by Mariel Garza, Los Angeles Daily News 2/14/2004

Forget diversity training and cultural sensitivity seminars. I have the ultimate solution to all our social ills.

It's a simple thing, one that brings together people of all backgrounds in a place where they are judged not by how they hold themselves, but how well they let go. Where, for a few hours, racial divisions, the rigid rules of social interaction and political correctness are all suspended.

It's called salsa, and it could just save the world.

The music and dance style of the same name that has been gaining steady popularity in Los Angeles, salsa is a flashier version of the mambo, the mid-20th century Latin dance craze that calls to mind Ricky Ricardo and pre-Castro Cuba. And on any given night across greater L.A., thousands of people are crowding dance floors in some of the most unlikely places: a Studio City lodge, a Santa Monica pub, a tiny Hollywood restaurant.

Los Angeles' Western location makes it an odd choice as a mecca for the newest generation of salsa, a movement born out of Afro-Caribbean music in cities like Havana, San Juan, Miami and New York City. Los Angeles' Latino population and culture has been shaped largely by Mexican influences, which are known more for a polka beat than a Caribbean one.

But that's exactly what this city has become in just a few years. Odder still, its genesis can be traced to the San Fernando Valley's own old boys' club icon, the Sportsmen's Lodge, and the determination of a former New Yorker, Albert Torres, now Los Angeles' pre-eminent salsa event producer.

Ten years ago, Los Angeles wasn't even a blip on the worldwide salsa radar. Salsa meant chunky tomato stuff in a bowl for the chips.
"Is there anything drier than a desert?" Torres jokes. "L.A. was known as a place where, to New York musicians, that's where you go when there's nothing else left."

But Torres and others kept plugging away, talking big-name salsa bands from the East Coast and Cuba or Puerto Rico to come to play at the main salsa venue, the Sportsmen's Lodge. Sometimes, the only stop that these groups would make on the West Coast would be in Studio City.

These days, the West Coast is the oasis. Every night across the Los Angeles region, salsa clubs are packed. A new club opened in Alhambra in January and was full immediately. Torres is putting together events these days and doesn't have to hope for a few hundred dancers, but that he can accommodate a few thousand.

You know a trend has arrived when celebrities and politicians want in. John Kerry's people called Torres last week to see whether the Democratic presidential front-runner could speak to the thousands at the next Salsa Congress in May. Whoopie Goldberg, who's said to be playing the late Queen of Salsa in the biopic about Celia Cruz, has called as well.

There's a reason behind the exploding popularity of salsa. And with all due respect to the work Torres has done, I believe it has much to do with what's missing in the lives of people living in a city built on separation.

There are few places in our society where people can touch each other legally, and without reproach or paying a fee. Even modern dance tends to be individuals gyrating around, but never quite touching one another. Salsa allows an easy, and socially acceptable intimacy that few of us get outside of our primary relationships.

There are also few places where sex roles are clearly defined -- men lead, women twirl. It's great that women are able to do whatever they want in this world, from running for office to playing professional sports. But sometimes even the most high-powered executive just wants to put on a cute dress, some strappy shoes, and be a girl.

Obesity is a growing problem in the United States, enough so that governments are launching "wars" against fat. Well, salsa dancing is a workout, especially for the women who are spun relentlessly around the dance floor without falling down.

But the most socially important aspect of the salsa dance is this: Nowhere else in this city can you find the regular and easy co-mingling of people from all backgrounds. Where a lawyer and a busboy become equals in step with a song. This is not a Latino-only endeavor. The salsa nights are a sea of brown, white, black, yellow. Salsa crosses cultural, economic and age boundaries. And no one thinks twice about it.

Salsa alone might not be able to save the world. But it's a heck of a lot more fun than a cultural sensitivity training seminar.

Mariel Garza is an editorial writer and columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News.

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