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Canciones de Aztlan:
Tejano Music and the Sounds of the Chicano Southwest 

                                                David Salmon Ornelas Jr. 

Academic Setting

Within New Mexico, and the educational system at large, there has been a growing emphasis on multiculturalism and tolerance.  Yet often times the goal has been to expose students to cultures, ideas, and histories that are identified and labeled as outside their own experiences.  A student may have a growing awareness of the extended universe around him but very little if any knowledge of his or her own immediate world.

         Exposure to the classic canons of art, literature, and music tends to reflect an appreciation of outside cultures not reflective of a student’s own experience.   The appreciation, celebration, and adoration of outside cultures have taken precedence over the recognition, exploration, and extension of one’s own background. 

From the aftermath of the World Trade Center tragedy, arguably a newfound sense of patriotism has been rekindled in our nation.  This new sense of “Americana” has the potential to alienate and deride anything not conforming to an American ideal.  This has a sociological influence on a cultural group to either assimilate to prescribed norms or to resist such indoctrination by segregating itself to protect its select values, both of which are extreme reactions to societal pressures.  This phenomena may be exemplified by the demographics seen within my school site and within certain locales in and around Albuquerque, New Mexico. 

         During the 1999-2000 school year, Truman Middle Schools student ethnic population fell along these lines:  Hispanic 79.8%, Anglo 11.2%, Black 4.9%, Indian 3.5%, and “other” at .1%.   Comparative averages within the Albuquerque Middle schools show a strong discrepancy: Hispanic population at 49.1% and Anglo at 40.2%.  With constant rising numbers since 1995, in 1999-2000, the percentage of students receiving free or reduced lunch at Truman was at 78%, while Albuquerque middle schools averaged at 40%.  The annual household incomes of the Truman community show 43% of families earning $25,000 to $49,999.   The next highest is 33% at $10,000 to $24,999.  These figures may be contested in that “household income” does not reflect the multi-family organization or undocumented and/or transient work status of many of our households.  These figures convey cultural and class issues addressed in this curriculum and reflected in the Truman community.  

The history of New Mexico itself has long shown issues of race, ethnicity, class, and cultural acclimation and/or elimination. It is this dialectic of conflict, ever changing cycles of conflict, mediation, and contradiction, that has set both boundaries and avenues of expression in both society and in music (Pena 1999, 4).  This conflict has been the backdrop for not only the musical development of the American Southwest but of many of the social realities faced by our students.  

Truman Middle School has become a small microverse of that same history.  The majority of Truman students whom are identified as functionally bilingual “Hispanics” are recent Mexican or South American immigrants or are first generation Americans. Few refer to themselves as “Hispanic” but are quick to identify themselves as “Mexicanos.”  In contrast, those students who readily identify themselves as “Hispanic” tend to have parents and families with long histories in the Southwest and especially northern New Mexico.  Ethnocentrism is also displayed in such families through incessant identification as being “Spanish” not “Mexican.”  Ironically these children identifying themselves as ‘Mexicans” are often subjected to being labeled “Limited English” but still beholding to a national standardized norm, while the “Hispanic” students are rarely proficient in Spanish but acclimated into mainstream America with “media moderated” exposure to their heritage, becoming “Americanos “ with Hispanic surnames. 

The importance and significance of music has always been recognized as a cultural indicator when examining a people.  Music and the interpretations of the activities associated with it, serve as keys to understanding other aspects of a group’s culture and social organization (Pena, 1985 preface) (Tejeda and Valdez). This “symbolic expression” is the means by which a group of people may face and confront a cultural crisis (Pena 1985, 6). Arguments of social and cultural resistance, models of assimilation, and patterns of integration will be presented.   

It is my intent to use the study of regional music not usually emphasized as “Latino” to highlight the similarities and innovations, not simply the differences,  shared by  these two groups, Mexicanos and  Americanos, as they encompass a third:  Chicanos. In all, these musical styles of the American Southwest will undergo examination, evaluation, and exploration, to bring a sense of belonging to groups often at odds, bringing Americano, Mexicano, and Chicano, to their communal incarnation of “La Raza,” the race or the people.  

Context and Background 

Rationale 

Introduction 

The history and development of the American Southwest is rich in its celebration of diversity.  It is also ripe in conflict over the land itself.  This land’s people and its music have continued to reflect this turbulent mix.  From its ancestral roots in Aztec history to its European influences, from its formative years to its modern incarnations, the music of La Raza, those of the “Hispanic” community (regardless of any ethnic or cultural term most preferred), continues to highlight and showcase this dual heritage of Mexican and American genesis.  

To present a basic demographic picture: predominately, Mexicans and Central Americans reside within the American Southwest, Puerto Rican and other Latin American groups in the northeast and Cuban and Cuban Americans in the southeastern United States (Baeza 7).  The complexity of labels and identification for this group, from “Mexican-American” to Hispanic,” from “Chicano” to “Latino,” is mirrored by the diverse genres and labels of “tejano” music itself, from “nortena” to “tex-mex.”  This concept of a mult-faceted frontera (border or frontier) consisting of mini environments supporting variants of larger cultures and societies rejects the notion of a single borderland with a common culture (Tejeda and Valdez 154).  It is from the popularity of the corrido, the celebration of the antihero, the notions hailed in the ranchera, “campesino” worker songs celebrating and lamenting a hard but good life, and the bolero, the torch lit love song, and the rhythmic beat of the cumbia, derived from Afro-Caribbean influences, that a new sound was born, a Mexican-American sound. Go to top of page.

Sociohistory 

Music here then cannot be reviewed without examining the history of American’s southern neighbor, Mexico. Both the land and the people of the American Southwest may be said to share “ancestral memory” with Mexico.  The coming of the Spanish conquistadores in 1519 to the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico was but a prelude to the harmony and discord its native and immigrant populations were to experience on profound levels, culturally and socially.   The conquest of the Aztec empire by the Spaniard Hernando Cortez was the introduction of a European class structure and presence  that remains influential.  Debate still rages over whether European practices or indigeonous peoples’ ceremonies were the primary influences on folk dances and practices today in the Southwest (Baeza 13-14).  The lore and life of the Aztecs live on in the Hispanic and Chicano experience, as music is a cultural link to a diverse past. The Aztecs were said to have come from the mystical land of Aztlan.   It is in these modern times that their descendants have found this realm and flourished in it. 

            After centuries under Spanish rule, “New Spain,” Mexico, cried out for  independence from their oppressors on September 16, 1810 and gained it in 1821.   Marking the cycle of a dialectic of conflict in their collective history, Mexico opened its borders to America to revitalize it economy.  Ironically, the growing demands of American immigrants led to cultural clashes and then to a cry for Texas independence by the 1830s. This culminated in the Mexican American War of 1846. America not only emerged the victor, but, the ensuing peace treaty, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, and  the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, doubled its size.  Present day New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, Arizona, California, and parts of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Montana, the celebrated American Southwest, became Mexico’s “lost land.” The Chicano parody of this is that our grandfathers didn’t cross the border, the border crossed them. After the Mexican American War, growing exchange between Texas and Mexico lead to an infusion of indigenous peoples and immigrant settlers with hundreds of thousands of Europeans in the area, including the Spanish, French, Italian, German, Swedes, and Norwegians (Burr 17.) This is the backdrop of music as a thing of harmony and discord in the Hispanic Southwest. 

