About the Author

Deborah Pacini Hernandez is Associate Professor, Anthropology and American Studies, Tufts University. She is the author of Bachata: A Social History of a Dominican Popular Music (Temple), and the co-editor of Reggaeton andRockin' Las Américas: The Global Politics of Rock in Latin/o America.

Praise For…

"Oye Como Va! provides an incisive historical and contemporary overview of all the major popular musical genres defined as ‘Latin.’ Pacini Hernandez presents an insightful, coherent, eloquent, and engaging analysis of the hybridity of Latino musical practices, carefully documenting the ‘transnational’ musical interactions between Latinos in the United States and in their countries of origin."
—Jorge Duany, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras

"Deborah Pacini Hernandez’s wonderful book highlights the magnificent diversity and generative hybridity of Latino popular music. Oye Como Va! presents empirically rich and theoretically sophisticated analyses of a dazzling range of national and transnational musical genres. From her fully realized critiques of cumbia, merengue, and salsa to her explication of the hidden bilingual and bicultural histories of disco, freestyle, rock, reggaeton, hip-hop, and house, Pacini Hernandez has produced a timely, compelling, and significant book." 
—George Lipsitz, author of Footsteps in the Dark

"Oye Como Va! brings Pacini Hernandez's unsurpassed expertise in Latino/a and Latin American popular music into a groundbreaking study of how issues of cultural nationalism, immigration, and transnationalism have affected its identification and marketing. The result is the most comprehensive treatment of Latino/a music to date. From bachata to rock en español to reggaeton, Pacini Hernandez discusses both the historical and most fascinating contemporary dimensions." 
—Arlene Dávila, author of Latino Spin: Public Image and the Whitewashing of Race