garcia, peter - la onda nuevo mexicana- multi-sited ethnography, ritual contexts, and popular...

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by

Peter J. García

2001

The Dissertation Committee for Peter J. García Certifies that this is theapproved version of the following dissertation:

La Onda Nuevo Mexicana: Multi-Sited Ethnography, Ritual Contexts, and

Popular Traditional Musics in New Mexico

Committee:

Gerard Béhague, Supervisor

Manuel Peña

Brenda Romero

Stephen Slawek

Pauline T. Strong

La Onda Nuevo Mexicana: Multi-Sited Ethnography, Ritual

Contexts, and Popular Traditional Musics in New Mexico

by

Peter J. García B.M.E.;M.M.

Dissertation

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of

The University of Texas at Austin

in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

The University of Texas at Austin

August, 2001

UMI Number: 3031600

________________________________________________________

UMI Microform 3031600

Copyright 2001 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company.

All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against

unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

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Dedication

To Mom and my brother Ray for your love, support, and encouragement and

to my many wonderful friends, teachers, and colleagues who continue to believe

in me.

v

Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge the support of the New Mexico National Hispanic

Cultural Center in Albuquerque, especially Ron Vigil, Mariah Sacoman, Carlos

Vasquez, and Michael Miller. Tom Dodson and Chris Shultis respectively of the

Department of Music and the Center for Regional Studies at the University of

New Mexico also helped me during my year of field research in New Mexico. I

wish to express my gratitude to Allen Wells, Mary Hunter and the faculty and

staff at Bowdoin College, who supported the initial writing of this dissertation

when I was a Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges' Minority Scholar in

Residence. I also wish to acknowledge Victor Nelson-Sisneros, Victoria Levine,

Michael Grace, and the faculty and staff at the Colorado College who supported

the final writing of this dissertation while I was a Riley Minority Scholar in

Residence.

I also must acknowledge my dear friend and teacher Brenda Romero

whose patience, assistance, and encouragement inspired me to finish. She was

there for me throughout my research till the end of the writing as a committee

member. Enrique Lamadrid was also supportive throughout the fieldwork. At UT-

Austin, Gerard Béhague, Stephen Slawek, Manuel Peña, Jose Limón, and Pauline

Strong were extremely supportive and gracious in helping me complete my

graduate studies. I am grateful in particular to Gerard Béhague who helped me

contextualize Southwest Musics into Greater Mexican and Latin American music-

cultures. My sincerest gratitude to Manuel Peña who taught me the dialectic

method and brought to my attention the intercultural conflict model developed in

the Southwest by Américo Paredes. Jose Limón taught me the importance of

understanding language in its cultural context, and most of all taught me the moral

responsibilities and ethical obligations expected of an organic intellectual. Pauline

Strong taught me to consider cultural interaction between Mexicanos with other

groups of people living together in a place like New Mexico. Stephen Slawek

prepared me for field work by introducing me to ethnomusicologal methods,

transcription and analysis, and prepared me to teach World Musics.

vi

La Onda Nuevo Mexicana: Multi-Sited Ethnography, Ritual Contexts, and

Popular Traditional Musics in New Mexico

Publication No.__________

Peter J. García, Ph.D.The University of Texas at Austin, 2001

Supervisor: Gerard Béhague

This dissertation deals with Mexican popular music in the Southwest, with New

Mexico as the primary focus. The popular musical influences coming into New

Mexico from surrounding states and Mexico have not been thoroughly

investigated. Mexican popular music since the advent of radio and cinema in the

1940s, became as meaningful as the local traditions, yet was overlooked until

recently. This study reexamines previous scholarship on New Mexico that

addressed folk forms and genres, and challenges dominant political ideologies

that aided in the construction of fabled and romantic images of the Spanish

Southwest. Such images were subsequently used by government at all levels as

the foundation of a political economy based almost entirely on cultural tourism.

One negative result of this was the marginalization of Mexican popular music and

culture in New Mexico, with bitter interethnic rivalries between the older, settled

New Mexicans and recent Mexican immigrants - a rivalry that continues today.

vii

Looking at the music of this region in its cultural, historical, and ritual context, as

well as through a reflexive lens, this work seeks to reclaim a more honest music

history of the region than has been previously perceived. Each chapter analyzes

different musics and events and their contexts of conflict and struggle and

resulting change and adaptation. A synchronic reclamation of history, language,

and culture through music suggests that regional differences among Hispanics of

this region are less crucial than the reinforcement of Hispanic culture and value

systems in general.

viii

Chapter One: Introduction and Statement of Purpose

Research Goals…………………………………………………………………………………...3

Design and Organization…………………………………………………………………………9

Field Experience and Methodology……………………………………………………………….12

Musical Change and Historical Continuity………………………………………………………17

Music-Culture History.....................................................................................................................20

Paradigmatic Shifts During the 1970s............................................................................................24

Practice Theory............................................................................................................................…25

Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History...............................................................................27

American Ethnomusicology.............................................................................................................29

Charles Fletcher Lummis................................................................................................................33

Southwestern Early Modern Music History................................................................………..37

Hispanophile Studies and Salvage Ethnology................................................................................39

Hispanic Music Culture in the Southwest: Arthur L. Campa.......................................................44

Texas Mexican Folk Music: Américo Paredes................................................................................46

Texas-Mexican Working Class Music History ..............................................................................48

California-Mexican Popular Music Studies....................................................................................50

New Mexico Hispanic Traditional and Folk Music..................................………………………...50

New Mexico as a Fragmented Cultural System: Theoretical Framework……………………….51

Music-Culture as Ideology……………………………………………………………...…………52

Conceptual Remapping: Towards Southwestern Postmodernity....................................................65

Experimental Moment in Social Science...................................................................................….67

The Southwest United States: Multiethnic America and Greater Mexico.....…..............................69

Chapter Two: Historical Performance in the Postmodern Moment: NewMexican Music, Legends, and Politics during the Cuarto Centenario

History as Hegemony...................................................................................................................80

The People, The Nation, and the Political Possibilities for Folk Culture....................................90

Intellectual Leadership: Aurelio M. Espinosa 1880-1958..........................................................92

The Romance-Corrido: Emotional Core, Gendered Endings, and Performance Structure...........108

Spanish Folklore in the American Southwest: From Modernism to Facism.....................110

Music History and the Dialectical Struggle for Cultural Identity.............................................118

ix

Kinship, Accomodation, Conflict or Symbiosis: El Corrido de Rio Arriba…………………118

Al Hurricane: El Corrido de La Prision de Santa Fe ................................................................124

The 1998 Hispanic Cuarto Centenario.........................................................................................128

Controversy, Cultural Performance and El Corrido de Juan de Oñate…………………..…..130

Colonial Metaphors as the Adjunct of Legend in the Corrido...................................................134

Chapter Three: Ritual Performance of Music and Dance in Bernalillo, NewMexico: Las Fiestas de San Lorenzo

Ethnography of a Catholic Ritual in Bernalillo: Las Fiestas de San Lorenzo..............................141

"La Tradicion" and Devotion: Los Mayordomos...........................................................................144

The Ritual Context and Interpretation............................................................................................148

Doña Marina: colonial metaphor as modern legend......................................................................152

La Malinche in Los Matachines.....................................................................................................154

Recuerdos de Los Matachines: Memories of the Matachines.......................................................156

The Frontiers Between "Popular" and "Folk"................................................................................161

Popular Culture as Struggle Over Cultural Hegemony.................................................................162

Popular Music, Ritual Structure and the Carnivalesque................................................................163