            It is essential to understand the historical development of a geographic region to understand the mindset of its people, their songs, and their music.  From a history of repeated conquests by outside cultures, this refusal to be truly eradicated or vanquished is the hallmark of these people and their music. This cry of mexicanismo is most reflected in the adoration and celebration of simple values: candor, self-reliance, strength, and nature. The celebrated, and often stereotypical, image of the revolutionary is entwined with the music of the Mexican revolution of 1910, most specifically the growing popularity of the ballad or the Mexican corrido (Pena 1985, 10 and 11 ).  Not objective narratives of historical events, these were and are songs that celebrate the antihero confronting institutions out to destroy a simpler, better way of life.   And as the Mexican revolutionaries were using the growing expanse of rail lines to wage their war, the railroad is also responsible for the cultural mosaic and music of Mexico and the American Southwest .  Mainstays of modern conjunto music, the polka and accordion, are said to have been brought over by the German, Czech, and Polish immigrants who were building the expanding rail lines from central Texas to northern Mexico as early as the 1860s (Burr 170).  Due to this, the Rio Grande Valley is often viewed as the birthplace of modern tejano music and its forms, acknowledging  Monterrey, Mexico as its progenitor (Tejeda and Valdez 220).  

Mariachi Music 

Music today of the American Southwest is certainly founded in folk tradition.   Most unfortunately seen as the “touristy” mariachis in Mexican restaurants, this underscores contraries within mariachi history.  The term mariachi itself is contested in both its possible European and Mexican origins, owing itself to the French word for marriage “marriage,” thereby identifying the musicians playing at such ceremonies and the Spanish word mariache describing the raised wooden platform used by both dancers and musicians during a performance (Harpole 10).  Mariachi originated in Jalisco, a western state of Mexico and has grown to be seen as a symbol of Mexican folk music.  Around 1775, in villages in Jalisco, there was a growing trend in mestizo music, a mix of European and Indian music (3 and 7)   This continued for generations with  heavy emphasis on stringed instrumentation, a combination of violins, trumpets, and guitars, specifically the vihuela and the guitarron, providing the rhythm and harmony sections respectively (8)  Both guitar instruments were brought in the 1890s to replace the more expensive and heavier harp traditions of European societies.  The contrary roots of being homegrown and highbrow pervade both mariachi history and tejano music.  Mariachi musicians suffer the same dubious nature as modern jazz musicians, vagabonds and artists.    Known early on as taloneros, mariachi musicians were people who hustled on their feet, going from one restaurant gig to the next, asking for song requests (Tejeda and Valdez 86).  This is still reflected in celebrated mariachi festivals across the Southwest being contrasted against the poverty of Ciudad Juarez, as mariachis clamor for tips in the mercado. New Mexico itself is steeped in folklore tradition and, yet, arguably is estranged from the musical developments from the rest of the Southwest that more readily identifies with its Mexican past.   Go to top of page.

Folk Music and New Mexico 

The importance of geographic location to musical development, is no better seen than in New Mexico. Due to its regional inception and its peripheral status within the American  popular culture, the development and rise of tejano music itself is not well researched. “New Mexican” music, as it is so often referred to, is even less so.   Reflective of the same ethnographic population with a few geographic differences, the music of folk New Mexico estranges itself  from its tejano and Mexican roots, often  in the venues of ethnocentrisms, classism, and slowed musical evolution. 

            Most, if not all, the various musical styles examined here, may trace their beginnings to traditions established generations ago.   Often these traditions are passed from father to son as musicians take on the role of a mentor within the family and as a mystic within the community.   This is very reflective of the experiences of such musical  giants as Santiago Jiminez, Flaco Jiminez and Valerio Longorio learning at the feet of their fathers (269 and 289)(Chulas Fronteras).  This empowers the community at large as it becomes a socioculturally homogeneous organization with a general tendency to live according to common law, an “inorganic democracy” (Pena1999,13).”  Here it takes a village to raise a child.  This concept of an “organic intellectual” that continues to breathe life into diminishing traditions is not a new one.  These musicians become the registrars of not only cultural change but also of resistance to that change (147) (Tejeda and Valdez 200).  Early conjunto music was  a social  identifier for a working class and a cultural identifier for Tejanos and Mexican Americans , “Much of Tex-Mex society of 19th and early 20th century exhibited characteristics of a folk society: strong sense of ethnic identity, relative isolation, extensive non-literacy, and lack of labor differentiation in the capitalist industrial sense-an agrarian society (Pena 1985,115).   The Mexican-American War, Mexican immigration, and growing capitalist expansion in the Southwest were growing external influences to confront.  Yet in this resistance to change, there is a range of difference in the Texas and New Mexico concept of music and identity. 

            New Mexico culture and music have dubious evolutions and controversial standings.   Arguably, New Mexico more readily identifies with its European Spanish parentage rather than its indigenous Mexican hybridization.    To claim this is “simply” due to the clear Spanish presence in northern New Mexico is to insult the indigeonous Pueblo populations and the ensuing immigration and historical and border ties with both Mexico and Texas. As stated, “to a degree, isolation from the rest of the Spanish Speaking world was a condition of the Spanish Mexican colonies that became New Mexico and Colorado” (Lornell and Rasmussen 170).  Seeing New Mexico as a “tri-cultural” state does not reflect this  underlying prejudice.  Certainly the Spanish influence is strong and readily seen.  At its most basic musical form, many musical and dance institutions associated with New Mexico owe their basis in Spanish tradition.  The popularity of the Spanish Contradanza court dance for the aristocratic upper class led to modified forms as the marcha in a wedding and quincenera and the much celebrated matachines ceremony in northern New Mexican communities (Baeza 19) . A mainstay of northern New Mexican culture, the matachines dance is often portrayed as a purveyor of the truth in Catholicism in the roles of four central characters and attendant escorts:  the Monarcha, reflective of the conquered King Montezuma of the Aztecs, the Malinche, the first Indian convert to Christianity, the Abuelo, the celebrated jester who bestows knowledge to the community , and finally the Toro, man’s lower nature and perhaps the Devil.  The ceremony is the celebration of the evangelizing of the native Indians of the Southwest (Lornell and Rasmussen 155-185).  The similarities with and most probably actual influences of the Pueblo traditions of the White Corn Goddess are glossed over by conceptualizing the matachines as a “crossing of cultural spaces” (174).  This hardly reflects how the pueblo Indians often disguised their own native dances superficially to practice outlawed traditions upon pain of harsh punishment. It should also be noted that the revered figure of the Malinche also represents   Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortez’ concubine Marina la Malinche, who led Cortez to the Aztecs and to their eventual downfall.  Her historical significance alone refects the contrary nature of the Matachine’s dance, the progenitor of the Hispanic race or the death knell of a pure Aztec race.   

          Ties to the Spanish Reconquista of the Pueblo Indians in 1692 and the subsequent spread of Catholicism is celebrated in song and dance in  occasions such as La Fiesta de La Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe, Las Posadas, and La Fiesta de Santa Fe (Baeza, 23 and 24.   Yet, celebrations coinciding with more secular Mexican events such as Cinco de Mayo and Dies y Sies de Septembre do not enjoy wide jubulation in northern New Mexico, usually restricted to occasional events, bar themes, or isolated recognition in southern New Mexico, arguably because its geographic proximity and demographics are more prone to reflect its Mexican lineage. 

         Personal anecdotes abound with problems of Mexican and Spanish issues in this state, tainting intra-cultural relations in New Mexico’s past, present, and even future.  Attempting to uplift this notion of crossing cultural spaces, Brenda K. Romero hints at this conflict,  

Mejicanos is the term used by the older generation to refer to   themselves in Spanish.  They do not use the English equivalent  “Mexican” which   was used pejoratively by Anglo settlers.  Older cultural members might refer to themselves as “Spanish” which reflects Spanish ancestry and governance of this area until 1821, or Mexican –American which reflects Mexican governence from 1821 to 1848.  Many of the younger educated generation refer to themselves as Chicanos…(Lornell and Rasmussen 156).

