"...This is exactly the type of tour that tourist entrepreneurs are attempting to develop in El Barrio, so far with little success. Consider the "Spanish Harlem Salsa Walking Tour: A unique visit to New York's most ignored neighborhood," led by Jose Obando, a salsa musicologist from Guayaquil in Ecuador and formerly involved in El Barrio's Salsa Museum. The tourists' visiting "sites" include the former residences of Tito Puente and Machito, as well as La Marqueta, botanicas, former nightclub sites, social clubs, and corner hang-outs of past and present salsa musicians who are still residing in El Barrio. Far from the static image tourist sites often-times command, many of these sites are still important to this community..." ..."Obviously, then, East Harlem does not lack cultural resources, nor places, nor memories, nor a willingness to market its culture; rather, it lacks the resources to promote its values, which are at odds with dominant aesthetic hierarchies that devalue ethnicity in favor of universally sanctioned culture..."
-Arlene Davila, Barrio Dreams
