Salsa: A Taste of Hispanic Culture

by Rafael Falcón

The daily routines, habits, beliefs, and values of the Hispanic culture that create unique human interactions in this society are revealed in this book. The book consists of 26 chapters relating to different themes that collectively provide an understanding of cultural responses. An anecdote is placed at the beginning of each chapter to assist the reader in understanding the more pedagogical information that follows. Reflected in this book is the reality that the Hispanic world covers a vast geographical area, and as such, is a mosaic of ethnic, religious, and historical backgrounds. Examples of diversityOCothe salsa, the taste of this cultureOCothat makes this culture so unique are illustrated throughout the text. This book has been written with a wide range of readers in mind and will be of use to students on the secondary as well as undergraduate levels, teachers, social workers, and travelers."

190 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Ariadna73 · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this 1998 book, Rafael Falcón tries to explain in a simple and straight-forward fashions many of the idioms and customs of the Latin-American world. From how to deliver a beautiful and elegant compliment to a nice girl, to different views of sports, religion and spiritual life, shopping and so on.

It is an interesting volume to review curious and important facts of latino life, that we certainly take for granted, but that can be so foreign to a person who was not raised in such culture.

Here is the editorial information of the book I read:

And here the table of contents. As you can see, the topics are really varied:

A fragment of the introduction, where the author explains his intentions when creating this work:

Some interesting conclusions that the author has to share about his investigations:

The bibliography, which is varied and surprising:

An example of the explanations he provides. In this case, a "Piropo" which is the elegant compliment to a nice girl:

An a curious explanation of the Arabic influence on the Spanish language, which brought in words like "Almoada", "Alhaja", "Ojalá" and the like:

In summary, a beautiful and interesting book that any person interested in latino culture should at least leaf for a while.

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