This is not a new problem.   Disassociated from the term ‘Mexican,’ many people sought a more accepted position from a growing  American presence and influence after the Mexican-American War.  The cultural elite of many regions strove to convey their culture in modified and reinvented forms more compatible with an American view of  a “good” Mexican.  The tradition rich culture of the Hispanic elite helped in erasing the initial Anglo disdain of the Spanish Mexican heritage by ultimately giving it a new face – the romantic notion of the “Spanish Arcadia” (Pena 1999,19).  This love-hate relationship between the Anglo and the Hispano was literally the contrast between the romantic Spanish and the dreary Mexican.  This admiration of the hacienda led to both Anglo and native contempt of things Mexican and admiration of things Spanish (Ibid 19-21)   From the new American influx, race was still an issue.  Describing two  fandangos or dances attended in 1850, William W.H. Davis U.S. Attorney for New Mexico stated, “We found a great number assembled in the sala.  Many of whom were pointed out as the genuine upper-crust of Don Fernandez (Taos), being well-baked for the upper crust, as a large majority of them were done very brown  (Ibid 45).”   Social lines within the cultural group also grew more distinct in the years following the Mexican American war.  Spanish ancestry became the dominant factor in determining the social hierarchy as more than thirty racial distinctions arose in the years after the war (Ibid, 38.)  This air of Spanish aristocratic superiority is prevalent today not simply as a proud exclamation of how long one’s family has been in this state but as a social and political dynamic that has hindered social, cultural, and musical growth. 

            Cultural conflicts because of this narrow identification with things Spanish plague New Mexico.  There is the ongoing controversy of the Juan De Onate statue being insensitive to Pueblo Indian issues.   There is the debacle of teachers in Vaughn, New Mexico, being dismissed for teaching a Chicano curriculum in 1997.   Most recently, there was the resignation from University of New Mexico by Jaime Grindberg in 2001 due to a published review that was critical of the implemented programs of bilingual education with New Mexico and the College of Education.   This review highlights and critiques Hispanic social and political ideologies within New Mexico.  Referring to a concept of “cultivating Spanish heritage,” it critiques this notion of homogenizing a diverse cultural group along northern New Mexican Spanish lines, preferance of a Hispanidad over a  Mestizimo outlook (Grindberg and Saavedra 16-17).  This reinforces the conceit of things Spanish and aristocratic being superior to thingsGo to top of page. Mexican and native. 

The underlying problem in the development of New Mexico music has been an ethnocentric attitude reflective of Spanish traditions dominant over all else.   Noted folk musician of New Mexico, Cipriano Vigil, relays both this pride in northern Mexico and the inherent prejudice within, “The music of northern New Mexico is very different from the southern part of the state due to the fact that here we still maintain the old Cervantes form of (Spanish) language” (Del Norte).  He also notes that northern New Mexico established its own forms of music unlike the Souths borrowing from “across the border.”  The folk traditions of both locales admittedly are similar.  Bernardo Martinez from northern New Mexico relates that it is; “music I remember learning from my father when I was young.” And Julia Jaramillo from Los Alegres, also recalls “ I used to hear these songs when I was a child.  In those days, your parents used to take you to the dances.”   And marking the influences on the state’s southern music and on his own sense of self, the lead singer for Rondalla de Santa Rita from Las Cruces states, “My grandparents were from Mexico and my dad was raised in Mexico.  Me, myself, I feel like I’m Mexican.  I don’t see no difference” (Del Sur). The boleros and corridos sung by his mariachi group are all inspired by the Mexican Revolution.   The music of southern New Mexico has continued to honor this traditional Mexican muse where northern New Mexico has been reluctant to do so. 

            To speak of modern New Mexico music is to speak of its embodiment in “The Godfather of New Mexico Music” Al Hurricane.  No one is more responsible for the New Mexico sound than he and his family.  New Mexico music differs from modern tejano in that tejano music relies heavily upon the accordion and the bajo sexto, heavy Mexican influences.  New Mexico music often is characterized by a heavy emphasis on lead and rhythm guitar, very reminiscent of a Spanish acoustic guitar. Here again is the preference of a “Spanish” sound over a “Mexican” one. Born in Dixon, New Mexico Al Sanchez began his musical career in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  Al Hurricane’s first hit from 1955 Sentimiento continues to gain requests on such New Mexico music radio mainstays as KANW, Radio LOBO, and the new Radio SOL (Abeyta 26).  With a recording label of their own, the Sanchez family has literally built a musical dynasty upon the works of Al and other classics from his brother’s “Baby Gaby” and “Tiny Morrie.”  This family filled New Mexico airwaves with the New Mexico trademark sounds of electric guitar, an evolution of the folk acoustical guitar.   This family’s presence continues to be felt with the next generation’s rise in Tiny’s children, the young ladies of Sparx and solo artist Louis Antonio (27). 

This early dominance Al Hurricane’s family in the musical scene led to the establishment of a “New Mexico sound” that other musicians emulated rather than  innovated into   further musical development . Recording studio Alta Vista records from Albuquerque continues to seek out talent for its label and has become the most recognized producer of New Mexico music.  But much of this music remained static in the late 1960s and 1970s with styles established by Al Hurricane, his brothers, Freddie Brown, Roberto Griego, and Los Blue Ventures.  What has often been requested on the radio is appealing to an older generation who are contemporaries with these musicians.  It is only recently that experiments with both an expanded horn section and the accordion have hit New Mexico music and dance floors.  Las Krucez has been the first to go with blaring trumpets rather than a heavy guitar.  Darren Cordova has attempted the mingling of Mariachi voice with a modern trumpet backing.  Tobias Rene, the newest darling of New Mexico music, stands the best chance of revitalizing this state’s music with his use of  tejano instrumentation.  From bands as Grupo Pazion to Grupo Maldad, from Las Krucez to Simpatico, various musicians from southern and northern New Mexico have expressed a new generation’s desire and need to move beyond the last forty years.  In order to move beyond simple survival, in order to garner greater fan and musical interest, New Mexico music will need to call upon traditions and practices outside its normal range.  It has been this ability to remain true to its origins and be adaptable in form that has allowed tejano music to grow and prosper in ways that New Mexico music has only begun to look at. 

Conjunto Music 

This style of music may be deemed “Mexican-American” in that its influences, both European and indigeonous, may be traced to northern Mexico, the city of Monterrey. By the 1850s, because of United States’ free trade tariffs, Monterey became the chief distributor of European goods to two nations and San Antonio was the trade link between Texas and Mexico (Pena1985, 23).   Of all the European immigrant population within Mexico during the 1860s, 75% in the state of Nuevo Leon lived in the northern industrial hub of Monterrey (35).  With them came the accordion, a cheap alternative to the large bulky and expensive instruments of European “big bands” of the time.  Admired for its versatility, mobility, and accessibility, local bands were now able to keep up with the trend setters of the upper-class, marking an odd musical development pattern of “flowing down” from the opera houses to salons, bars, and the folk music of the campesinos, of course with final modifications to fit the working class values of that time (Pena 1985, 22). 

            Tracing its roots to the norteno and mariachi music of northern and western Mexico, conjunto may be characterized by the absence and presence of certain instruments.  Present early on in the music of the campesino, the folk instrumentation of the tambora de rancho, a handmade drum usually made of goatskin, lost favor.  European “modernizations” and “budgetary considerations” of Mexican-American ensembles led this norteno sound to venture into new territories with the advent of the accordion and the presence of yet another calling card, the bajo sexto,  a twelve stringed bass guitar.  These musical groups popularized operatic forms of songs coupled with themes present in boleros, corridos, and rancheras.   This shift from folk roots in northern Mexico to modernization parallels changes in the economic winds as Laredo, San Antonio, and Corpus Christi began to phase out Monterey’s social and cultural dominance around the 1920s (Pena1985, 29).   This trend peaked in the American Southwest from 1928-1960 as the trace roots of nortena evolved into conjunto and tex-mex sounds present today (2).  

