Word: cubans
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Somoza, nephew of the former Nicaraguan President, the elegant establishment is a beef house in the best Latin tradition. The house specialty: churrasco, a center cut of tenderloin marinated in chimichurri -- fresh chopped parsley, olive oil, garlic and spices. On a Saturday night at Versailles, the undisputed palace of Cuban cooking in the heart of Little Havana, Anglo couples slurp mamey milk shakes made from a sweet tropical fruit, while Cuban workmen just off the swing shift savor the fresh roast pork, sweet fried plantains and black beans...
...this evening, though, the crowd has come for something special. Like middle-class Italian kids flocking to see Sinatra at Carnegie Hall, the young Cuban Americans have gathered to see the reigning Reina de la Salsa, Celia Cruz, who was entertaining their parents and their parents' parents in the smoky dens and fancy nightclubs of pre-Castro Cuba long before they were born...
...even though most of those present have never seen Cuba and have little prospect of ever doing so. "We've never had to attract these kids. They come by themselves," says Cruz. "Rock is a strong influence on them, but they still want to know about their roots. The Cuban rhythms are so contagious that they end up making room for both kinds of music in their lives...
...which combined American pop with salsa rhythms and established the hybrid "Miami Sound." ("C'mon-shake-your-body-baby-do-the-co nga, I-know-you- can't-control-yourself-any-longer.") The song hit the Latin, black, pop and dance charts and made a crossover star of the Cuban-born, Miami-raised Estefan, 30. "Salsa is not so ingrained in me that I can't do a legitimate pop tune or vice versa," says Estefan, who numbers both Cruz and Barbra Streisand among her influences...
Spanglish takes a variety of forms, from the Southern California Anglos who bid farewell with the utterly silly "hasta la bye-bye" to the Cuban-American drivers in Miami who parquean their carros. Some Spanglish sentences are mostly Spanish, with a quick detour for an English word or two. A Latino friend may cut short a conversation by glancing at his watch and excusing himself with the explanation that he must "ir al supermarket...