Me

’N Sync, or Boyz II Men, there was Menudo. It was the first Latin American boy band that reached international fame. The band was so successful that there was talk of “Menudomania” and “Menuditis,” and it was often compared to the Beatles and Beatlemania.
    Menudo began when the producer Edgardo Diaz formed a group of five young boys, all of them Puerto Rican. The uniqueness of Menudo, what I believe made Menudo completely distinctive—and allowed its fame to last for so long—is that the band members were always changing. The idea was that each member would only stay until he turned sixteen, and at that point he would have to retire and his place in the band would open up for a new member. This way, the boys were always young, preserving the joy and innocence of adolescence. The first Menudo was composed of two sets of brothers: the Melendezes (Carlos, Ricky, and Oscar), and the Sallaberrys (Fernando and Nefty). They released their first album in 1977, and from that moment on the group’s fame grew exponentially: In just a few short years they were filling stadiums the length and width of Latin America, and their photos were plastered across the press, even in Asia. They became a worldwide phenomenon, and when RCA, the music label, got wind of what was going on, they signed them to a multi-million-dollar deal. This made them even more famous, garnering millions of young fans throughout the United States and the rest of the world. In fact, one of the most important English-language TV networks in the United States used the group’s music to teach its viewers how to speak Spanish.
    So when I was very little (in the late seventies, early eighties), Menudo was awesome. A worldwide phenomenon. A total hit. How could I not have wanted to be a part of that? Especially considering that the phenomenon had been born on my island? I knew all of their songs by heart—I had been singing them as long as I can remember. In fact, I loved singing so much that, with the innate confidence of youth, I felt that getting into the group was not an impossible dream. . . . So I dedicated myself to making it happen.
    But like everything in life, my entrance into Menudo would not come without its fair share of contradictions. Despite the fact that the boys from Menudo were my idols and I yearned to be a part of the group, for the majority of kids my age Menudo was a girl thing. Culturally and socially, we were so conditioned—in part due to ignorance and in part to envy—to think that real men don’t like to sing and dance, that for a kid like me to want to do it was considered ridiculous. In fact, when my friends from school asked me why I wanted to get into Menudo, I would always say that it was “for the girls, the money, and the travel.” I should have told them the truth—that I wanted to sing and dance onstage—but I have no doubt that they would have made fun of me. Boys weren’t supposed to “like” Menudo. So instead of telling the truth, I simply went along with it and said what was expected of me, choosing the path of least resistance. At that time, it was in no way a traumatic experience, but now I realize how sad it is that I didn’t feel comfortable enough to tell the truth.
    After pleading for months, I finally had the opportunity to audition. My father took me to the place where the auditions were being held, and I perfectly recall that on the way there I felt completely calm. Even though it would have been normal for me to be even just a little bit nervous, I was very relaxed because I knew I was going to do well and that the executives would have no option other than to choose me.
    And that’s how it went . . . almost. I did very well at the audition. They loved how I sang and how I danced, but there was one problem: I was too short. The rest of the boys in the group were a head and a half taller than me, and the executives wanted all the boys in the group to be more or less the same height. But instead of discouraging me, that initial rejection only served to fuel my determination. I showed up again at an audition nine months later, but once again I failed because I was still too short. At one point they even suggested that I buy a basketball and play to see if it would help me grow! Kind of cynical, right?
    But, of course, I did not allow myself to become discouraged. I persisted until finally, by the third audition, I made it. I had not really grown much since the last two auditions, but for some