- Series: Music Culture
- Paperback: 302 pages
- Publisher: Wesleyan; 1st edition (January 15, 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0819563080
- ISBN-13: 978-0819563088
For Anglos, the pulsing beats of salsa, merengue, and bolero are a
compelling expression of Latino/a culture, but few outsiders comprehend
the music's implications in larger social terms. Frances R. Aparicio
places this music in context by combining the approaches of musicology
and sociology with literary, cultural, Latino, and women's studies. She
offers a detailed genealogy of Afro-Caribbean music in Puerto Rico,
comparing it to selected Puerto Rican literary texts, then looks both at
how Latinos/as in the US have used salsa to reaffirm their cultural
identities and how Anglos have eroticized and depoliticized it in their
adaptations.
Aparicio's detailed examination of lyrics shows how these songs articulate issues of gender, desire, and conflict, and her interviews with Latinas/os reveal how they listen to salsa and the meanings they find in it. What results is a comprehensive view "that deploys both musical and literary texts as equally significant cultural voices in exploring larger questions about the power of discourse, gender relations, intercultural desire, race, ethnicity, and class."
Aparicio's detailed examination of lyrics shows how these songs articulate issues of gender, desire, and conflict, and her interviews with Latinas/os reveal how they listen to salsa and the meanings they find in it. What results is a comprehensive view "that deploys both musical and literary texts as equally significant cultural voices in exploring larger questions about the power of discourse, gender relations, intercultural desire, race, ethnicity, and class."
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