Cindy Garcia

“Don’t leave me, Celia!”: Salsera homosociality and pan-Latina corporealities

This article theorizes pan-latinidad in action and the classed, racialized codes of femininity that emerge in Los Angeles salsa clubs. Through choreography-based ethnographic analyses, the author reflects on the conditions and possibilities of salsera homosociality–not on the dance floor, but in decentralized spaces such as the bar, the bathroom and cyberspace.

The Great Migration: Los Angeles Salsa Speculations and the Performance of Latinidad

n a booth at Chucks Grill 1 in the City of Commerce, 2 I sit watching the dance floor, waiting for Maria Elena to arrive. A few newcomers practice moves they must have learned at the class taught earlier. They clutch each other with lots of tension as they unsuccessfully attempt a quick set of turns. In contrast, a very skinny man (Felipe from Mexico, I was to learn) leads his partner with a touch so light, it appears as if he had no bones in his arms. His partner responds uncertainly at first, but then accustoms herself to the slightness of his finger signals. Without any sort of pressure exerted between their bodies, they do not gain momentum as they putter in place. An older man and woman close their eyes and cuddle. Others dance comfor- tably on tempo, minus the uncontained hoopla of the newcomers. A few couples cross their steps behind, with a basic step associated more with Mexican cumbia than with salsa in Los Angeles. One couple stands out from the others because they inject their speedy dips and spins with layers of moves like head rolls and neck drops. With precision and velocity they lift, lunge, and raise their arms into the air triumphant like acrobats. Then he snaps his fingers and slicks back his hair while she swishes her skirt. They effectively distance themselves from, and occasionally bump into, those who practice less spectacular techniques—the contained sways, the jerking, the bobbing, the over-zealous exertions of the newcomers, and the boneless arms of the more informally trained. The newcomers teeter closer to the edges of the floor, giving up space to the ones who dance what is known as L.A.-style salsa—the style that has put Los Angeles on the global salsa map. Together, the dancers with their multiple salsa moves at Chucks Grill not only create latinidad, 3 they also socially generate a hierarchy among Latinas/os. Throughout my ethnographic research on the salsa practices in Los Angeles and its surrounding cities, I found that salsa practitioners con- tend with the contradictory poles of latinidad produced in Los Angeles, particularly in Hollywood films—the exoticized Caribbeanesque Latina/o manufactured with the ability to rejuvenate a white protagonists sex life, 4 and the laboring Latina/o migrant. 5 (See Photos 1 and 2).