Nortena, marked by a higher nasal quality in song , became something new.   Conjunto music embodies an alternative popular music history rivaling that of U.S. popular music’s.  Conjunto has celebrated pioneers to mirror Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Bob Wills, and Hank Williams ( Tejeda and Valdez 212).   Bruno “El Azate” Villareal is credited with the first recorded conjunto track in 1928 (Burr 18).  Hailed as “El Huracan del Valle” and the father of conjunto music, Narciso Martinez  was the innovator of the dual signature sounds of the accordion and bajo sexto.  Prior to this, the accordion sounds were mired in basic Germanic-polka roots (Pena 1985, 54) (Burr, 147).  Martinez sired the new conjunto sounds and reared them during the 1930s and 1940s, finally culminating with a grammy nomination  in 1989 for Narciso Martinez: El Huracan del Valle, re-recordings of the early hits that began his career.  Another maverick, Velorio Longorio  popularized the use of the corrido narrative with a ranchera/bolero sentiment (Pena 1985, 81).  Longorio is also credited with the first use of modern percussion accompaniment in the conjunto ensemble, having to deal with ridicule for looking like a “truck bed traveling band” (Burr 134).  The polka and most specifically the variations of the ranchera/bolero lyrics emerged by the 1950s as the quintessential expression of Tex-Mex music and dance (Tejeda and Valdez 19).  By the mid 1950s, conjunto would finally evolve into its modern incarnation as Tony de la Rosa would take all prior modifications and jack them up a notch with the introduction of the electric bass and electronic accompaniment, changing the acoustical nature of conjunto, the  accordion and  the bajo sexto (Pena 87)  By 1960,  the Germanic instrumental polka was a corrido hybrid of traditional instruments and new innovations (92). The years during the 1970s saw the coming of Cornelio Rena, and Ramon Ayala.  Modern and future incarnations of both conjunto and include the flag bearers and superstars of today, Michael Salgado, Eddie Gonzales, the ever present Flaco Jimenez of the Texas Tornadoes and the darlings of tomorrow such as Victoria y sus Chicos.    In 1989, Rolling Stone magazine trumpeted the accordion as the hot new instrument of the year (Tejeda and Valdez 115).   The rise in popularity of conjunto both regionally and beyond cannot be dismissed as even the mainstream acknowledges its strength, strength garnered from and moving beyond its folk traditions. Go to top of page.

Orquesta Tejana 

The early roots of the tejano sound is represented in the fusion of the Mexican standards of the ranchera and the corrido with the instruments and techniques of the big bad era of the American backdrop, arguably paying homage or insult to both.  Conjunto arose from a spirit of solidarity and cultural preservation within a Mexican-American working class. The musical genre labeled as orquesta was a growing middle classes desire to emulate and assimilate into mainstream America (Pena 1999, 93).  While certainly this music very early shows American influences, there is no negation or denial of any Mexican heritage.  As early as the 1880s, military style brass were present in Tucson, Arizona as Mexican machinists of the Southern Pacific Railroad were organized into bandas de musica (Pena 1999, 51). The orquesta is a relatively recent form that evolved early in the 1930s as a Chicano version of American swing bands and big bands of that era.  By the 1950s, it had developed a face all its own (Tejeda and Valdez 191).  This change in influence is attributed to the burdening urbanization of the American Southwest during and after the World War II era.   In this regard, American influence did indeed eclipse the Mexican influences so dominant in conjunto (Pena 1985, 29.)  Glen Miller and Tommy Dorsey were the acts being emulated by the upwardly mobile population of Tex-Mex society but its early history evolved from the orquestas tipicas of the late 1890s and turn of the century Mexico which used operatic romantic lyrics and the passion of the ranchero and  charro (singing cowboy) to appeal to an audience other than campesinos (Pena 1985, 7)(Pena 1999, 80-81). 

        Band leaders such as Isidro Lopez and BetoVilla were instrumental in bridging the gap between highbrow and lowbrow to create its contemporary form.  Reflective of upper-class jaiton music, Beto Villa is often seen as the father of orquesta music, being the most prolific and popular leader of this genre up into its mixing of conjunto sounds.  Most popular for his jazz and swing orientation, in 1946. Villa cut a track with the father of popularized conjunto accordion Narciso Martinez and hinted at the possible success of this folksy music being delivered by sophisticated means (Pena,1985, 22).   Orquesta embraced its conjunto brother as Isidro Lopez took the lead and popularized his bag band sound by mixing in accordion  components of conjunto and  by singing the ranchero and corrido standards of conjunto himself (Burr 135).  This hybridization of two styles Lopez referred to as Texachi (Pena 1985,23) (Tejeda and Valdez 49).  This mixing of rural and urban  took a further turn in the infusion of a boogie-woogie sound as a white, black and brown synthesis led to a new rhythm coming out of the urbanized West.  Zoot suit pachucos became an amalgram of styles (Pena 1999, 174).  In 1949, Lalo Guerrero, the father of pachuquismo, recorded Chicano Boogie, the first commercial use of the term Chicano.  This mixing of genres has gone by many evolutionary names as through the years, musica de orquesta, musica alegre, la onda chicana, tex-mex funk, and tejano (Burr 25). This mixing may be called a hybrid in that by the late 1950s, orquesta tejana intersected with conjunto, creating tejano.     To growing audiences, this hybrid holds the promise of so much.  As stated by one member of an orquesta, “We have always included rancheras because it goes back to our ancestors and the type of music they liked and we listened to when we were little”  (Tejeda and Valdez 47). 

        This then does still serve the social function of cultural preservation and continuation as marked in the career of tejano music superstar Little Joe y la Familia.   Finding only marginal success in the mainstream commercial market, groups such as Sunny Osuna and the Sunliners and Little Joe and the Latinaires sought other avenues.  A defining moment in Chicano history,  renaming his band,  Joe Hernandez produced Para La Gente in 1976 and the cut “Las Nubes” became an anthem for Chicanos across the Southwest, embodying the hopes and fears of that generation in a style reminiscent of a folk ranchera and empowered by the strength of blaring horns (Burr 26 and 132).  Little Joe remains royalty in tejano music.  A fellow monarch is Ruben Ramos.  “El Gato Negro” recognizes full well the power of his success, “I want the horns to hit them (the audience) like a wall of sound.”  Pioneering such sounds early on with his brother Alfonso in the 1970s with The Texas Revolution, Ruben Ramos remains at the top of his popularity due to his distinct voice and his “saxes attacking the notes” (Tejeda and Valdez, 146). 

Neoclassism 

It has been this growing and more popular trend that has rekindled the old masters’ drive. What was once passe as traditional has become a renaissance as traditional forms of song and music have been revisited and revitalized in an American culture.  While it may be argued that much of this has been mainstreamed to the point of losing its original vitality (TacoBell commercials by the Texas Tornados), there can be no denying it has opened the doors for musical acceptance both within and outside the Hispanic culture.   Preparing for his Para La Gente album, Little Joe emersed himself in the songwriting of Mexican legend Jose Alfredo Jimenez and created a Chicano rallying  cry in Las Nubes (Burr 26). Los Super Seven, a group consisting of Flaco Jiminez and Freddie Fender of The Texas Tornados and Before the Next Teardrop Falls fame, country music star Rick Trevino, Ruben Ramos, and David Hidalgo and Cesar Rojas of Los Lobos was awarded a grammy for their self-titled album of traditional ranchera, corrido, and bolero tracks.    

The band Los Lobos, proudly proclaiming out of east L.A., has enjoyed both critical and commercial success,  receiving a grammy in 1984 for best Mexican-American performance for Anselma.  An album of traditional songs entitled La Pistola y el Corazon garnered a grammy in 1990.  Every album cut by this band has always included at least two traditional tracks sung in Spanish (Tejeda and Valdes 121).  Fittingly, their newest album is entitled Good Morning Aztlan. Mainstream artist Linda Ronstadt received a grammy in 1987 for Canciones de Mi Padre, an homage to the music of her upbringing.   Flaco Jiminez received a grammy for Ay Te Dejo in 1986.  Grammy nominations abound for many of the founders of the tejano sound, Narciso Martinez, Santiago Jiminez and Steve Jordon (Ibid).  But herein, too, may be a criticism that only in the 1990s did “Latin” music in the U.S. even begin to get the most minimal of mainstream coverage, with groups as Los Lobos and the Texas Tornados increasing coverage but highlighting the problem; non-mainstream talented artists still remained obscure and were met with little fanfare (Burr 10).   The question raised then is which is the audience being addressed, mainstream “voyeurs” or cultural “musicologists?” Go to top of page.

