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Ethnographic Rendez-vous
who gather weekly in different entertainment venues. Tango gather-
ings play a powerful role in attracting Argentines on the one hand,
and publicizing Argentine events to the wider public on the other. Lit-
tle by little, my incursions in the tango field led me to an awareness
of its importance in supporting the careers (and everyday lives) of an
increasing number of Argentine artists and entrepreneurs who have
made tango their purposive drive in New York City.
Over time, my research also underscored the magnitude of the Man-
hattan tango world as an exemplary multiplexial (rich and diverse)
social network, which encourages the circulation of social resources
(including health information and medical referrals) not only among
Argentines but also within an international community of tango fans
from different socioeconomic strata, professions, and generations. By
participating in diverse tango activities, I was finally able to examine
the visible facade of the Argentine minority that, until recently, had
remained a hidden immigrant group in nyc.
Fieldwork consisted of visiting tango milongas, mostly in Manhat-
tan, where I met tango regulars and artists of varied sorts, some of
whom became my key informants and led me to other Argentine set-
tings. What almost started as an unplanned turn of events soon be-
came central not only to my project but also to the inconspicuous
search for my own ethnic roots in nyc. Through my tango cruises, I
was finally able to find traces of my Porteño (referring to people born
in the city of Buenos Aires) urbanite spirit.
Contrary to what I had initially anticipated, some of the most con-
flicting episodes during fieldwork emerged from what seemed to be the
easiest: my becoming a participant–observer in tango milongas, where
Argentines and an international crowd of tangueros (tango dancers)
congregate to dance and exchange valuable resources, from visa in-
formation to free prescription drugs, in exchange for tango lessons. If,
on the one hand, milongas constituted ideal fields from where I was
able to explore the ways through which social capital is shared; on
the other, I was confronted with social dynamics as in no other place
during fieldwork, as recorded in the following notes:
I need these pieces of my own identity that had been borrowed
from my ethnographic encounters; I need the familiar faces of
