When the spirits dance mambo
Subtitle: growing up nuyorican in el barrio
By: Marta Moreno Vega.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Published: 2004
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 273
Subjects: Vega, Marta Moreno.; Puerto Rican women -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography.; Puerto Ricans -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography.; Puerto Ricans -- New York (State) -- New York -- Social life and customs.; Puerto Ricans -- New York (State) -- New York -- Social conditions.; Ethnic neighborhoods -- New York (State) -- New York.; Harlem (New York, N.Y.) -- Biography.; New York (N.Y.) -- Biography.; Harlem (New York, N.Y.) -- Social conditions.; New York (N.Y.) -- Social conditions.
Genres: Biography.
Description: "When rock and roll was transforming American culture in the 1950s and '60s, East Harlem pulsed with the sounds of mambo and merengue. Instead of Elvis and the Beatles, Marta Moreno Vega grew up worshipping Celia Cruz, Mario Bauza, and Arsenio Rodriguez. Their music could be heard on every radio in El Barrio and from the main stage at the legendary Palladium, where every weekend working-class kids dressed in their sharpest suits and highest heels and became mambo kings and queens. Spanish Harlem was a vibrant and dynamic world, but it was also a place of constant change, where the traditions of Puerto Rican parents clashed with their children's American ideals."

"A precocious little girl with wildly curly hair, Marta was the baby of the family and the favorite of her elderly abuela, who lived in the apartment down the hall. Abuela Luisa was the spiritual center of the family, an espiritista who smoked cigars and honored the Afro-Caribbean deities who had always protected their family. But it was Marta's brother, Chachito, who taught her the latest dance steps and called her from the pay phone at the Palladium at night so she could listen, huddled beneath the bedcovers, to the seductive rhythms of Tito Puente and his orchestra."--Jacket.