Modern Tejano 

As conveyed, there is a new found sense of self, upwardly mobile prolitarians now feel it is respectable to retain their ethnic and cultural allegiances with a romanticized interest (Pena, 1985 110). While not as cynically conveyed, unlike previous generations where youth sought distinct identities separate from their parents, the youth of the 1990s in a rare period of appreciation for culture and roots revealed a high unity in their appreciation of the classic tejano music of their grandparents’ era (Burr 34).   Fueled by the spirit of learning at one’s father’s knees and the drive of modern mass marketing, tejano has left embers of creativity for a new generation to draw sparks from.    

         Based both upon the traditional standards of conjunto and the innovations from orquesta, modern tejano has evolved into a sound all its own. With demographic numbers during the 1980s projected to hit 30 million by the millennium (Burr 30) and the subsequent coining of the term “Hispanic,” a new found profit market nearly collapsed tejano music.  Mainstream companies as Capital EMI and Sony ate up independent labels and clamored for tejano signatures, resulting in various signing controversies and finally a Tejano Music Awards protest in the early 1990s (Burr 32).  This glut resulted in the pandering, to the complaints of real musicians, to the MTV generation.   Smoke machines, disco lights and tight parachute pants were the rage in such groups as La Sombra, Xelencia, Estrella, La Fiebre, and countless others. For all the criticisms of “canned” music coming from electric keyboards and synthesizers now being the rage, the 1980s tejano artists did revisit cumbia rhythms and raised them in popularity to rival the sister sounds of corrido and ranchera.  This generational revolution changed radio formats, retailing practices, live music scenes, fashion, style, and policies (Burr 41).  “Old guards” of the 1980s, La Mafia and Mazz, remain alive in a field of new upstarts as Jennifer y los Jets, Bobby Pulido, and Intocable,  rekindling the flames of  tejano music.   Kudos and criticisms of these new sounds and the in-fighting of musical genres has only gained this music more notoriety, even so much as revitalizing and mainstreaming many tejano elements once deemed unseemly. 

        This growing popularity within a new generation reverberates heavily upon the Southwest and mainstream America.  Its origins may be in the folksy roots of 19th century Mexico and America. Yet at its most modern form, it is as youth driven as rock and hip-hop (Burr 17).   Reflecting its growing impact, the various categories and genres under the tejano banner have grown: 

Tejano/Conjunto: Eddie Gonzalez and Michael Salgado
Tejano /Orquesta:  Ruben Ramos and Little Joe
Tejano /Pop:  Selena and Jennifer y los Jets
Tejano /Rap:  La Sombra and Los Chavaloz
Tejano/R&B:  Jay Perez and David Marez
Tejano/Country:  Emilio Navaira and Rick Trevino
Tejano/Jazz: Latin Breed and Joe Posada (Burr, 33) 

This proliferation of differing sounds and genres may portray tejano as betraying its conjunto and folk heart.  Yet, tejano’s essence remains.  This “hybridization” of musical styles is also a cultural synthesis that takes place without obscuring that culture’s origin or originality (Tejeda and Valdez 200 and 209). A generational development and stressing this shift from Pena’s cultural and class issues, the youth of today are crossing these boundary lines, as youth are prone to do (Burr 17).  This newfound interest was profoundly felt on the airwaves.  In November 1994, KXTN radio in San Antonio, Texas received the first #1 ranking for a tejano station in that city’s history, blowing out mainstream giants of Classic Rock KZEP and other popular mainstream formats, much to the formal protests KZEP sponsor Howard Stern (Burr 35).  Tejano’s new found strength was being felt in two worlds.  No more is this cultural duality represented than in the tragic death of one of modern tejano’s innovators, Selena Quintanilla.  

            Records were broken and new standards set in the aftermath of her murder in 1995.   Shortly after her death, five of her albums were on Billboards Regional Top Ten List at the same time. Her  mainstream album Dreaming of You debuted at #1 on July of 1995 and has sold over three million copies.  Shortly thereafter, a Selena biography sold 200,000 copies and made it to the New York Times best-seller list. Reflective of her and tejano music’s new found influence, People magazine for the first time in its history released an issue with double covers, one of the sitcom Friends and the second of Selena, selling out in Texas with 133,00 copies plus 143,000 restocks and an initial 600,000 of a tribute issue (Burr 16).  It is the unprecedented success of this young woman that gained her the title of the “queen of tejano music,” a title creating misconceptions about tejano music and its female artists. 

Gender

Selena’s rather unique and individual success in the music industry gives an impression of a lack of female presence within tejano music.  This has never been the case.  Women have always played a strong role in the history and development of tejano music. The error has come from lauding Selena as the only female superstar in this music when long before her there was Lydia Mendoza. Born in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico in 1916, Mendoza’s family left Mexico and the violence of the  Mexican Revolution and found work as tent laborers in the lower Rio Grande valley of Texas by 1927 (Del Toro 7). The family recorded Cuarteto Carta Blanca in 1928 and in 1934 Lydia had her first solo hit “Mal Hombre” (Burr 151).   Her signing with independent label and tejano giant Ideal led to musical collaborations with both conjunto star Narcisso Martinez and orquesta giant Beto Villa between 1950 and 1964.  With success in both the working class audience and the more middle class, Lydia Mendoza quite literally became the first queen of tejano music.   The career of Selena Quintanilla often mirrored Mendoza’s.   In 1952, Lydia Mendoza performed at the acclaimed Teatro Esperanza in Mexico City.  She was upset to find that promoters had hired mariachis to accompany her lone guitar in fear that her music was neither popular enough nor true to its Mexican heritage (Del Toro 3).  The mariachis did not know the songs the audience yelled out in requests and she quite literally tamed and won the hearts of the crowd. This bicultural mystique was also expressed in the misgiving of Selena’s performance in Monterrey in the 1990s at her lack of fluency in Spanish.  Her mingling of styles also won the crowd.   Still the life of a musician  has continued to be seen as unseemly for a woman.

Tejano music and its conjunto roots established  an early relationship with the working class, a situation not conducive to the development of female artists.  In the past,  music and its celebration were often closely monitored social events.  Bailes de regales, funciones, festivals, weddings, quinceneras. and baptisms were organized social gatherings along “proper” guidelines (Pena 1985, 36-37)(Tejeda and Valdez 251).   But the folk nature of vocal music and dance began to associate itself with a cantina barroom atmosphere and mujeres “puercas,” instead of mujeres “decentes” (Pena 1985, 36).   Folk tales abound with the presence of the devil at dance functions, attempting to lure unsuspecting women away (Tejeda and Valdez). It is this association with a rough and immoral life that has often deterred and marred women’s success in the tejano market.  Women were problematic on the road due to the inappropriate nature of being unmarried and surrounded by men or by being crushed by a protective guard (94).  Sexual tension and sexist ideas made a woman’s successful career in tejano much harder to achieve than a man’s (229-239).   Even grammy award winnnng accordionist  Chavela Ortiz of Brown Express  believed her parents broke up because her father didn’t want his wife playing in a band (Del Mero Corazon).  Regardless of these obstacles, women have continued to raise their voices in tejano music.  Vicky Carr, Laura Canales, and Shelly Lares have all enjoyed fame and stardom in the tejano circuit.   The next generation of young women, ignited by the success of Selena, is fronted by such growing talents as Jennifer Pena and Elida Reyna. It is also ironic that with the death of Selena came a growing recognition of the reflective power and nature of tejano music for  Hispanic communities and cultures of the Southwest. Go to top of page.

