“Romeo” Santos: Hispanic Heartthrob

It was well past my bedtime when Pablo, a Peruvian friend and Maria, a Mexican friend, showed up at my door. My room is known as the “work room” which really means it’s the room people come when it’s 2:00 AM and they aren’t close to finishing (or beginning) their homework. I had nearly completed my assignments for the next day but let them in anyway, well aware it meant putting a few hours hiatus on sleep. Pablo was visibly distressed over his personal crisis of the day while Maria was wired on over-exhaustion and glucose.

The combination was a recipe for procrastination, and one hour later zero papers had been written and the two had engaged in a vivid discussion about Anthony “Romeo” Santos, a Dominican heartthrob. They were blasting “Los Infieles” and yelling out their favorite songs over deafening Spanish lyrics.

“Yo,” Pablo yelled out, “did you see the clips from that concert where Romeo asked for gorditas to come on stage so he could kiss one?”

“What?!” Maria cried out, “he can’t do that! He has a girlfriend!”

“It’s all for publicity, don’t worry, look see he got a much bigger fan base from this.” Pablo turned his laptop to Maria and she watched transfixed as her Latin dreamboat made out with a heavy-set Hispanic girl in front of tens of thousands of people.

“Why would he do that?” she whined, “It’s so unfair!” Pablo laughed, and so did I, mostly because I had no idea who Anthony Santos was or why he was making out with gorditas to sell records instead of running a regular ad campaign. I learned that if there’s one thing Hispanic people from any country can bond over it’s the music of “Romeo” Santos.