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Rocking the Boat: The Black Atlantic in Spanish Pop Music from the 1980s and the ^Os1 Silvia Bermúdez is an Associate Professor at University of California-Santa Barbara . She is the author o/Eas dinámicas del deseo: subjetividad y lenguaje en la poesÃ-a española contemporánea (1997) and the editor of the volume From Stateless Nations to Postnational Spain/ De naciones sin estado a la España Post-nacional. Forthcoming is her book on abjection in Peruvian poet BUnca Várela and she is presently at work on a manuscript on hegemonic literatures and cultures in late 20th century Spain. It is telling that the pop group Mecano and the rock band Barricada came into prominence at the same time that Spain was establishing itself as a model democracy, postmodern cultural haven, and rising economic presence in Latin America: that is, during the decade of Spain's postmodern and global transformation: 1982-1992. The arrival of the Socialist Party (the PSOE) of Felipe González in 1982—the same year "Mecano" and "Barricada" released their first records—allowed for the so called transición and meant widespread changes that are still shaping the Spanish State. Among the salient changes is the institutionalization of Spain as a nation-state made up of Autonomous Communities (stateless nations such as the Basque Country, Catalonia, Andalusia, and Galicia) that legally recognized Spain's multilingual configuration . Another visible change was the Europeanization and globalization of Spain in 1992, the year of the Barcelona Olympic Games. As a result Spain became a new postmodern cultural site as well as the promised land of riches for immigrants mainly from Latin America and Africa. Therefore, Spain's new geopolitical location made it "The North" to immigration flows from both southern regions. On the cultural front, this decade was marked by a creative energy that impacted both social behaviors and imaginarles in several realms at once: film, magazines, fashion, newspapers, and popular music.2 This last realm, music, offers us a rich spectrum from Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies Volume 5, 2001 178 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies which to evaluate Spain, Africa and Latin America. Indeed, it is in very specific songs of the 1980s and 1990s that transatlantic issues such as immigration and border crossing are brought into the open by groups such as "Mecano," "Amistades Peligrosas," and "Barricada." The implications of considering Spanish cultural productions of the last two decades within a Hispanic-Atlantic intersection have been forcefully argued by Joseba Gabilondo. By asking us to consider "the Hispanic Atlantic" as a necessary and sttuctural position and location from which to rethink the global aspects of postcoloniality and postnationalism in both Spain and Latin America, Gabilondo offers us a point of departure from which to evaluate Spain's recent cultural production. "While Paul Gilroy's The BUck Atlantic evaluated the British Empire's role in the slave trade, no such study can be found within Spanish Cultural Studies. This is a very telling void since there is a multitude of cultural artifacts —the musical form of the "Habaneras" comes to mind—that would allow us to access that repressed historical memory of Spain's Atlantic imperialist past. This is not an irrelevant task considering the complex issues facing Spain in regards to the immigrarion of people of color in the twentyfirst century. The impact of the powerful yet unpredicted socioeconomic forces unleashed by transatlantic and transnational flows is made evident by facts such as the decision made by national newspapers El Pais or El mundo to have ongoing sections on immigration on their web pages. What is most important about the virtual images and information provided particularly by ElPaÃ-s on its webpage, is that they reflect in an acute manner the shock with which Spain experiences the influx of people of the Third World as people of color. In fact, the perception that the color of immigration is black is evidenced by the electronic image accompanying the "Inmigración en España" section showing three young black men appearing to have just arrived on a patera and immediately being captured by the Guardia Civil (Spanish police). In the foreground...

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