Intellectualist versus Symbolist Interpretations……………………………………..…………..170

Redressive Action as Resistance: Comparative Symbology..........................................................173

The Historical Context of Expressive Performance......................................................................174

New Mexican Popular Tradional Music and Dancing 1692-1955...............................................181

Prospero S. Baca............................................................................................................................186

Charles Aguilar..............................................................................................................................187

The Plurality of Perspectives........................................................................................................189

Nato Chavez..................................................................................................................................199

Max Baca, Felipe Trujillo y su Conjuntos........................................................…………..…204

Trio Music in New Mexico...........................................................................................................207

El Chicanito, La Chicanita, Y Los Reyes de Albuquerque.........................................................207

Freddie Brown: Boracho Perdido.......................................................................................….......208

Post Chicano Music: The 1980's..................................................................................................210

The Reinvention of Tradition.........................................................................................................211

x

Chapter Four: Modern Sound Archives: The Ruben Cobós Collection of

Indo-Hispano Music

The Sound Archive in the Mexican-American Southwest............................................................218

Sound Archives and Ethnomusicology Today...............................................................................220

The Ruben Cobós Collection of Indo-Hispano Folklore..............................................................223

Field Notes……………………………………………………………………………………….238

Rowena Rivera………………………………………………………………………..…………242

Colonial Mexico………………………………………………………………………………246

La Aparición: A Fifteenth-Century Romance..............................................................................249

Chapter Five: Exoticism, Eroticism, and Mexican Popular Music in theUnited States

New Mestizos and Criollos...….........................................................……………………………257

New Directions in Hybridity Theory.............................................................................................259

1960s Echoes: Chicano Poetics, Cultural Loss and Longing Over the Politics of Language.....262

Mariachi Music in the Southwest: Linda Ronstadt........................................................................268

Exoticism..................................................................................................................................…..270

MTV Internacional.......................................................................................................................276

Eroticism and the Racialization of Musical Forms .....................................................................277

Musical Innovation and Musical Synthesis...................................................................................280

El Grupo Sparx…………………………………………………………………………………..280

Changing Demographics, Musical Tastes, and Social Geography............................................288

Afro-Caribbean Music in New Mexico………………………………………………..………289

Micky Cruz………………………………………………………………………………………291

Nueva Cancíon: Chuy Martinez…………………………………………………………………293

Nuevo Flamenco: Ruben Romero………………………………………………………………..294

Conclusion: Methodological Anxieties over Testing the Limits of Ethnography………….296

Appendix (Musical Transcriptions)...............................................................................................302

References......................................................................................................................................317

Vita.................................................................................................................................................342

1

Chapter One: Introduction and Statement of Purpose

This dissertation is a multi-sited ethnographic, historical, and at times

reflexive investigation of the dialectic of struggle and change in Southwestern

Mexican culture as seen through ritual and music from the 1940s to the present. I

intend to exemplify through different musical genres, ritual events, and

institutional practices the degree to which, in the Southwest, the politics of

identity have been and continue to be manipulated by the dominant culture.

Controversies over cultural performance, historical distortion (if not erasure)

through the romanticization of Spanish culture, and the replacement of Spanish by

English as the official language are symptomatic of a neocolonial superstructure.

We confront here the question of whether or not New Mexico fits the colonial

model, a question that the prominent ethnic studies scholar, Evelyn Hu-Dehart

answers in the affirmative (Romero personal communications 2000; see also

Bustamante 1991). I discuss some aspects of the culture in post-colonial terms,

however, each chapter analyzes different musics and events and their contexts of

conflict and struggle and resulting change and adaptation.

The thesis takes as a basic premise the idea that homogenization has taken

place in the popular Hispanic musical styles of the region as Mexican popular

music has gained acceptance over the past fifty years. Thus, the usual distinctions

made between the older Nuevo Mexicanos1and Mexican nationals is intentionally 1 Anthropologist Charles Briggs refers to the New Mexican performers ofCórdova as Mexicanos. His rationale is that "this is the term they most frequentlyuse in reference to their own ethnic group" (1988: xvi). In the past conflict existed

2

avoided, although I do not mean to imply that those cultural distinctions and

rivalries have been erased. Despite the intraethnic conflict mentioned above, New

Mexicans, knowingly or unknowingly, embraced Greater Mexican popular music. between migrant Mexicans and New Mexicans. This played itself out in namecalling with the New Mexicans referring to the Mexican braceros as surumatos(a derogatory label meaning from the south). The braceros called the NewMexicans manitos piñoneros meaning pine-nut picking brothers from the North.These are not the only appelations currently in use. Other labels include Hispanos,Nuevo Mexicanos, Chicanos, Hispanics, Mexicans, Latinos, Spanish-Americans,and Mexican-Americans. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution (2000), recentlyasked prominent community leaders which term should be used --- "Hispanic" or"Latino?" Businessmen said it was polite and appropriate to use the termsinterchangeably. Others argued “Hispanic is imprecise because it refers only topeople descended from Spain”. Following this rationale, it is true that millions ofpeople in Brazil, the most populous Latin American country, have spokenPortuguese since an explorer from Portugal arrived in 1500. Likewise, hundredsof thousands of indigenous Latin Americans descend from people who were therelong before the Europeans arrived and introduced foreign languages. Jose Cuello,associate professor of history at Wayne State University in Detroit, believespeople who prefer Hispanic often are eager to fit into mainstream Americansociety, while those who prefer Latino see the United States as a place wherethere are "still many civil rights to be gained." No doubt, these are political termsbecause the population of Latin American immigrants keeps growing throughoutthe United States. Experts say these questions underscore the difficulty of findingone appropriate term to adequately describe about 32 million people from morethan 20 countries with distinct cultures, histories, languages, and traditions. Untilthe mid-1960s, most Latin Americans identified themselves by their country oforigin --- there were Mexicans or Cubans but few Hispanics or Latinos, saidSuzanne Oboler, professor of American and ethnic studies at Brown Universityand author of Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives: Identity and the Politics ofRepresentation in the United States. The U.S. government adopted Hispanic in1973 and again in 1977 to monitor compliance with affirmative action laws andtrack population statistics. Latino emerged in the 1980s, Oboler writes, as a"grass-roots alternative" favored by some who were unhappy with a government-imposed term. By 1995, a census survey of Latin Americans found that 58 percentpreferred Hispanic while 12 percent chose Latino. These days, though, Latinoremains "in vogue." In 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau let people identifythemselves as "Spanish/Hispanic/Latino" --- the 1990 forms let people check abox marked "Spanish/Hispanic origin" but the question over identity continues. Iuse the term Hispano to refer to the mestizo peoples of Mexican descent in NewMexico, many of whom are descendants of original Spanish Mexican settlers in1598 and resettlers in 1693. Much of this population has intermarried with localNative-Americans, migrant Mexicans, and Anglo-Americans for over twocenturies.

3

Using the musical culture of the oldest Hispanic populations of the United States

to address questions regarding innovation and the invention of tradition,

creativity, and authenticity, I attempt to illuminate the modernization and

marginalization of Mexican culture in the region. A synchronic reclamation of

history, language, and culture through music suggests, however, that regional

differences among Hispanics of this region are less crucial than the reinforcement

of Hispanic culture in general, although the value systems appear to be changing

due to the cultural mixing that is also taking place.

