named after them. but what about us latinos? we ve been here in this city, and we ve got every kind of latino. you want your puerto ricans? wepa. you want your cubans? dale! dominicans? que lo que tigre. colombianos? todo bien, todo bien. mexicanos? no manches, guey. and this is where i grew up, too. and when i was a kid, i don t know what the streets were paved with, but it damn sure as hell was not gold. but that didn t stop latinx new yorkers from making big contributions. basquiat, rita moreno puerto rican. cardi b dominican. supreme court justice sotomayor, nuyorican from the bx. even the very first non-indigenous person to live and work in the island of manhattan in the 1600s was juan rodriguez, a dominicano. mira eso, right from the start, we ve been here making this city great. now, i don t know what new york would be without latinos, but it sure as hell wouldn t smell as good, it wouldn t taste as good, and it definitely wouldn t sound as good. that s right, cause
- you know how they used to say the streets of new york were paved with gold? and then wave after wave of immigrants came here to make their lives better for themselves. the irish, the italians, the jews, the chinese they all got whole neighborhoods named after them. but what about us latinos? we ve been here in this city, and we ve got every kind of latino. you want your puerto ricans? wepa. you want your cubans? dale! dominicans? que lo que tigre. colombianos? todo bien, todo bien. mexicanos? no manches, guey. and this is where i grew up, too. and when i was a kid, i don t know what the streets were paved with, but it damn sure as hell was not gold. but that didn t stop latinx new yorkers from making big contributions. basquiat, rita moreno puerto rican. cardi b dominican. supreme court justice sotomayor, nuyorican from the bx. even the very first non-indigenous person to live and work in the island of manhattan in the 1600s was juan rodriguez, a dominicano. mira eso, rig
but what about us latinos? we ve been here in this city, and we ve got every kind of latino. you want your puerto ricans? wepa. you want your cubans? dale! dominicans? que lo que tigre. colombianos? todo bien, todo bien. mexicanos? no manches, guey. and this is where i grew up, too. and when i was a kid, i don t know what the streets were paved with, but it damn sure as hell was not gold. but that didn t stop latinx new yorkers from making big contributions. basquiat, rita moreno puerto rican. cardi b dominican. supreme court justice sotomayor, nuyorican from the bx. even the very first non-indigenous person to live and work in the island of manhattan in the 1600s was juan rodriguez, a dominicano. mira eso, right from the start, we ve been here making this city great. now, i don t know what new york would be without latinos, but it sure as hell wouldn t smell as good, it wouldn t taste as good, and it definitely wouldn t sound as good. that s right, cause salsa music was in
basquiat, rita moreno puerto rican. cardi b dominican. supreme court justice sotomayor, nuyorican from the bx. even the very first non-indigenous person to live and work in the island of manhattan in the 1600s was juan rodriguez, a dominicano. mira eso, right from the start, we ve been here making this city great. now, i don t know what new york would be without latinos, but it sure as hell wouldn t smell as good, it wouldn t taste as good, and it definitely wouldn t sound as good. that s right, cause salsa music was invented here in new york, that s right. [vocalizing along to salsa music] you re welcome. i wanna retrace my steps from queens, where i grew up, all the way to the bright lights of broadway and show you how latinos have contributed to the culture of the greatest city on earf. that s right, i said earf. and you can t tell latino stories without plenty of good food, music, and dancing. so come on, let s go, let s go. come on. [upbeat music] welcome to jackso
for this island. sugar, spices, gold, just a few of the perks the spanish enjoyed for over 400 years. that is, until the u.s. was happy to help, you know, liberate the island from the spanish and make it a u.s. commonwealth. that means puerto rico is neither an independent country nor an official state. and its people don t have a vote in the u.s. congress or in presidential elections. despite all of that, puerto ricans are unstoppable. and their cultural impact on the u.s. and the world? massive. to really get to the bottom of how puerto rico has not only survived but thrived requires an understanding of the cultural history of the island. so that s what we re going to do now. and in case you re new to this show, that s like our whole mo here. [upbeat latin-tinged music] [upbeat latin-tinged music] music has become the love language between the u.s. and puerto rico. from the time of the taínos to the enslaved africans who were brought here later on to modern day, music ha