friends took part in the gang war, fleeing the lack of prospects. Delgado says: “A friend of mine tried to kill someone. He had to go to prison.”
It could have also hit Delgado. But he channeled his energy into dancing. It was his way of proving himself. He fought without raising his fist.
Dancing is his version of the American Dream
Delgado began making a name for himself as a B-boy, competing against competitors from all over the city. Soon he no longer had any opponents in San Francisco. He traveled around California, always looking for the next battle. In four years he won twenty competitions. Sometimes he competed alone, sometimes with his crew, which is what a group of B-boys or B-girls is called.
Delgado was a big name in the breaking scene, but at home he was under a lot of pressure. His parents were against his passion. They said they brought him to the US to study and get a good job. Like his older brother Héctor: a promising athlete who was sponsored by Adidas to study for a master’s degree. The American Dream had come true for Héctor.
Omar Delgado, on the other hand, danced on the street, had decided against studying, and barely earned anything from breaking. In his parents’ eyes, he was a failure. He worked for his independence and his dream of a breaking career. To do this, he worked as a dance teacher, as a pizza courier or as a shoe salesman.
He traveled around the world at his own expense to break: to Japan, France, Portugal, Great Britain. When he came to Switzerland for a battle, he met Nora, his now wife. They married and became parents to a daughter, who is now two years old.
Delgado won over a hundred competitions, became a brand ambassador for Red Bull, and starred in a documentary about breaking. Gradually his parents began to realize that their son had achieved something special; that he achieved his personal version of the American dream.
Omar Delgado trains up to four hours a day.
Nora Delgado
He doesn’t have the money for the Olympic Games
There has recently been an association in Switzerland that is intended to promote and advance breaking in Switzerland. As coach of the national squad, Delgado organizes training camps. And sometimes he trains himself in his free time, like on a recent Monday evening.
Delgado practices new movement sequences with three B-Boys in a gym in Bern. Rap is playing, the men are wearing baggy pants, someone takes turns dancing in the middle. The young men address Delgado by the stage name “RoxRite”; for them he is an unattainable role model. The dancer David Fan Bächi says: “Rox is a freak. He lives breaking differently than we ever can.”
Next summer in Paris, Breaking will be part of the Olympic Games competition program for the first time. Delgado says: “I never thought this would happen in my lifetime.” However, no one from the Swiss national team qualified for Paris. The competition was too great. In total, only 16 B-Boys and B-Girls are allowed to compete. Delgado will not be among the participants either.
He should have competed for the Mexican team. Unlike in Switzerland, there is no breaking association in Mexico that would support him. Competing in the Olympics costs a lot of money – money that Delgado doesn’t have. Breaking is still a fringe sport, you can’t get rich with it, even if you’re a star like Delgado.
He could be bitter, but he’s not. He hopes that the Olympics will make the breaking scene more visible. Delgado says: “I want to see a B-Boy who earns millions like Cristiano Ronaldo. We have great talent in breaking, but no one knows their stories.”
These stories need to be written and told first.