Research Goals

This dissertation examines several genres, styles, and forms of traditional

and popular musics in Greater Mexico. Because of the United States multi-ethnic

population, in which Anglo-Americans, Native Americans, Mexican-Americans,

Jewish Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and other ethnic

“Americans” and foreign nationals figure prominently, various configuations of

ethnic identity exist at the national and state levels. In New Mexico these include

Hispanic, Latino, Chicano, and Hispano to name few. The current population of

the state according to recent census figures is 1.8 million people. Here I address

the performance of New Mexican Hispano identity and Spanish culture as

centralized and emergent within a broader national context. I am concerned with

national identity formation in the normative sense as defined by and in relation to

hegemonic forces, both de facto and symbolic.

To be sure, aspects of more localized identities, such as the contribution of

ethnic minorities to a general composite picture of Greater Mexican or Hispanic

4

identity are not ignored, especially in the case of the Mexicano population at large

with regard to musical development. My goal, however, is to reveal the normative

facets comprising the notion of New Mexican identity as it continues to be shaped

for and by the general population through specific musicians in response to

historical and hegemonic forces. In my earnest attempt to comprehend more

critically the conflicting and contradictory nature of New Mexican Hispano

identity, I utilize various types of cultural expressions, such as narrative folk

balladry (i.e. romances, corridos, cuandos, and inditas), and popular musical

styles (i.e. conjunto, orquesta típica, and mariachi); and I discuss several artists

(local, national, and transnational).

The reason for this ambitious approach is as ethnomusicologist Mark

Slobin explains,

We need to think of music as coming from many places andmoving among many levels of today’s societies, just as we havelearned to think of groups and nations as volatile, mutable socialsubstances rather than as fixed units for instant analysis. Yet anymoment we can see music at work in rather specific ways, creatingtemporary forcefields of desire, belonging, and, at times,transcendence (1993: x).

This multi-sited approach follows an emergent methodological trend in

ethnographical research that concerns the adaptation of long-standing modes of

ethnographic practices to more complex objects of study. Ethnography moves

from its conventional single-sited location, contextualized by macro-constructions

of a larger social order such as the capitalist world system to multiple sites of

observation and participation that cross-cut dichotomies such as the “local” and

the “global” and the “lifeworld” and the “system” (Marcus 1995: 95).

Anthropologist George Marcus explains,

5

Resulting ethnographies are therefore both in and out of the worldsystem. The anxieties to which this methodological shift gives rise areconsidered in terms of testing the limits of ethnography, attenuatingthe power of fieldwork, and losing the perspective of the subaltern.The emergence of multi-sited ethnography is located within newspheres of interdisciplinary work, including media studies, science andtechnology studies, and cultural studies broadly (Ibid.).

Slobin suggests that “the nice thing about music is that it combines the

local and the national, the immediate and the intercultural” (1993: 10). Following

Slobin’s approach, I am interested in music-cultural interaction, within small

groups, between social groupings, and with the powers that be (institutions and

ideology, artists and intellectuals) that set the tone, make the rules, and provide

the resources. New Mexico’s long colonial history constitutes a meaningful forum

for understanding the interplay between the maintenance of traditional New

Mexican musical culture, ethnicity, and identity and the development of Greater

Mexican expressive culture and ethnic consciousness in the twentieth century. By

maintainance I refer to local government, commercial tourism, business and

educational sectors of New Mexican society. New Mexican music-culture has in

the past been represented as a “simple” society yet as Slobin concludes

“”complex” is too flat a word to describe the nestings and foldings, the cracks and

the crannies of the lands of Euro-America” (1993: xi).

For my purpose here, Comaroff provides useful working definitions of

ethnicity and ethnic consciousness. To wit,

Ethnicity refers to the manifest ordering, in both categorical andorganizational terms, of material, political, and social relationsbetween groupings defined by presumptive biological and/orcultural criteria. Ethnic consciousness denotes the apprehension byexperiencing social actors of such relations, as well as the

6

imputation to them of the capacity to influence individual andcollective action in the world (1987: n1).

Further, following Comaroff’s understanding, although ethnicity always

has its genesis in specific historical forces, within any society its meaning and

functions are transformed over time (Van Ness 1987: 4). Government policy

directives related to socio-cultural processes such as modernization,

industrialization, and urbanization are intertwined in the politics over local and

national identity which are often in conflict with local cultural history and

ethnicity. In terms of the colonial model established by the Spanish casta system,

criollos and mestizos held distinct social status. The criollos were whites born in

the New World. According to ethnomusicologist Brenda Romero,

For many generations (and long before New Mexico became astate in 1912), Spanish-Mexicans of this region denied any directacknowledgment of the mixing of Comanche, Diné (Navajo andApache), Ute, and Pueblo Indians with Españoles (Spaniards) orHispanos (Spanish acculturated mestizos). People were oftensecretive about their Indian relatives, and the imposition of Spanishsurnames obscured indigenous ancestries, aiding the process ofsuppression (2001).

Today a new class of criollos or mestizos in New Mexico has emerged.

These people are Hispanos (Spanish acculturated mestizos) who intermarried with

U.S. whites (Anglo-Americans) after the era of Americanization (1848) of this

region. Thus, the term creolization in a general sense here implies the whitening

of culture and race. On the other hand, the term mestizo in the Spanish casta

system was basically the mixture of white with Indians. Mestizaje of course

continues along the same continuum of human miscegenation but I do not

consider it as necessarily the antithesis of creolization. I will examine creolization

models later.

7

With regard to both colonial and modern manifestations of either this

“new” mestizaje or emergence of a modern criollo class of New Mexicans, a

substantial portion of the contemporary population have intermarried with people

composed of various racial mixtures, ethnicities, and differing degrees of cultural

hybridity. Additionally, the local term coyote has particular relevance in

contemporary and colonial New Mexican parlance and culture. According to the

art historian Chris Wilson, "in colonial times coyote was a mildly derogatory term

for a person of mixed Spanish-Indian ancestry, who might be darker-skinned or

less acculturated to Spanish ways than a mestizo, but by the late 1800s, the ethnic

term was extended to those of mixed Hispano-Anglo ancestry" (1997:171).

Members of this latter group are now beginning to assume leadership

positions in New Mexico. In the past, intermarriage was indicated by most

females by the hyphenated surnames such as Nina Otero-Warren (1936) and

Aurora Lucero-White (1941 a & b; 1953). These happen to be two examples of

prominent writers among the Mexicano intellectual and political classes who

intermarried with Anglo-Americans and retained both surnames as a result of

their marriage status. At the end of the twentieth century, when no signifiers are

used to denote the mixed ethnicity, offspring of mixed-marriage of course is more

problematic.

Take for example, U.S. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson, various

university professors, and other “coyotes” who have assumed political and

intellectual leadership positions but who are also descendants of mixed parentage

and ancestry. Like the criollos during colonial times, they enjoy a somewhat

privileged but nevertheless marginalized status within New Mexican society. This

8

study examines the ways in which Greater Mexican popular music is influencing

and being influenced by emerging value systems resulting from these

“postmodern” cultural mixtures that have retained many aspects of a postcolonial

superstructure. The complex, contradictory, and fragmented identities of this

postcolonial society may be seen through New Mexican social organization,

ethnohistorical experience, and expressive culture. These modes have shown that

the heart of contemporary ethnographic analysis is not in the reclamation of some

previous cultural state or its subtle preservation despite changes, but rather in the

new cultural forms to which changes in colonial subaltern situations have given

rise (Marcus 1995: 96).

