When my parents moved from Lima, Peru, to the United States, in 1980, they brought with them the basics: three children, several suitcases of clothes, some books, and a small but cherished collection of vinyl. We were not a particularly musical family—no one played an instrument, no one sang—but the records came with us because it was simply inconceivable that they would not.
Like most family record collections from those years, ours was diminished by the arrival of CDs, by garage sales and the occasional cull. Through it all, though, my parents’ Peruvian LPs remained—it’s not surprising, I suppose, that a record of the criollo singer Eva Ayllón didn’t sell at an Alabama garage sale in 1992—and those were the ones I eventually inherited, or appropriated, depending on your point of view. In fact, my parents’ records make up an important part of the collection I have today, augmented over the years by jazz and salsa and cumbia; and, even if they aren’t my musical favorites, it feels like a real privilege to own these records, artifacts of an era and place that mean so much to the people I love that certain songs can still bring them to tears.
Esta historia es de la edición September 30, 2024 de The New Yorker.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición September 30, 2024 de The New Yorker.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
COLLISION COURSE
In Devika Rege’ first novel, India enters a troubling new era.
NEW CHAPTER
Is the twentieth-century novel a genre unto itself?
STUCK ON YOU
Pain and pleasure at a tattoo convention.
HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG
Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.
REPRISE
Reckoning with Donald Trump's return to power.
WHAT'S YOUR PARENTING-FAILURE STYLE?
Whether you’re horrifying your teen with nauseating sex-ed analogies or watching TikToks while your toddler eats a bagel from the subway floor, face it: you’re flailing in the vast chasm of your child’s relentless needs.
COLOR INSTINCT
Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.
THE FAMILY PLAN
The pro-life movement’ new playbook.
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
