The Cuban-American Sound Machine
Nostalgia and Identity in the Music of Celia Cruz, Gloria Estefan and Pitbull
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22326323 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Horacio Sierra (Bowie State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2018-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Cuban Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1756-3461 • E-ISSN: 1756-347X |
| Publisher | Pluto Journals (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.13169/intejcubastud.10.2.0238 |
| OpenAlex | W2908881598 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 9 |
This article examines how Celia Cruz (1925–2003), Gloria Estefan (born 1957) and Pitbull (born 1981), each of whom represents different generations, immigration statuses, gender performances and racial identities, have employed their musical hits and public personae to simultaneously shorten and widen the 90-mile distance between the US and Cuba. Their musical and political commentary parallels the evolving attitudes and identities of the Cuban-American community towards Cuba and its politics. Each successive artist is a little more ambiguous about his or her political leanings in the American political sphere, but all of them continue to oppose Cuba's Communist regime while trading in the musical currency of nostalgia for the Cuba of yesteryear. In the vein of Gustavo Pérez Firmat's watershed analysis of Cuban-Americans' hyphenated identity, these artists demonstrate how Cuban-American identity exists in a liminal cultural space that lives in the present and plans for the future with one foot planted firmly in the fantasy of an Edenic past
Aesthetics · Art · Liminality · Literature · Musical · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropology · Cuban History and Society · Gender Studies · History · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law · Music History and Culture
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |