The Sweet Sound of an Immigrant’s Success
Estefan wouldn’t be able to reunite his family right away. It would take time, money, and the proper paperwork to make that happen. In the meantime, he found gigs playing an accordion and, later, began working for the famed Barcardi liquor company. When he couldn’t afford something, he would barter for it or convince a relative to loan him the money. He was used to going without the basics, which meant he usually paid off his loans with alacrity.
His fame and fortune was built, piece by piece, from those humble roots.
Success details Estefan’s rise in chapters breaking down his business philosophies. So every time he climbs a rung on the corporate ladder he accompanies the move with advice on how to replicate his feat. Trust yourself. Be brave. Take responsibility. The structure lends his occasionally generic wisdom some bite.
It helps to share the same drive to thrive as Estefan possesses. The author wakes each morning at 5 a.m. in order to squeeze every last ounce of the day and refuses to take setbacks personally. He wisely predicted the future market for Latino music, something that sounds obvious looking over the past decade, what with Ricky Martin, Shakira, and others selling records hand over fist. He never lost faith that his heritage would be a blessing, not a curse, in his new home.
Estefan helped fuel the Latino music movement directly via his band Miami Sound Machine, the vehicle which introduced him to his future wife, singer Gloria Estefan.
The most harrowing chapter in Success deals with his wife’s near-fatal bus accident. The singer was told she wouldn’t walk again, but after grueling physical therapy she was able to sing and dance once more. The tragedy even inspired one of her bigger hits, “Coming Out of the Dark.”
Some of Estefan’s advice is too obvious, but he often spices those tidbits with real-world examples to buttress his arguments. He’s got plenty from which to draw, from his extended family to his rise in the musical world. He’s cobbled together winning plans for marketing schemes — and song hooks — by scribbling notes to himself on the backs of matchbooks and gum wrappers.
If there’s a prototypical immigrant success story, Estefan’s life is the template. That he had to leave his native land to accomplish what he’s done makes The Rhythm of Success both inspirational and bittersweet.
“The Cuban immigrant community has been the most aggressive of any group, because everything was taken from us,” he explains.
Zip past the self-serving forward by Quincy Jones and you’ll be richly rewarded by The Rhythm of Success, a blueprint for future immigrants to follow.
thump thump thump go the neocon hammers
Does anybody think this kind of touchy feelie journalism will make us decide we want to give our country away to Latin America?
but then … those who thump thump thump care nothing for the rest of us… it’s always the same 2% who care only for their capital and how to get more of it by swelling the ranks with cheap, exploitable labor….
using, um, teary testimonials…. what a racket!
Somewhere, at some time, I heard that Ms. Estefan’s husband actually is of ARAB descent, just as I am. Now, if that’s true, just why is Mr. Estefan identified as Latino? Could it possibly be that Latin countries EXPECT immigrants to their countries to assimilate to the culture of the country, including respect for its laws?
Interesting so few comments about this success story. Just a couple of grouches. Also interesting that in a world where blacks are being accorded every imaginable graciousness, e.g. the Grammy’s, tv roles, news coverage, movie roles, mega-buck sports contracts, in an attempt by Hollywood and liberals to make restitution for the sins of the past, that the Latino success is not similarly recognized. Just the crass hip-hop, vulgar, in your face I’m black – your not and “we deserve to rape you, whitey” attitude that will turn on them in the long run. Give the man credit for working hard his whole life, for creating something, giving people jobs, creating wealth, having a wife and family he loves. Not that the grouches care for any of these things. Heck, those are just dreams anyway. The fact that one Latino man made it doesn’t mean a hill of beans to them. To me it does. To the US it does. To the world it does because it is people like him that keep civilization moving ahead for the better, at least in his domain, music.
The truth is that the Estefans have set up a mini-empire in Miami that suppresses new music and is hostile to the new generation of Cuban refugees.
They also pretend to the idiot Miami public to be oh so anti-Castro, yet their closest friends are ultra-leftists like Rosie O’Donnell (lives across the street from them on Star Island.