Editor’s Letter
Don’t Stop the Party NOTHING TAKES me back to my childhood quite like an old-school salsa tune. Whether we were doing our Saturday-morning cleanup as a family or digging into a birthday cake with other neighborhood kids, there was always music in the background. It poured out of the speakers and lined the shelves in our living room. Joe Arroyo, Celia Cruz, Oscar D’León—all part of my dad’s extensive vinyl collection—have the power to transport me to what now feels like a simpler time. But as I imagine myself as a little girl sitting on our plastic-covered green couch watching the grown-ups dance at one of our house parties, it occurs to me that my immigrant parents used music as a healing balm. No matter what hardships they endured—grueling jobs, discrimination, language…