Puerto Rico's (Un)Freedom

Abstract

Chapter 4 traces the attempt of Puerto Rico governor Rafael Hernández Colón to mobilize salsa’s Nuyorican meanings and global popularity as part of a national branding campaign curated for the Puerto Rico exhibit at the 1992 Universal Expo in Seville. Mobilized as a repository of Puerto Rico’s cultural exceptionalism and economic aspirations, the concert “Puerto Rico es salsa,” sponsored by the Puerto Rico pavilion at the Expo, provided a soundscape for the intersection of culture, corporate advertising techniques, and the performance of sovereignty under colonial domination that both challenged and reified narratives of Puerto Rican modernity. “Puerto Rico es salsa” decontextualized the music from both diasporic and Black Puerto Rican histories and everyday lives even as the campaign celebrated the music’s Nuyorican meanings.