Tears of Exile

Mercedes Sosa at Carnegie Hall

As disastrous, illegal, and cruel xenophobic policies begin to wreak havoc on our communities in the US, as well as disrupt our international communications, I remembered this conversation I once had with the late great singer of Latin American exile, Mercedes Sosa.

From 1997 to 2007, I wrote sporadically for our local arts weekly The Boston Phoenix, mainly to score press tickets for “world music” shows, which have always been pricey. It gave me access to remarkable musicians on the touring circuit at the time, some of whom I got to meet. I went to New York to interview Mercedes Sosa, where she was receiving press. And I got to take my mother to Carnegie Hall as my plus one. (How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Guest list!)

The final paragraph here was cut by the Phoenix, whether for space or content I am not sure; I found it in the file I had submitted.

Originally published by The Boston Phoenix (March 21, 2002)

Mercedes Sosa, the Argentine diva of popular song, often cries when she sings. When I talked to her before a sold-out performance at Carnegie Hall last week (she appears at Berklee Performance Center this Tuesday), tears welled in her eyes even when she sang a short snippet of melody to illustrate a point. Most often, hers are tears of exile, as she remembers Zion by the rivers of Babylon. And on stage, her only prop a handkerchief, a world of Latin American émigrés cries with her. In the audience at Carnegie Hall, I saw a carefully turned-out woman in a red pantsuit and gold accessories slowly dissolve during Sosa’s set, until her shoulders were shaking with emotion.