The deliberate manipulation of certain cultural symbols beginning before

1940, such as the hierarchical social ordering of criollos, mestizos, and coyotes on

the part of the dominant hegemonic order poses some timely questions for the

student of ethnomusicology. Particularly noteworthy, for example, is the

development of an economic industrial base almost entirely dependent on cultural

tourism since the Coronado Cuarto Centennial (1940), a landmark celebration

marking the Hispanic contribution to national heritage. The influence of

professional folklorists in forging ethnic identity through cultural poetics

throughout the twentieth century may also be seen as a subversive maneuver on

the part of the dominant hegemony that fuels interethnic conflict. These questions

hold significance for social scientists because, as ethnomusicologist John

Blacking has proposed (1974), the nature of musical activity can serve as a key to

understanding other aspects of a group’s culture and social organization. This

interpretation can be especially useful when we link musical culture to its larger

9

social base. It is in this spirit that the research for this study of New Mexican

popular music was conducted. George Marcus explains,

The other, much less common mode of ethnographic research self-consciously embedded in a world system, now often associated withthe intellectual capital labeled postmodern, moves out from the singlesites and local situations of conventional ethnographic researchdesigns to examine the circulation of cultural meanings, objects, andidentities in diffuse time-space. This mode defines for itself an objectof study that cannot be accounted for ethnographically by remainingfocused on a single-site of intensive investigation. It develops instead astrategy or design of research that acknowledges macrotheoreticalconcepts and narratives of the world system but does not rely on themfor the architecture framing a set of subjects. This mobile ethnographytakes unexpected trajectories in tracing a cultural formation across andwithin multiple sites of activity that destabilize the distinction, forexample between lifeworld and system, by which ethnography hasbeen conceived (Marcus 1995: 96).

Design and Organization

This chapter reviews a few of the ethnomusicological investigations that

inform this study, as well as the literature on the Hispanic regional musics of

Greater Mexico. It is difficult to discuss the Hispanic Southwest as a unified

cultural area. Nevertheless, the region shares several points in common with Latin

America. These are as follows: 1) Iberian colonialism since the sixteenth century;

2) the formation of nation-states during the nineteenth century; 3) economic,

political, and cultural domination by the United States throughout the twenteith

century; 4) the formation of gendered identities and stereotypes rooted in the

personalities involved with the Spanish Conquest of the Indians; 5) and the

development of the North American Free Trade Agreement at the end of the

twentieth century. This chapter also reviews much of the recent social science

literature completed in the Hispanic Southwest and establishes a more general

10

intellectual history of the state and thus better theoretical framework from which

to proceed to further ethnographic and historical investigation.

This study aims not so much at a comprehensive history of New Mexican

popular musics as an interpretive one. Consequently, while the historical scope is

intentionally broad—generally covering the period from 1598 to the present—the

main focus is on the period from 1940s to the present. This is the historical

moment when Greater Mexican popular musics such as conjunto, orquesta, and

mariachi emerged as highly organized styles with a strong base of social support

that transformed the musics into highly powerful symbols of Mexicanos across

the Southwest. In undertaking the task of an interpretive history of New Mexican

popular musics and culture, I have tried to adhere as closely and explicitly as

possible to certain appropriate ideas taught to me by my teachers, and in particular

their observations of key aspects of music such as its close association with

specific segments of society: the working, middle, as well as the intellectual and

political elite classes. My hypotheses, in turn, are informed by my own

interpretation of a large body of literature on culture generally, on Southwestern

cultures specifically, as well as an equally extensive literature on class, ideology,

and hegemony. Raymond William’s concept of hegemony is most useful in this

examination of the dominant academic discourse devoted to music.

According to Raymond Williams, while rule (dominio) is directly

exercised by the state; hegemony stands as "a complex interlocking of political,

social, and cultural forces" (1977: 108). Williams points out the way that

hegemony extends the control of the dominant sector into daily life of the society

11

through diffuse elements that are generally termed "superstructure" or

"ideological" in Marxist theory. Williams explains,

[Hegemony] is a lived system of meanings and values--constitutiveand constituting--which as they are experienced as practices appear asreciprocally confirming. It thus constitutes a sense of reality for mostpeople in the society, a sense of absolute because experienced realitybeyond which it is very difficult for most members of the society tomove, in most areas of their lives. It is, that is to say, in the strongestsense a “culture”, but a culture which has also to be seen as the liveddominance and subordination of particular classes (1977: 110).

Added to this was, of course, my reading and understanding of the literature on

folklore, sociology, and anthropology. Chapter 2 provides a detailed historical

context for understanding the contributions of folk musicians and dancers to the

dialectic of identity performance and controversy. The concept of hegemony also

informs my analysis of the development of music genres, styles, and artists (as

cultural symbols) over time, illustrating how cultural values, musical systems, and

local conceptualizations of Greater Mexican music became "distressed." This was

the result of the historical ravages of the professionalization of musical folklore

and folklorists, the modernization of older genres and styles, and the academic

institutionalization in the formation of collections and archives. Distortion took

place as scholars sought to establish the notion of a genuine "Spanish" culture,

while ignoring the cultural transformation that was actually taking place in

musical life. Hence they rendered a romanticized musical history of the region

useful to the development of historical and cultural tourism.

In short, utilizing a set of theoretical principles, I set out to interpret the

crucial connection between New Mexican balladry and other forms of the past

and the society within which it found expression. Chapter 2 also presents a

12

comprehensive discussion of other kinds of cultural symbols and their

significance in the process of transnational identity construction and economic

alliance among whites, or "Anglos," Native-Americans, Mexicans, Latinos, and

Chicanos of the region. The significances relegated to the 1940 Coronado Cuarto

Centennial and the 1998 Hispanic Cuarto Centenario by Mexican, Anglo, and

Indian peoples living in the Southwest are especially suitable to such an analysis.

The Conquest of Mexico, begun in 1519 by the Spanish conquistadores, is

a pervasive subtext for Greater Mexican culture in Mexico and the U.S..

Consequently, the Cuarto Centenario evoked a great deal of controversy, both

locally and nationally, calling attention to the Spanish invasion and colonization

of Indian peoples. Here archetypal patterns form important myths and reinforce

black legends and negative stereotypes more consequential than historical reality.

An easy target, Hispanics were easily demonized during this time as Anglo

hegemonic domination grew stronger, as reflected by local political elections.

According to Sandra Messinger Cypess:

the historical event [Spanish conquest] has been described, interpreted,and converted into a symbolic construct that is reinterpreted by eachsuccessive generation. The conquest remains a reverberating presence inthe Mexican and Latin American psyche, and the characters of thedramatic spectacle sustain both Mexican and world literature (1991: 1).

Field Experience and Methodology

Chapter 3 is a music ethnography, based on field research2, that deals with

conflict and struggle between the past and the present, as reflected in the music,

2 Fieldwork in New Mexico during August 1995 through January 1996 and July 1997 throughAugust 1998 was supported by a student internship at the New Mexico National Hispanic CulturalCenter in Albuquerque. Additional support and assistance was provided by the Department of

13

dance, and beliefs surrounding the Fiestas de San Lorenzo in Bernalillo, New

Mexico. I am a native of New Mexico and conducted formal field research there

between 1996 and 1998 for a total of 18 months. During this time I lived in

Albuquerque, the economic epicenter of the state. Most of my research was

completed in Bernalillo, a small city located north of Albuquerque between

Sandia and Santa Ana Pueblos in Sandoval county. The methods I used in the

field were those that I felt adequately clarified the connection given the limited

research resources available to me. I settled primarily on the ethnographic

interview, which aimed at obtaining as complete an oral history covering modern

Nuevo Mexicano music history and culture as possible from each person

interviewed.

