Listening to Salsa: Gender, Latin Popular Music, and Puerto Rican Cultures (Music / Culture)

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 combines the approaches of musicology and sociology with literary, cultural, Latino, and women’s studies to offer a detailed genealogy of Afro-Caribbean music in Puerto Rico. She compares the music to selected Puerto Rican literary texts, then looks both at how Latinos/as in the United States use salsa to reaffirm their cultural identities and how Anglos eroticize and depoliticize it in their adaptations. The close examination of lyrics shows how these songs articulate issues of gender, desire, and conflict, and Aparicio’s interviews with Latinas/os reveal how they listen to salsa and the meanings they find in it. “Destined to be a landmark in the study of Latin music, gender studies, and of modern popular culture in general.” (Peter Manuel, City University of New York) “A sophisticated and insightful analysis of the complex relationships between Latin(o) popular musics and constructions of gender, race, class, and national identities among Puerto Ricans. Aparicio takes into account not only traditional Puerto Rican musics such as danza, plena and bomba, but also pan-Caribbean genres such as bolero, and contemporary transnational dance musics such as salsa and rap en español as well. Her post-modern approach to salsa is particularly provocative, eschewing nationalistic attempts at ownership by establishing salsa?s multiple positions and meanings within various Latino and Latin American communities. Moreover, she powerfully challenges Latin(o) music’s problematic representations of women and the marginalization of women musicians, contrasting patriarchal and misogynistic song lyrics with those written and sung by women musicians.” (Deborah Pacini Hernandez, Brown University) Frances R. Aparicio is Associate Professor of Spanish and American Culture at the University of Michigan, author of 'Versiones, interpretaciones, creaciones' (1991), coeditor of 'Tropicalizations' (1997), and editor of 'Latino Voices' (1994). Portrays the complex politics of gender, sex, class, and race in Puerto Rican salsa music. Winner of the MLA's Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize for an outstanding book published in English in the field of Latin American and Spanish literatures and culture (1999) Winner of IASPM's 1999 Woody Guthrie Award 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."

Winner of the MLA's Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize for an outstanding book published in English in the field of Latin American and Spanish literatures and culture (1999)

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."

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 combines the approaches of musicology and sociology with literary, cultural, Latino, and women's studies to offer a detailed genealogy of Afro-Caribbean music in Puerto Rico. She compares the music to selected Puerto Rican literary texts, then looks both at how Latinos/as in the United States use salsa to reaffirm their cultural identities and how Anglos eroticize and depoliticize it in their adaptations. The close examination of lyrics shows how these songs articulate issues of gender, desire, and conflict, and Aparicio's interviews with Latinas/os reveal how they listen to salsa and the meanings they find in it.

"Insightful study of Afro-Caribbean salsa music among Puerto Ricans relates different meanings in salsa lyrics to issues of gender, race, class, and national identities, both in Puerto Rico and Latino communities in the US. Aparicio, a literary critic, uses a postmodern approach to analyze diverse musical texts"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

Listening to Salsa Contents List of Illustrations Preface Part I The Danza and the Plena: Racializing Women, Feminizing Music A Literary Prelude Chapter 1 A White Lady Called the Danza Chapter 2 A Sensual Mulatta Called the Plena Chapter 3 Desiring the Racial Other: Rosario Ferré’s Feminist Reconstructions of Danza and Plena Part II The Plural Sites of Salsa A Postmodern Preface Chapter 4 Situating Salsa Chapter 5 Ideological Negotiations: Between Hegemony and Resistance Chapter 6 Cultural (Mis)Translations and Crossover Nightmares Part III Dissonant Melodies: Singing Gender, Desire, and Conflict Theoretical Pretexts: Listening (as) Woman Chapter 7 Woman as Absence: Hetero(homo)sexual Desire in the Bolero Chapter 8 Patriarchal Synecdoches: Of Women’s Butts and Feminist Rebuttals Chapter 9 Singing the Gender Wars Chapter 10 Singing Female Subjectivities Part IV Así Somos, Así Son: Rewriting Salsa Listening to the Listeners: An Introduction Chapter 11 Así Son: Constructing Woman Chapter 12 Así Somos: Rewriting Patriarchy Afterword Notes Index of Songs and Recordings General Index About the author "Insightful study of Afro-Caribbean salsa music among Puerto Ricans relates different meanings in salsa lyrics to issues of gender, race, class, and national identities, both in Puerto Rico and Latino communities in the US. Aparicio, a literary critic, uses a postmodern approach to analyze diverse musical texts"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.http://www.loc.gov/hlas/