In the 1940s, the rise of the mambo continued to pave the way for Dominican musicians in the U.S. It was also during this decade that Dominican composers began to forge a kind of music that resonated mostly with those who lived the migrant experience. These were nostalgic songs that alluded to some of the pain associated with migration or with missing one’s homeland. Two such songs were "Lejos de Mi Tierra" and "Mi Quisqueya (click here to listen)," musical compositions included in the compilation Songs and Dances of the Dominican Republic, a songbook that contained many of the merengues performed at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.[1] The emergent new developments made sense. The 1940s were the formative years of a music inspired by events taking place over the course of almost two decades of close contact with U.S. soil; a milieu where Dominican musicians rubbed elbows everyday with Cuban, Black, and especially Puerto Rican musicians with whom they shared the experience of exclusion and overt discrimination. The new reality would inspire and motivate Dominican musicians to start developing a new, distinct music; one that preserved the musical instruments and rhythms from the homeland but which was nevertheless autochthonous to the social space in which it emerged
In the 1940s, the rise of the mambo continued to pave the way for Dominican musicians in the U.S. It was also during this decade that Dominican composers began to forge a kind of music that resonated mostly with those who lived the migrant experience. These were nostalgic songs that alluded to some of the pain associated with migration or with missing one’s homeland. Two such songs were "Lejos de Mi Tierra" and "Mi Quisqueya (click here to listen)," musical compositions included in the compilation Songs and Dances of the Dominican Republic, a songbook that contained many of the merengues performed at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.[1] The emergent new developments made sense. The 1940s were the formative years of a music inspired by events taking place over the course of almost two decades of close contact with U.S. soil; a milieu where Dominican musicians rubbed elbows everyday with Cuban, Black, and especially Puerto Rican musicians with whom they shared the experience of exclusion and overt discrimination. The new reality would inspire and motivate Dominican musicians to start developing a new, distinct music; one that preserved the musical instruments and rhythms from the homeland but which was nevertheless autochthonous to the social space in which it emerged