Social Relevancy 

There has been a growing error in American mainstream thought and tastes to categorize all Latin music into one category, that of a world view of many different Latin cultures.  Music itself fulfills a social function and tejano is no different.  Tejano music, in its evalutation and evolution, and in all its myriad forms, is an indicator of   the  times, of  things social and political: cultural /ethnic identification, class differentiation, linguistic inclusion or exclusion, community construct, and class stratification. 

Nationalism and cultural identity are the crux of  the works of Manuel Pena.  Arguing the preservation of a culture or the gradual assimilation into another, the majority of his work revolves a “dialectic of conflict,” the infusion and dissolution of values, mores, and practices based upon the ever dynamic exchanges between crossed cultures.    This manifested itself in the growing conflict between those wishing to stay Mexicano, embracing conjunto music and those wishing to be Americanized, choosing orquestra.  “Americanization” remains a key variable in what symbolic equipment is available in expressing a group identity (Crawford 783-785).  Yet, even Pena himself acknowledges phases in  Chicano social history that conveys an ever present sense of identity as adaptive as the people they represented.   These historical blocs include: The Creation Generation, The Migrant Generation, The Chicano Generation, and The Post Chicano Generation (Pena 1999, 9). While the identifying terms themselves may be problematic dependant on the audience, the identifying characteristics are recognizable regardless of the terms used.  

        The Creation Generation refers to the initial contributions of the primary generation of Hispanics, remembering both European and Mexican influences.   This is the world of the ancestral folk tradition.  It was oral tradition and familial and communal customs that allowed and were the modes of musical and cultural expression.  This was the establishment, the maintenance, and the promotion of one’s culture and identity. 

            The Migrant Generation is characterized by its ever constant struggle to maintain its ethnic and cultural integrity.  More “Mexican” in orientation than other blocs, this group readily identified with its conjunto musical background as its faced the growing threats of urbanization and future cultural acclimation.  The twin factors of interethnic conflict and intra-ethnic class differentiation were decisive factors in the subsequent development of both the migrant and Mexican-American generations and in their respective musical styles of conjunto and orquesta as cultural assimilation and resistance became growing concerns (Pena 1999, 15).  Rancheras and corridos, the hallmarks of conjunto, reflected the nostalgia of a rural life and the hardships of a working class.  Corridos shifted from larger than life anti-heros to hail the struggles of common victims of an oppressive society or an unjust economic system (Pena 1999, 87).  Reflecting this, in 1926, Los Hermanos Banuelos became the first Mexican music group to record in the United States with a corrido entitled El Lavaplatos, “The Dishwasher.” Personal testimonies speak of traveling from Lubbock to Indianapolis, switching from grape picking to melon picking, from orange season on one coast to banana season on the other, and always with extended family and/or friends in tow (Chulas Fronteras). Not only   facing oppression from alien American institutions, there was now the threat from within, a growing Hispanic middle class.  Class based stratification become prevalent with the urbanization of the Southwest in the 20th century as Mexican-Americans were integrated into an American social class system.   Notions of working class vs. middle class, folk culture vs. sophistication, cultural assimilation vs. ethnic resistance, rural vs. urban, and continuity vs. change were all dualities embodied in the stylistic differences between conjunto and orquesta (Tejeda and Valdez 31).  The twoGo to top of page. musical forms communicated two different class ideologies (26).  

            The Mexican American Generation abandoned the more Mexican orientation of its predecessor in favor of linking its fortunes to American success.  This embraced theme of an Americana is embodied in the organization and rise of The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) throughout the Southwest (Pena 1996, 26). This first generation of middle class Hispanics aspired for equality and success within an American mainstream and was readily prepared to culturally assimilate to do so,  “Los pochos de California no saben comer tortillas, solo ponen en las mesas su pan con su mantacilla (The Chicanos of California don’t know how to eat tortillas.  All they put on their tables is white bread and butter)”(Del Mero Corazon).   Expressing both a class conflict and a cultural one,  the growing power base of a middle-class, the urbanization of societies, the dwindling strength of oral and folk traditions, the aspirations of success at the expense of cultural integrity are all points of assimilation reflective of the Mexican American generation (Pena 1999, 118).  The growing popularity of orquesta and its influential base of big band music has been criticized as a sign of assimilation.  The hybridization of the conjunto sounds and corridos and rancheras are seen as vain attempts to veil a loss of cultural identity , and ,even more so, turn what was once rejected as ethnically unnecessary into a cultural commodity.  This notion of custombrismo is the desire to experience an invented national culture as attributed to the common folk.  The elite of a culture seek out expressions and representations of the nation’s popular folk culture and transform it into expressions of their own hegemonic power (81). This is a strong argument when reviewing similar arguments on New Mexico’s prejudice for and promotion of a Spanish cultural ideal versus its Mestizimo.   This also criticizes  tejano music’s neoclassicism, especially when it is shared that Linda Ronstadt, who was awarded a grammy for her Canciones de mi Padre album, memorized all her songs phonetically, never truly speaking or knowing the Spanish language.

           For many, the embrace of an identity for this Mexican-American generation is reflective of cultural assimilation,  cultural activity versus commercial commodity (65).  This overall issue of ethnic music losing its vitality when embraced by a mainstream is not a new one (Crawford 837).  But for others, this is but a period of growth to greater revelations, linking both culture and music, “this movement (orquesta) points towards an affirmation of ethnic identity rather than a linear assimilative process” (Tejeda and Valdez 208). 

            The growing popularity of the orquesta, now becoming known as tejano music, paralleled the growing political and cultural consciousness of the Chicano Generation and the Chicano movement.  Both moved away from the previous generation’s ideas of isolation and accommodation to new thoughts of nationalism and self-determination (Pena 1999, 14 and 206). The corridos of conjunto music, characteristic of the migrant generation, were a one-dimensional expression of resistance and conflict. Orquesta became a mediator of more accommodating methods of intercultural communication (14).  Orquesta, or tejano music, provided greater options and choices for symbolic expression as more and more people sought such avenues (Tejeda and Valdez 265). Representative of this growing awareness of a bicultural existence, “inter-sential code-switching,” compound bilingualism in ordered not random junctures of clauses or conjunctions, became hallmarks of the parallel evolution of language and song (Pena 1999, 117).  At its most militant, the Chicano movement was a call to retake the land.  At its most ideal it was an inspiration and a vehicle for cultural revitalization.  This search for a greater historical purpose was embodied in the myth of Aztlan and a vast history dating back to the Aztecs, the progenitors of the Chicanos.  This quest for historical significance blurred intra-ethnic class lines as Chicano activism became rampant in high school and college campuses and grew in solidarity in neighborhood communities (29)(Tejeda and Valdez 52).   Orquesta negotiated the contradictions between these class lines, the bicultural and the bi-musicality of this heritage and still maintained an ethnic allegiance (Pena 1999, 125 and 265).  As stated by tejano music legend Sonny Osuna, “A lot of people that were lost in a white world at that time/When the awakening came, it made them realize/ So when they turned around to look for roots, not only did they look at ancestry, they started to look into ‘What music is gonna represent me?  Where are my roots?” (262).    

Tejano music legend, Little Joe, became a herald of the Chicano movement’s musical influence. The name change to “Little Joe y la Familia” in late 1969 or early 1970 places him squarely at the intersection between the Chicano movement and social developments within the music field (239)(Burr 132).  No other musical artist is so associated with the movement.   His album Para la Gente and the song “Las Nubes” remain the definitive survival cries of Chicanos.  “Las Nubes” also conveys the  bi-musicality and biculturalism of this generation (Pena 1985, 12, 139, and 145)(Tejeda and Valdez 28).  With an alternating style between an alegre ranchera  and a sophisticated background of string interludes that is contrasted with an extended grito straight from the campo, Las Nubes became the ultimate expression of bimuscality (Pena 1999, 248).   Little Joe reinforced this association with the Chicano movement with the release of his 1977 album La Voz de Aztlan.  All around, group names and song titles declared this newfound pride in an indigenous heritage.  La Herencia, the Mexican Revolution, La Patria, Los Chicanos, Latin Breed, Augustine Ramirez’ Sangre de Indio, The Royal Jesters’ Soy Chicano (Tejeda 195).  All these artists exclaimed loudly, “Soy Chicano, because I’m brown and I’m proud.” 

This Chicano rallying cry was embodied in the re-visitation of the music of Lalo Guerrero, the father of all pachucos, in the stage play and film Zoot Suit depicting the Los Angeles zoot suit riots of the 1940s (Burr 103).  Guerrero continues to relay his cultural and ethnic pride today in the release of numerous folk albums for children. This strengthened identity, however, still left some problems for the music industry.  Tejano Music Awards founders, Gibby Escobedo of Latin Breed and Rudy Trevino, stuggled with the naming of this prestigious award show.  They had wanted to name it the “Chicano Music Awards” because they believed the music transcended geographic borders and limitations associated with the term Tejano but they did not want to misappropriate Chicano from its political and social history in California (Pena 1999, 227-228).  This continued link between chicanismo and the music industry remains strong in the continued works of Little Joe, Los Lobos, and a new andGo to top of page. up and coming generation. 

            Still a developing entity, the Post-Chicano generation is undergoing harsh criticism.  Reflective of the generational nature of things, this new brood has yet to find complete acceptance from its fore-bearers.   This new generation lacks a conducive political climate or the ideological focus of its predecessors, drifting both politically and culturally since the 1980s, with no powerful musical impulse at least not in the magnitude of the Chicano movement (311).  Musically, criticisms are rampant for the heavy use of synthesized music; for example, La Mafia  being unable to “play itself out of a paper bag,” and the mingling of tropical beats and mainstream styles into tejano.  Ironically, tejano has always been a product of intermingling and hybridization.  But this generation is not attempting to win success in only one market.  Reflective of the cross-over success and attempts of Selena, Emilio Navaira, and Rick Trevino, there is a desire, and even need, to expand the notions of bi-musicality and give ultimate expression of a bicultural existence by succeeding in two worlds.  It has always been the nature of tejano music to evolve and this generation will most certainly be taking it to unexplored territories as the new vanguard grows both musically and culturally, “The 1990s were ok.  It was uniquely American to celebrate one’s culture and that of our neighbor’s as well.  The brilliant arrival of tejano served as a catharsis for the years of self-doubt and cultural inferiority felt by generations of Mexican-Americans” (Burr 44).  It is this burgeoning new generation that has embraced taboos and values alike of preceding generations that has found new avenues of expression musically and socially through tejano music. 

Conclusion 

While the musical traditions that developed in the American southwest have evolved into a multitude of sounds of expression, it must be reiterated that their common basis in Mexican history and in American evolution has allowed the music to remain vital and alive in one form or another.  As expressed by actor Edward James Olmos, “All too often society has seen us not as American but as strangers to the land and we ourselves often think of Americans as the others in this country and not us (Olmos, 9).”  This musical expression becomes the means of living and growing in two worlds.   

These children of the American Southwest, with their lineage and music dating back to the coming of the Spanish conquistadores to the Aztec empire, will not allow the songs of Aztlan to die. 

Curriculum Objectives

The overall goal of these various unit plans is to give students, those claiming Chicano or Hispanic affiliation and those siding with their Mexican lineage, a sense of place for themselves in Southwest, American, and local history using the music of their fathers and grandfathers and all its social and cultural connotations as the vehicle.  The regional and social  history of the Southwest is a justification of study for students not identifying with any Hispanic background.  This duality and bicultural psyche of my students will be seen as a thing to embrace and celebrate and not use as a tool of derision within their own personal and social circles.  This overall curriculum will be divided into four primary instructional sections: Folk Traditions, Rebellion Movements, The Chicano Movement, and finally Cultural and Gender Roles, and one Student Exhibition or Final Project.   This organization allows this curriculum to be explored in length as an “isolated” unit within a frame of time.  This framework also allows integration into other disciplines as needed, i.e. History and the Civil Rights Movement. Go to top of page.

Performance Standards Met: 

This curriculum meets the criteria established by the District Core Curriculum and Scope and Sequence Grades 6-8 adopted by The Albuquerque Public Schools. 

Language Arts:

-            Critical Thinking:  compare/contrast writing and charting, group discussions, musical reviews, problem solving, and conflict resolution

-        Oral Presentations:  reading and singing aloud, essay and editorial presentations, and videos.

-         Writing:   grammar, language mechanics, creative writing, poetry writing,            essays, scripts, song writing, and research papers.

-         Vocabulary:   musical, sociological, psychological, and Spanish terms           and concepts.

-         Reading:   reference skills, research and resource material, song lyrics,            web sites, newspaper and magazine articles.

-         Computer Skills:  research, search engines and websites, word processing,            slide shows and Power Point presentations.                 

-          Art:  album covers and concert promotion posters, videos, and        
          visualization. 

Social Studies:

-        History:   the historical and social development between Mexico and the United States  and the historical developments of tejano and New Mexico music,  The Chicano movement, issues of social conflict, land acquisition, and cultural influence.

-           Sociology:  group dynamics, social issues of assimilation, segregation,             and integration, music as symbolic expression, the dialectic of conflict,              the Chicano movement, nationalism, ethnocentrism,  gender issues and             related social terms and concepts.

-          Critical Thinking:  identify and characterize and compare/contrast terms,             components and social indicators of historical periods.

-             Vocabulary:  musical, historical, sociological key terms and concepts.

-             Ethnic/Multicultural Studies:  cultural identification with certain genres of                music from European polkas to tejano techno, historical reviews, and                the Chicano movement.

-             Economics:  research into growing consumer power of Latin                 
             community

-             Statistics:  charts, graphs, and information relayed in demographic                format.

-            Art:  Charts, graphs, time lines, promotion posters, and album covers.

-             Computer Skills:  reference skills, research, search engines and web                sites, word processing, slide shows, and Power Point.

Music:

-            Critical Thinking: compare/contrast musical genres, identify             
             characteristics.                

-            Writing: poetry and song writing, essay and critical musical reviews.

-            History: trace historical influences.

-             Research skills:  literary, library. and internet resources.

-            Oral presentations:  reading and singing aloud, video presentations. 

Implementation 

Folk Traditions 

Relying heavily on New Mexico history courses already addressing the Aztec empire and with a brief review, the intent is to explore oral traditions, the evolution of ceremonies and the associated music and dances , with specific emphasis on cultural practices mingling between the native Pueblo peoples of New Mexico and  European rituals, creating a distinctive form of their own. 

Activities: 

1.   Discuss various stories heard by the student on La Llorona .  Read The Wailing Woman. Read the history of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec through the eyes of la malinche.  Draw a compare and contrast chart of the figures of Maria la llorona and Marina la malinche.   Discuss the evolution of the llorona legend from the little known historical basis of la malinche.  Discuss metaphors.  Review cultural interpretations of both. 

2.   Show a slideshow of  the Hispanic traditions of the  Quincenera, the marcha wedding procession, the matachines ceremony usually.  Discuss and read the cultural relevancy.  Discuss and compare Pueblo rituals.  A field trip (if possible) to the Hispanic Cultural Center and the Pueblo Indian Cultural Center would be ideal here with its exhibitions of the matachines and many regional New Mexico folk traditions. 

3.       Discuss and explore oral traditions.  Invite guest storytellers into the class room and conduct round-robin story telling within class. 

            4.     Play ballads or corridos, including La Llorona.  Relay characteristics of a corrido and its connection to oral tradition.   

            5.  Students are to pick an event, ritual, or custom within their families that may be considered a tradition and compose a report, creative story, poem, or song about it.  Read aloud Conjunto Memories (Tejeda and Valdez 403-407) to show example. 

Rebellion Movements 

Using the medium of the ballad or corrido, the concept of the antihero will be explored in class.  This historical review of Dies y Sies de Septembre, Mexican independence, Cinco de Mayo, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and resultant cultural clashes, and the Mexican Revolution  will highlight the popularity of the corrido as a cry of justice and a hailing of heroes in their struggle against unfair institutions and oppression from an outside culture.  Draw comparisons with modern rap as a connection. 

1.  Read about el grito de Delores for Mexican independence by Father Miguel Hidalgo y Castillo from Spain.   Discuss conditions leading to rebellion.   Relay the history of Texas, the Mexican American War, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.  Draw a timeline for events leading to these episodes.   

2.      Write contrasting editorial opinions or contrasting diaries reflecting opposing viewpoints on any such subject, for example, the Alamo through the eyes of a Texas settler and a Mexican peasant.  

3.  Provide historical information and review the romantic notions of Pancho Villa and the Mexican Revolution. 

4.      Watch videotapes of both Linda Ronstadt’s Canciones de Mi Padre concert and the Mexican revolution episode of PBS’ American Family.

5.      Analyze the components of El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez and discuss the historical significance and setting of the event.  Approach as a piece of literature and history.

6.      Write a corrido commerating either a personal or historical event as it happened or create a corrido of a historical figure or personal associate that mirrors the characteristics of a Mexican ballad. 

The Chicano Movement 

This is not characterized as a rebellion in that it is not indicative of a lashing out against a system, but the empowerment within the system by a new found sense of identity in one’s heritage.  This will be akin to studying the civil rights struggle for black Americans in the 1950s and 1960s.  Not a generalized overview of a minority culture, this examines a cultural response of a specific nature.  Not just a showing of violent protest and conflict but as a vehicle of expression through newly rediscovered music, societal issues of race, gender, ethnicity, culture, assimilation, segregation, and integration will be addressed.

1.       Brainstorming exercises of all terms used to identify those of Spanish, Mexican descent.  Brainstorm the stereotypical connotations associated with those labels. 

2.       Present and discuss concepts of assimilation, segregation, and integration. 

3.      List important issues of  the students.   Watch videotapes of the Chicano civil rights movement and discuss its origin in California school districts and compare/contrast with student’s contemporary issues. 

4.    Have kids bring in “lowrider” paraphernalia and discuss cultural contexts. 

5.      Review songs and album covers  for contents of nationalism, cultural pride and protest lyrics. 

6.      Write a historical biography on a Hispanic figure or create a song or poem that denote students' own personal sense of self. 

Cultural and Gender Roles 

This section will address both long held beliefs, misconceptions, and the stereotypes of a culture within its own populace.  Class differentiations, cultural assimilation, and sexual/gender politics will be the focus of this unit.   A celebration of diversity even within ones’ own culture will be emphasized. 

1.      Within past lyrics and album covers examined, review for fixed notions of gender, class, etc. 

2.    Compare and contrast three Chicana archetypes:  La Llorona/Malinche, La Virgen de Guadalupe, and Selena Quintanilla Perez.  Read excerpts from Sandra Cisnero’s The House of Mango Street and discuss nature of gender roles. 

3.      Pyramid  New Mexico’s   “New Spain’s” developing class lines and social hierarchy established by Spanish rule.  

4.        Readdress Texas’s early history as immigrant Americans into Mexico. Discuss illegal immigration and labor.  Read articles on Cesar Chavez and contemporary migrant farm workers.  Watch video of PBS’ American Family’s sweatshop episode.

Final Project Options 

1.   Create a CD ,cassette, or album with attached lyrics and an album cover reflective of the tone of the collected songs and poems done throughout the consecutive units. 

2.   Record a CD, cassette, or album with the aforementioned items and at least one recorded version of a written song. 

3.   Film a video version of one of the songs with attached lyrics. 

4.   Using Power Point, create  “karaoke” versions of a selected songs.  

5.      Create a poetry book of the collected songs as a ‘tribute” book or issue of a magazine. 

6.      Organize and perform a stageplay of corridos, with accompanying screenplay, program, and song lyrics.  

Documentation 

Abeyta, Carlos,  “Al Hurricane, the Godfather of New Mexico Music.” El Aztlan            Hispanic Music Journal.  Vol 1.  Summer 1996. Carlos Abeyta              
            Publisher: 26-28. 

Short articles written locally on various musical artists of New Mexico 

Baeza, Sylvia P.  Latino Life: Music and Dance.  Rourke Publishing Inc.  1995. 

A basic and introductory look at the Latino culture as manifested in music and dance.  Aimed at children. 

Burr, Ramiro. The Billboard Guide to Tejano and Regional Mexican Music.            New York, NY: Billboard Books, 1999. 

An extensive encyclopedia like collection of brief biographies and career highlights of various musical artists. 

Chulas Fronteras.    Filmed and edited by Les Blank.   Conceived, produced,            and sound Recording by Chris Strachwits.  Videocassette.  Brazos Films.            1976. 

A video documentary of the native music of the Rio Grande valley of             Texas and the Texas/Mexican border. 

Crawford, Richard. America’s Musical Life: a History.  W.W. Norton and            Company Inc., 2001. 

An extensive historical review of American music but limited in geographic scope to certain genres. 

Del Mero Corazon.  Filmed by Les Blank.  Edited by Maureen Gosling.            
          Produced and sound recorded by Chris Strachwitz.  Videocassette.            Brazos Films 1994 

A follow-up documentary of Chulas Fronteras that reflected the prevalent             Chicano attitudes of the 1970s. 

Del Norte: A Musical Celebration of Hispanic Heritage.  KNME TV.               
           Albuquerque, NM. 1989.            

            A locally produced documentary interviewing and showcasing northern               New Mexican folk musicians. 

Del Sur:  A Musical Celebration of Hispanic Heritage.  KNME TV.                
            Albuquerque, NM. 1992.            

A locally produced documentary that examines the corridos of the Mexican revolution that inspired southern New Mexican music. 

Del Toro, Leticia. Lydia Mendoza: First Queen of Tejano Music.  Arhoolie,              1996. 

           A brief overview of Lydia Mendoza’s life and career with excerpts from              her autobiography. 

Grindberg, Jaime and Elizabeth R. Saavedra. “The Constitution of Bilingual/ESL              Education as a Disciplinary Practice:  Geneological Explorations.”                  
            Educational Review, Vol 70, 2001. 

A biting criticism of bilingual education overall and the social impact it has had in education and in student socialization. 

Harpole, Patricia W, Ph.D. Los Mariachis: An Introduction to Mexican
           Mariachi Music. Danbury, CT:  World Music Press, 1989.  

           A basic introduction to the music of the Mariachi.  Includes the music             written for many mariachi standards. 

Lornell, Kip and Anne K. Rasmussen. Musics of Multicultural America: A             Study of Twelve Musical Communities.  Schirmer Books, 1997. 

A collection of articles describing and detailing the musical practices of             Northern New Mexico 

Olmos, Edward James, Lea Ybarra, and Manuel Monterrey.  Americanos:             Latino Life in the United States.  Little, Brown, and Company, 1999. 

A general overview of the diversity with the Hispanic community with an             accompanying collection of music that mirrors that diversity. 

Pena, Manuel, The Mexican-American Orquesta: Music, Culture, and the            Dialectic of Conflict.  Austin, TX:   University of Texas Press, 1999. 

Penned by the premier author associated with the study of tejano music.  This is an intriguing but complicated socio-historical review of orquesta and modern tejano music. 

---.  The Texas-Mexican Conjunto: History of a Working Class Music.
           Austin,TX.: University of Texas Press, 1985. 

Manual Pena’s first work within tejano music. It is an extensive and              often controversial focus on class, race, ethnic,and cultural issues. 

Tejeda, Juan and Avelardo Valdez.  Puro Conjunto: An Album in Words and             Pictures. Writings, Posters, and Photographs from theTtejano Conjunto             Festical in San Antonio 1982-1998.   San Antonio, TX: Center for            Mexican American Studies, 2001. 

This collection of essays and articles is ideal in its diverse information and opinions on tejano music.Go to top of page.