The diversity of Bernalillo's religious life reflects New Mexico's long

history and the struggle between older, more traditional lifestyles and those of

modern cosmopolitan Albuquerque. The annual Fiestas de San Lorenzo provided

a detailed ritual context through which to examine traditional and modern musical

styles within a local cultural performance context. It provided me with the

opportunity to interview several community musicians, dancers, and culture

experts. Aside from the popularity of flamenco and Spanish guitar in New

Mexico, Greater Mexican musics, represented by conjunto or norteño, mariachi,

and orquesta tipica, have been the most common outside influence into the

region. Norteño music as reinterpreted in New Mexico usually deals with Nuevo

Mejicano aspirations, religious values, ideas, and experience which we will Music and the Center for Regional Studies at the University of New Mexico. Likewise theBowdoin College Music Department and Colorado College Music Department and Hulbert Centerfor Southwest Studies supported the writing of this dissertation.

14

examine in detail in chapter three. Yet, the style is rather placid and conservative

following a long period of crystalization in other areas such as Texas.

Most of the research associates I interviewed were ritual experts,

performers, or radio disc jockeys. In the case of the musicians, I gathered personal

data, which were then integrated with the person’s musical career, his/her

relationship to other musicians and to his/her audiences, and his/her

understanding of the regional music history and its later development. Lastly, I

spent many hours as a participant and observer of Las Fiestas de San Lorenzo

which was the principal context for the enactment of various styles of musics. I

attended parties, dances, masses, all-night prayer vigils, and danced with

community members following the performances of Los Matachines.

What I realized from my research was that the relationship between a field

worker and his/her research associates is an extremely delicate and complicated

one. As ethnographers, we are accountable for the reports we write and must

present accurate accounts of the information our collaborators graciously consent

to share with us. We must also take care that we do not distort the data we intend

to present. I have tried my best to present an accurate and balanced an account,

given the limited time in the field, very sparse resources, and my personal

limitations. My aim was to investigate the ritual context where cultural expression

emerges through music and to provide an analytic interpretation that would

violate neither my research associates’ testimonies nor the canons of social

science inquiry.

According to George Marcus, in conducting multi-sited research, one

encounters all sorts of cross-cutting and contradictory personal commitments. He

15

notes that these conflicts are resolved, perhaps ambivalently, not by refuge in

being a detached anthropological scholar, but in being a sort of ethnographer-

activist, renegotiating identities in different sites as one learns more about a slice

of the world system. Marcus explains,

The movement among sites (and levels of society) lends a character ofactivism to such an investigation. That is, it is not (necessarily) thetraditional self-defined activist role claimed by the left-liberal scholarfor his or her work. That is, it is not the activism claimed in relation toaffiliation with a particular social movement outside academia or thedomain of research, nor is it the academic claim to an imaginedvanguard role for a particular style of writing of scholarship withreference to a posited ongoing politics in a society of culture at aspecific historic moment. Rather, it is activism quite specific andcircumstantial to the conditions of doing multi-sited research itself(1995: 113).

Musicians are not the only people vitally connected with the music. Mark

Slobin has eloquently shown how ensembles “serve as the nuclei for the free-

floating units of our social atmosphere” (1990: 98). Likewise, music scholars

give life to the music through their investigations and scholarly activities and they

are instrumental in discovering it’s cultural symbols and capital. Chapter 4

includes a more detailed case study of the Rubén Cobos archival collection of

what he termed Indo-Hispano music. The label Indo-Hispano today would be yet

another distortion when we consider the fact that New Mexico’s Indian and

Hispano people have intermarried with Anglos, Mexicans, and countless other

ethnic Americans and foreign nationals. Rubén Cobos was a professor of Spanish

who worked at the University of New Mexico from the 1940s until his retirement

in the 1970s. He collected several songs, riddles, stories, and other forms of

expressive culture from Bernalillo and throughout New Mexico and southern

Colorado.

16

Since so much New Mexican music has been collected and archived, this

chapter considers several debates and issues central to the process of music

archiving, collection, transcription, and analysis. It would have been impossible to

study all of the New Mexican music archives in a study such as this. Nonetheless,

I trust that the present work has achieved at least the fundamental goal that I had

set out for myself. It appears that the process of institutionalization itself

contributed to the general historical distortion taking place in the hegemonic

discourse of professional academics and the cultural poetics of this time.

The final chapter extends the analysis to Texas and Arizona, examining

very recent Mexican music in the U. S. in order to trace contemporary patterns of

musical diffusion from throughout the borderlands and into New Mexico. I intend

to contextualize the broader regional culture in New Mexico within a more

cosmopolitan mainly urban and transitory society characteristic of the nature of

the Mexicano culture within the borderlands. A more postmodern analysis of

Latina subjectivity, the substitution of English for Spanish, and the recent trend of

commodifying Spanish languages via cable television, radio, and other media

indicates that, while commercial Hispanic identities may present a rosy picture of

contemporary social life, they obscure growing economic disparities; a rise in

suicide among all ages; and drug, alcohol, and gambling addictions among New

Mexican people. As the social theorist Raymond Williams suggests, politics of

domination invade all aspects of social life (Williams 1977: 110).

Because of a common Spanish colonial heritage, New Mexico shares a

living musical legacy with the rest of Latin America. Yet traditional New

Mexican music developed separately, incorporating first Native American

17

influences from the Pueblo, Diné (Navajo and Apache), Ute, Comanche, and

other Plains and Southwest Indians, Aztec and other Mexican Indians, along with

the Andalusían, Sephardic, Moorish, and other musical influences already present

in Spanish music at the time of the Conquest. Beginning in the nineteenth century,

migrant Mexican and Anglo-American musics joined the mixture and by the end

of the twentieth century, New Mexico may be seen as an important cultural

crossroads for various styles of Latino musics and their meanings within national

and international politics.

This study concludes that music of this region fulfills an active role in

mediating conflict and struggle in the folk and popular arenas. The methods I

have employed emphasize the symbolic aspects of musical styles, forms, artists,

and genres as seen within a broader cultural system of lived values, experiences,

and meanings. Rather than identifying with the mainstream, however, in general

the outcome of the mediation is a greater identification with Mexican forms and

culture, reflecting an intensification of identity and cultural politics between the

mainstream and Hispanics (and sympathetic whites) in the Southwest.

Nonetheless, New Mexico's music is becoming more integrated within Greater

Latin American culture. As we begin the new century, New Mexico's Hispanic

music scene reflects the diversity and increasing influence of Greater Mexican

and other Latin American music-cultures in the Land of Enchantment.

18

Musical Change and Historical Continuity

Music may be seen as an important aspect of daily life for Hispanic New

Mexicans. It has been one of many attributes contributing to the strong identity of

the region along with language, land, water, and history. According to Anthony

Seeger, "history is the subjective understanding of the past from the perspective of

the present" (1993: 23). Although there is no agreement over methodology for

historical ethnomusicology, research approaches are varied, interesting, and open

to further experimentation. One approach used by ethnomusicologists attempts to

deal with musical change, especially change as the result of European encounters

with non-Western people around the globe (see e.g. Hardgrave & Slawek 1988).

Bruno Nettl's essay "The Continuity of Change" (1983) also illustrates the popular

conception of the epistemological differences between the music historian and the

ethnomusicologist which is central to the debate over change or continuity in

music. Nettl writes:

A cliché about musical scholarship once divided scholars intohistorical musicologists, for whom music changes, andethnomusicologists, whose emphasis is on what remains constant.The historians, it was thought, compare musical cultures at variouspoints in their history, trace origins and antecedents and temporalrelationships among repertories, pieces, composers, schools ofmusicians. Ethnomusicologists, seeing music as something whichdoes not change, or in which change is an incidental, disturbing,exceptional, polluting factor, make synchronic comparisons. Allthis despite the widespread belief in ethnomusicology as a fieldthat holds on to disappearing traditions and may in the end tell usthe origins of music (1983: 172).

We can see that this defining character no longer applies. Previous music-

historicism has set out to interpret aesthetic change as a result of stylistic

transformations or structural modifications to compositional procedure. These

19

types of studies are common in historical musicology journals more than in

mainstream ethnomusicology studies. Explaining this approach, historical

musicologist Carl Dahlhaus regards history as a form of "memory made

scientific," and as such, music histories have always been ambiguous in function

(1977: 3).

Direct historical evidence exists in the form of written documents such as

music reviews, journalism, program liner notes, popular literature, and past

criticism, as well as iconographic and archeological records. While written

documents may seem to unlock doors to past musical performances, public

concerts, and other musical events, they are in fact a reinterpretation and/or

reconstruction of literary forms of memory. Dahlhaus proposes that the concept of

continuity "is the principal basis for writing history in narrative form" (ibid.). He

also points out that this basic tenet, which is central to any form of musical

analysis, is under intense scholarly scrutiny and criticism.

Popular music scholar, Richard Middleton points out several problems in

the methods, assumptions, and ideologies which constitute “mainstream

musicology” in the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries that renders it

inadequate for understanding culture. He lists three main aspects of the problem:

The first is a terminology slanted by the needs and history of aparticular music ('classical music'). This has two sides. On the onehand, there is a rich vocabulary for certain areas, important inmusicology's typical corpus, and an impoverished vocabulary forothers, which are less well developed there. . . The second aspectof the problem is a methodology slanted by the characteristics ofnotation. . . In the first place it means that musicological methodstend to foreground those musical parameters which can be easilynotated; discrete pitches within the diatonic/chromatic system;organized combinations of such pitches (chords) and of melodicparts using those pitches (counterpoint); mathematically simple

20

durational relationships; through- composed structures (involvingrelationships of phrases, sections, and movements, and thematicrelationships and developments); combinations of voices andinstruments (texture; orchestration) (1990: 106).

The third aspect of the “musicological problem” is an ideology slanted by the

origins and development of musicology itself. This took place in intimate

relationship with the development of a particular body of music and its aesthetics

(Middleton 1990: 106). Issues of representation multiply for ethnomusicologists,

who must devise ways of accurately transcribing musical sounds. Audio recording

technologies have advanced this process furthest, but debates over methods of

recording music remain ongoing and open (see, for example, Ellingson 1992a,b;

England 1964; List 1974; Herndon 1974; A. Seeger 1987:102; Shelemay and

Jeffery 1993: 2-30).

Music-Culture History

According to Alan Merriam, the use of music as a technique for the

understanding and reconstruction of culture history has long been a part of

ethnomusicology, as students of the discipline applied various methodologies and

borrowed from evolutionary and diffusionist theories of anthropology (1964:

277). Naturally, such approaches soon fell out of vogue as theoretical

frameworks. However, at the time Merriam was writing, there was a resurgence

of interest in ethnohistorical studies, especially among Africanists. The main

focus of Merriam’s discussion is how music is used in reconstructing culture

history.

He explains at least three possibilities to this end. The first regards the

culture history of any group as a "description of a way of life; that is, at any

21

particular point in time the culture inventory of a people contains certain items

which tell us something about the people and their way of life" (1964: 277).

Second, in considering the reconstruction of culture history, there is implied a

dynamic of culture change. In this approach, history is regarded as a process of

time. Music has a special relationship to this process and enables the researcher to

reconstruct what has happened in the past. Finally, music is considered as a

specific tool in attempting to solve the problem of reconstructing history. Merriam

notes that "we must inevitably raise the question of whether there is anything

unique, or special about the tool which makes it particularly applicable" (1964:

278).

Merriam's approach was similar to earlier ones put forth by anthropologist

Alfred Kroeber. Kroeber expressed somewhat similar concerns over historical

methods. He notes:

What evidently takes the place of the formulation of law, inintellectual operations on the cultural level, is the recognition ofsignificances, including values. At any rate this holds in the degreethat the approach to consideration of the phenomena is historical inkind, in the sense in which a historical approach has already beenreferred to as distinct from (though complementary to) the morenarrowly scientific or nomothetic one (Bohanan and Glazer 1988:112).

Kroeber's notion of history in its specific sense is clearly the history

studied by historians. With only an occasional recognition of dashes of influence

from inanimate nature or organic race, this is mixed as to its content: a jumble of

pieces of individual biographies, more or less dramatic events, social contacts and

clashes, definition of or implicit reference to institutions, that is, cultural forms

and their succession. Kroeber believed that the recognized failure of history to

22

discover laws may perhaps be due partly to the fact that it operates with its

materials nearly as mixed as they come to hand, without consistently selecting

them according to one or another aspect of principle.

Kroeber also pointed out the notorious weakness of historians in

successfully assigning causes. He notes "they can ordinarily deal best with minute

and immediate ones; why the Bastille fell on July 14 and not 15, as against the

causes of the French Revolution—this failure of the historians is compensated for

by their ability to express significances" (ibid.). Anthropologist Eric Wolf also

criticizes the ways in which history is written. He points out the problems with a

developmental scheme which he found misleading. He explains:

We have been taught, inside the classroom and outside of it, thatthere exists an entity called the West, and that one can think of thisWest as a society and civilization independent of and in oppositionto other societies and civilizations. Many of us even grew upbelieving that this West has a genealogy, according to whichancient Greece begat Rome, Rome begat Christian Europe,Christian Europe begat the Renaissance, the Renaissance theEnlightenment, the Enlightenment political democracy and theindustrial revolution, Industry, crossed with democracy, in turnyielding the United States, embodying the rights to life, liberty,and the pursuit of happiness (Wolf 1982: 5).

Wolf explains this approach is misleading because it turns history into a

moral success story, a race in time in which each runner of the race passes on the

torch of liberty to the next relay. History is thus converted into a tale about the

advancement of virtue, about how the virtuous win out over the bad guys.

Frequently, this turns into a story of how the winners prove that they are virtuous

and good by winning. If history is the working out of a moral purpose in time,

then those who lay claim to that purpose are by the fact the predilect agents of

23

history. Wolf concludes, "if history is but a tale of unfolding moral purpose, then

each link in the genealogy, each runner in the race, is only a precursor of the final

apotheosis and not a manifold of social and cultural processes at work in their

own time and place" (ibid.).

Treating subjects like science, art, music, or history in opposition assumes

a "stable internal architecture in the determining of facts of any sort" (ibid.). This

wrongly assumes "external definable boundaries" and only interferes with the

ability to understand complex relations, mutual encounters, or confrontations.

According to Wolf:

Arranging imaginary building blocks into pyramids called East andWest, or First, Second, and Third Worlds, merely compounds thatdifficulty. It is thus likely that we are dealing with some conceptualshortcomings in our ways of looking at social and politicalphenomena, and not just a temporary aberration. We seem to havetaken a wrong turn in understanding at some critical point in thepast, a false choice that bedevils our thinking in the present (1982:7).

Similarly David Morley argues, “that 'modernity' is as much a

geographical as a temporal concept" (Morley and Chen 1996: 328). He explains

this in the following quote,

Modernity is usually equated, somewhat unproblematically withthe history of societies of the industrial West. The correlative ofthat, of course, is that the societies of the Orient are then equatedwith the realm of tradition, and of the past. Onto the geography ofEast and West is directly mapped the distinction between the pre-modern and the modern. The category 'West' has long signified thepositional superiority of Europe, and later of the United States, inrelation to the rest of the world. Modernization has itself long beenequated with Americanization (ibid.).

24

Paradigmatic Shifts During the 1970s

Following the important investigations of Alan Lomax and John Blacking,

American ethnomusicology seemed to splinter in two distinct directions. Those

with anthropological training typically followed the ideas of Alan Merriam, while

those with more musicological backgrounds followed a performance situated

approach developed by Mantle Hood. Hood's views were pioneering, in particular

his ideas based on structural linguistics of the 1970s. His bimusicality model

remained in vogue until very recently. Nevertheless, Hood's emphasis on learning

non-Western music via performance remains vital to the broader intellectual

history of ethnomusicology today.

Another American musicologist working during the 1970s was Gilbert

Chase, who was first to propose a reorientation toward what he called a cultural

musicology. In an important paper called American Musicology and the Social

Sciences, he suggested a direction with a larger scope than that of previous

historical musicology (1972). This was similar to cultural anthropology models

described by David G. Mandelbaum in the International Encyclopedia of the

Social Sciences.

According to Chase, the task of cultural musicology was "to study the

similarities and differences in musical behavior among human groups, to depict

the character of the various musical cultures of the world and the processes of

stability, change, and development that are characteristic to them" (1972: 220).

Elsewhere, Chase further criticized the "historico-centric" bias of musicology and

proposed the acceptance of Lévi-Strauss's notion of the basic equivalence of

25

history and anthropology as studies of cultures that are removed, either by time or

space, from our own.

Practice Theory

Ethnomusicologist Tom Turino concludes "one of the central concerns in

the social sciences during the 1980s has been how to come to grips with the

dialectic between social determinations--thought of as structures--and the

practices of individuals which, at once, constitute the structures and are

determined by them" (1990: 399). Expanding Charles Seeger's notion of the

lingocentric dilemma to other realms of nonlinguistic discourse and action, the

dialectic between "theory" and "practice" suggest for Turino both internalized

visions of the world that influence individual practice, and theories about the

relationship between internalized dispositions and action which are sometimes

deduced from observing practices.

Turino explains that the new "practice-theorists" have once again stressed

the dangers of excessive academic emphasis on structure, rules, and the reification

of other peoples’ lives through "scientific" objectification, language, and writing

(Turino op. cit.). Turino considers "practice theory" in regard to its value as well

as its more problematic aspects for musical ethnographers. His model, predicated

on Pierre Bourdieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice (1977 [1972]) proposes a

metaphorical notion of context as an ever-expanding series of concentric rings

with pathways that cross and connect them (op. cit.: 400). Discovery of spoken

musical theory by natives is bound to lead to an artificial account.

Turino believes that this approach grants privilege to a certain way of

knowing basic to Western society and the academy, and to the primacy of the

26

linguistic code which, itself, may be a culturally specific attitude or may

incorporate culturally specific attitudes. Bourdieu explains that the theory of

knowledge is a dimension of political theory because the specifically symbolic

power to impose the principles of the construction of reality -- in particular, social

reality -- is a major dimension of political power (1977: 165). Ethnomusicologist

Brenda Romero argues, however, that this criticism runs counter to the notion of

context as a series of interactive concentric rings, for in reality language is a basic

component of intercultural communication in a global context. Further, she offers

that “natives” are capable of critically discerning cultural attitudes in foreign

linguistic codes, and cites in particular the work of ethnolinguist Keith Basso

(1979) in support of her views (personal communication, 2000). Likewise,

George Marcus explains,

Cultural logics so much sought after in anthropology are alwaysmultiply produced, and any ethnographic account of these logics findsthat they are at least partly constituted within sites of the so-calledsystem (i.e. modern interlocking institutions of media, markets, states,industries, universities- the worlds of elites, experts, and middleclasses. Strategies of quite literally following connections,associations, and putative relationships are thus at the very heart ofdesigning multi-sited ethnographic research (Marcus 1995: 97).

Ethnomusicologist William Noll suggests that much of the energy of a

large number of researchers, including many ethnomusicologists, seems to be

taken up in following and adapting to academic fashions--"current intellectual

trends"--even to the point where a search for the new is uncomfortably similar to

a pursuit of the trendy. This is what George List referred to as the wish to be au

courant when he suggested that successful or "correct" academic writing requires

27

that one discover then follow current academic fashions, utilizing the most up-to-

date sources, theories, methodologies, and buzzwords. Noll explains,

Viewed in this context, the "marketplace of ideas" seems to be aconsumer's market. I am not suggesting that the passing parade ofacademic fashions ought to be disregarded, although a healthyskepticism seems in order. Among other things, academic fashionshelp broaden the focus with a wide variety of possible researchmodes and methods as well as theories, especially if viewed fromthe perspective of a historiographer. Of course, all interpretationsare not equally accepted by all academics, nor should they be. Bynecessity, certain interpretations are preferred as more interesting,more useful, or more authentic--or regrettably as more fashionableand up-to-date. We select those partners, living and dead, withwhom we wish to work. And how could it be otherwise? (Barz andCooley 1997: 167).

Despite Romero’s criticism, Turino's paradigm does, however, bring us to

major contradictions within capitalism, and the consequent strategies of

institutions in the center countries that directed imperialistic relations with places

like Peru. According to Turino, people throughout Latin America have come to

accept such diminutive rubrics --"folk" and "folklore" --to define who they are

and what they do vis-á-vis the elite classes in the drive for respectability, just as

many have accepted the Western performance contexts such as the theatre, stage,

and recording studio as the ultimate acid-test of legitimacy (1990: 408). I will

illustrate how this same theoretical framework may be applied to other colonized

areas of Latin America such as preindustrial New Mexico. What we will see are

the results of the proletarianization of the working class and their cultural

expression through musical protest, folklorized history, and political action.

Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History

One of the most comprehensive historical studies to date is

Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History (Blum et. al. 1993). This publication

28

is the most reliable compilation of essays devoted to historical ethnomusicology

and is edited by three noted scholars in the field. The editors of this volume

realize there remains much disagreement over the “division of musicological

labor” facing ethnomusicologists in the development of a historical scheme or

research strategy. Stephen Blum notes that "attempts to limit the scope of

ethnomusicology (whether to "orally transmitted," "traditional," "non-Western,"

or "ethnic" music) have run up against the realities of practices that move across

these categories” and “the recognition that musical power remains a vital source

of nourishment for many of the world's peoples” (Blum et. al. 1993: 17). In this

sense, music may be seen as empowering the world’s populations in maintaining

a living history that is enduring and meaningful to those who experience it.

The authors of Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History encourage

investigators and specialists to develop critical methods and interdisciplinary

approaches that allow their research and enquiry to be completed with current

issues of interest central to many diverse disciplines. Research strategies,

methodological practices, past studies, and other scholarly contributions from

comparative musicology, musical folklore, musical ethnography, and popular

music studies must all be under constant scrutiny, reconsideration, and

reexamination, and open to new dialogue and debate. Historical

ethnomusicologists must be willing to question "the terms in which problems are

defined" (Blum et. al. 1993: 19). Heeding the challenge, I have already discussed

my research strategies and methodological practices earlier. I will explicate my

own theoretical framework as soon as I reconsider and scrutinize the position of

my own work within a broader social science called American ethnomusicology.

