Anahí Viladrichportrays a superficial happiness, a joyful cheerfulness in which ev-
erybody dares to celebrate carelessly. Many Argentines I met during
fieldwork freely acknowledged having become tango fans after joining
the loosely organized group of Argentine émigrés. Not only did they
learn to listen and sing tango tunes in New York City, but they also
became fond of other Argentine cultural trademarks. In some cases,
their entrance into the tango world implied their acquisition of some
Argentine habits and preferences that they lacked at home, including
learning to drink maté (an herbal infusion), watching soccer games,
and participating in national festivities.
The tango has a history and a unique nostalgic philosophy, which
has been kept alive by those who combine melancholic sagas of a cher-
ished past with the expressionism of the ballroom floor (see Vilad-
rich 2004 a). Argentines in New York City, Barcelona, and Milan are
drawn to tango venues for reasons that escape conventional wisdom
and relate to their need to connect with those bonded by national ico-
nographies of place, taste, and urban tales. That I was no exception
is reflected in the following journal entry:
It is like nothing has changed, being here and there is like the same.... Here I am as at Milonga X that reminds me of El Café de los
Angelitos (a well-known tango café in Buenos Aires), like if Bue-
nos Aires was only a subway ride from my nyc home. Today, I felt
a little bit uneasy coming here with my American friends. They
seemed not to understand the codes beyond the etiquette. Even if
everybody spoke English, it is like we (Argentines) have a way to
recognize each other’s gestures, a certain sarcasm in the way we
speak that is often missed by others. I wonder if the whole thing
about tango is for me a way to recover something that I feel has
been lost. What is it? Do I also need to be understood? Am I feeling
lonelier than I think? (Tango notes, October 5, 1999)
Many of my Argentine acquaintances and I have nurtured the re-
creation of a far away land, through allegoric social iconographies of
an urbanite Argentine neighborhood that we have left behind, simula-
cra that protect us from the amorphous sense of vulnerability nurtured
by our new multiethnic milieu. Our homesickness for Buenos Aires