The guitar-based music known as bachata was born in the marginalized barrios of the Dominican Republic in the early 1960s, although it has constantly evolved to better represent the current realities of its fans and musicians. Carried to the United States with Dominican migrants, bachata became increasingly popular among the younger generations of Dominican Americans in the 1990s and 2000s. This generation of artists reshaped bachata by blending multiple genres with Spanish and English to reflect their multicultural and multilingual realities. The thirty-one artists included in this interview book share personal and collective insights into how their modern bachata provides an intimate representation of what it means to be Dominican, Latino, multicultural, and bilingual in a transnational setting.

The merengue is internationally recognized as the Dominican Republic's national dance. It is an integral and unifying element of Dominican identity both within that nation and among emigrants abroad. Although Dominicans often make the claim that merengue has always been in their blood, the dance is relatively young, and its popularity among Dominicans of all social classes and ages is an even more recent occurrence. This book presents three convincing arguments about the merengue's longevity as a unifying symbol of Dominican identity: Dominican identity and the merengue have necessarily been extremely fluid in order to encompass the different cultural and ethnic groups present; historically, the merengue has become a stronger identity symbol when the nation is or is perceived to be threatened from outside; and the white, Catholic, Hispanic Dominican has long been held as the ""true"" Dominican identity, causing the dance to become progressively ""whitened"" in terms of performers and style to reflect this notion and gain wider appeal at home and abroad. A map of the Dominican Republic, related photographs of key figures of Dominican history and merengue artists across the decades, and a complete bibliography are included.

Bachata - a guitar-based romantic music that debuted in Santo Domingo's urban shantytowns in the 1960s - is today one of the hottest Latin genres. Dominicans at home and abroad have embraced bachata as synonymous with national identity. But fans and musicians who were part of bachata when bachata wasn't cool have not forgotten the social stigma the genre carried for decades. This book interweaves bachata's history and development with the socio-political context of Dominican identity in both the national and international community. Foundational research is enriched with interviews conducted with bachata musicians and producers, radio announcers, and experts in the field. The author argues that bachata's early disfavour was a result of the political climate of its origins and deeply rooted ties between class and race, and proposes that the genre's growing popularity and ultimate acceptance as a symbol of Dominican identity arise from its instrumental and lyrical innovation, and a devoted following among the migrants of the Dominican of the diaspora.