The ascendance of Menudo, the Puerto Rican rock group, was the most significant cultural event in the Hispanic community in the last eight years. As a phenomenon of popular culture, Menudo is worthy of study because of its main audience (Hispanic) and because it illustrates the dialectical interplay of gender, class, Hispanic ethnicity, and economic exploitation within modern capitalism. One strong feature of Menudo was the speed with which fans learned of its concerts and obtained Menudo-inspired products, such as buttons. Another phenomenon was how it affected the Spanish language. Because the newspaper "Las Noticias del Mundo" printed a daily Menudo column, thousands of young Hispanic girls began to buy it and thus learned much Spanish. Many girls formed "mini-Menudo groups," and case study of one of these, "Las Formulas," raised a number of questions. What is revealed, for example, by the fact that the group's members were girls who imitate Menudo, thus using Hispanic men as role models? Another dimension to the Menudo phenomenon was internationalization, as the group's enthusiastic reception in Latin and Central America both affirmed U.S. Hispanics' increased cultural pride and led to cross-national identification with Hispanic women elsewhere. Unlike other music groups popular in the United States, Menudo was originally a Spanish language production with a strong appeal to Hispanic identity. But like the others, Menudo was made possible by a process of capital accumulation and economic exploitation. Ironically, as the American mainstream media attempt to adapt Menudo to a non-Hispanic audience, the band's appeal to its original audience, Hispanic women, appears to be on the wane. (KH)