Culture in America is likely to be spelled these days with a hyphen. Watch it on TV. There's Cuban-American singing star Gloria Estefan in a music video on MTV Latino. See it at the cinema. The film version of The Joy Luck Club, based on the popular novel by Chinese-American author Amy Tan, could be playing nearby. Theater? There's the modern-dance show Griot New York, directed by Jamaican-American choreographer Garth Fagan. Poetry? Buy a book of verse by St. Lucian-born, Nobel-prizewinning poet Derek Walcott, who teaches at Boston University. Painting? New York's Asia Society is holding a show that tours the country next year featuring Asian-American visual artists who emigrated from Vietnam, Thailand and elsewhere in Asia.
And that's just the beginning. "All American art is a function of the hybrid culture that resulted from centuries of immigration to this nation," says David Ross, director of the Whitney Museum of American Art. "We're just more dramatically aware of it today." American culture used to be depicted as a Eurocentric melting pot into which other cultures were stirred and absorbed. The recent waves of newcomers have changed that. Today it seems more like a street fair, with various booths, foods and peoples, all mixing on common sidewalks.
The new cultural carnival is most apparent in music. The New York-based, Irish-American group Black 47, which mixes rap, reggae and traditional Irish melodies, has appeared on both the Tonight Show and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The Los Angeles rap trio Cypress Hill, which includes an Italian American, a Cuban American and a member who is of Cuban and Mexican descent, released a hit album this year that started out at No. 1 on Billboard magazine's album chart. Latin music has become such a significant force in pop music that MTV recently launched MTV Latino as a separate Spanish-language edition.
Cuban-born Estefan, with her dance-floor blend of R. and B. and Cuban polyrhythms, has established herself as the queen of the new Latin sound. Arriving in Miami from Havana when she was two years old, she grew up in a household immersed in traditional Cuban ballads. By the first grade, she was also listening to British-invasion bands. "It was natural to blend both elements," says Estefan. "When immigrants come to America they bring their culture, and that culture becomes part of a new country. It makes everyone stronger."
Her success helped launch other Latin acts. Cuban-born singer Jon Secada, who co-wrote several of Estefan's best-selling songs, has since recorded his own hits, which combine elements of Cuban music, Top 40 and gospel. Says Secada: "Artists who want to experiment find a way of incorporating the things that are worthy from all types of music, like reggae, salsa and African sounds. And it finds a way onto the charts."
The fashion industry has also felt the impact of newcomers. Immigrants from Asia have brought a clean, elegant new look to clothing design. Among them is Han Feng, who left Hangzhou, China, only eight years ago. Now head of her own design company, she sells easy-to-wear, simply shaped clothes to Bloomingdale's and Saks. "Designers have been looking for a style for the '90s," says Kal Ruttenstein, senior vice president for fashion direction at Bloomingdale's. "The simplified Oriental-inspired look might be a major look."