29

American Ethnomusicology

According to Helen Myers, "Native American music has contributed more

than any other repertory to the development of American ethnomusicology"

(1992: 404). While I appreciate the struggles in getting ethnomusicology

formally institutionalized in the American higher educational system, I must

question the implications of such result from the rapid institutionalization of

ethnomusicology. The marginalization of "minorities" in higher education, that

already existed prior to the inclusion of ethnomusicology as an academic

discipline persists today, and doubly affects people of color who choose

disciplines that challenge the status quo, in the way that does ethnomusicology

within university music departments.

Among Mexicanos in the Southwest, our institutions continue to benefit

mostly those members of American society that oppress us. As intellectual

leaders, my Chicano professors have taught me that danger is not a place you run

away from but a place you go towards. In this way, it is my feeling that

ethnomusicology along with other forms of critical theory in the academy

represents a moment of extraordinary danger. This is not because of the number

of available jobs, or how much money is obtainable in the form of grants and

faculty salaries. Instead, the professionalization of ethnomusicology places an

incredible pressure on people to do what they believe is critical social action in

formats defined by the institution. The promotional stakes and publication

opportunities suggest that the requirement of theoretical fluency as the basis for

engaging in several pertinent discourses leads to this professionalization. I fear

that once ethnomusicology gains an equivalent institutionalization in the

30

American university, it could formalize out of existence the critical questions of

power, history, and politics that represent the real intellectual stakes through the

exclusion of scholars like myself who focus on those areas. Ethnomusicology

certainly may be viewed as a product of Western hegemonic institutionalism in

the United States. According to Stuart Hall,

And yet, there is the nagging doubt that this overwhelmingtextualization of cultural studies' own discourses somehowconstitutes power and the political have to be and are alwayslodged within representations, that they are always discursivequestions. Nevertheless, there are ways of constituting power as aneasy floating signifier which just leaves the crude exercise andconnections of power and culture altogether emptied on anysignification. That is what I take to be the moment of danger in theinstitutionalization of cultural studies in this highly rarified andenormously elaborated and well-funded professional world ofAmerican academic life (Hall in Morley and Chen 1996: 274).

As a scholarly area ethnomusicology by its international nature and

research scope is much more global and far more reaching in its humanistic

possibilities than I believe has yet been realized. Bruno Nettl explains this point

better,

I am not sure this is a correct appraisal, but while there is no doubtthat a great deal of ethnomusicological work has been carried outin the United States and Canada, it is more to the point that theconcept of ethnomusicology as a separate discipline has beenpromulgated more in the United States than in Europe. In anyevent, the field of ethnomusicology developed in this part of theworld in a unique fashion. Americans (native and naturalized) havedevoted themselves to it in many different ways, but neverthelessas a group their approaches provide a configuration that is distinctfrom the practice of ethnomusicology elsewhere (1991: 266).

Nettl points out two important characterizations of American culture on

the part of both historians and anthropologists. First is the "essentially innovative

character of the culture, both self-consciously and as seen from outside" (ibid.).

31

The American concept of life “results from a unique opportunity perceived in

other areas of the world as something new and different” (ibid.). Described as a

melting pot (a problematic term criticized by ethnic studies scholars), American

culture serves as a "venue for the combination of values extant elsewhere, of

syncretic mixing of cultural elements" (ibid.).

In reviewing the history of ethnomusicology especially in North America,

Nettl admits he is struck by a kind of opposition which expresses these two

paradigms. On the one hand, ethnomusicology in the United States and Canada

has developed independently of ethnomusicology in other cultures and other

fields. On the other hand, a major characteristic of ethnomusicology in the United

States has been its eclectic character and its tendency to sample from a variety of

European disciplines, theories, and approaches (ibid.). Nettl suggests that "in a

sense, the history of American ethnomusicology of the last sixty years can be seen

as a kind of dialogue between the two approaches to research, the radical,

represented by Charles Seeger, and the syncretic, by Herzog" (1991: 267).

Moreover, there is no moment now, in American ethnomusicology, when

we are not able to theorize extensively power, politics, race, class, gender,

sexuality, subjugation, domination, exclusion, marginality, Otherness, and so

forth, and I believe this brings us back to the deadly seriousness of intellectual

work of any sort. Hall points out the critical distinctions between intellectual work

and academic work. He notes that they overlap, they abut with one another, they

feed off one another, the one provides the means by which to do the other.

However, they are not the same thing. He explains,

32

I come back to the difficulty of instituting a genuine cultural andcritical practice, which is intended to produce some kind of organicintellectual political work, which does not try to inscribe itself inthe overarching meta-narrative of achieved knowledges, within theinstitutions. I come back to theory and politics, the politics oftheory. Not theory as the will to truth, but theory as a set ofcontested, localized, conjectural knowledges, which have to bedebated in a dialogical way. But also as a practice which alwaysmakes some difference, in which it would have some effect.Finally, a practice which understands the need for intellectualmodesty. I do think there is all the difference in the world betweenunderstanding the politics of intellectual work and substitutingintellectual work for politics (ibid.: 275).

Among recent works that seek to achieve historical overviews, is Helen

Myers’ regional study devoted to the entire continent of North America. Her

essay attempts to define or examine the modern discipline based on works

following World War II. As a more specialized discussion of scholarly literature

devoted to music, I find Myers’ essay overly ambitious. She provides more than a

scant review of the more important materials. Myers' essay of course is an

excellent place to get started because historically it begins with World War II.

This is a logical place to begin to examine the formation of modern

ethnomusicology.

Her essay, devoted to Hispanic-American music in the U.S. is incomplete

and especially lacking in comprehension. A mere five pages devoted to all of

Hispanic-American music in the United States with not even the same attention

given to ethnic and regional differences across groups i.e. Mexican, Hispano,

Tejano, Tex-Mex, Puerto Rican, or Cuban-American or even other musical

stylistic designations like Tropical. Myers lists a sadly incomplete Pan-Hispanic

bibliography devoted to North American traditional and folk musics, with little

attention devoted to popular or elite-art musics.

33

Charles Fletcher Lummis

"Sun, silence, and adobe--that is New Mexico in three words"-and so

begins the narrative history by this outsider in New Mexico. The American

pioneer Charles Fletcher Lummis wrote highly subjective and distorted period

accounts. The Land of Poco Tiempo is his 1893 classic regionalist environmental

account hailed as "a classic . . . one of the first books to form the latter-day

literary tradition for northern New Mexico's aesthetic colonies" (Gibson 1983: 44)

and which remains widely read even today. There are other texts which one might

include in the discursive formation of the Anglo intellectual classes, including

Josiah Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies (1844 [1954]), and W.W.H. Davis's El

Gringo, or New Mexico and Her People (1854). Lummis's famous book is the

"generative text in which New Mexico was reconstructed as a picturesque social

utopia" (Padilla 1993: 208). Focusing at length on the landscape as well as on the

physiognomy and cultural practices of the native people, Lummis's book was a

combination of topographic description, distorted ethnography, reductive regional

history, and a folkloristic repository for Spanish folk-songs of the Southwest.

James Clifford has demonstrated that collecting and displaying are crucial

processes in forming Western identity, and cultural description itself is a kind of

collecting that selectively accords "authenticity" to human groups and their

institutions and practices (Clifford 1988). According to Lummis, he collected

Spanish and Indian folk-songs of the Southwest for over seven years and the

acquisition of his several thousand what he called "quaint ditties" was no small

labor since they were preserved by oral tradition. From this enterprise, Lummis

noted "out of this great collection of songs, acquired from hundreds of different

34

sources, I learned less than a score from persons who had any remotest

understanding of music" ([1893] 1954: 218). Lummis set out to collect and

preserve as many New Mexican folk-songs "for they are fast changing and

disappearing under the new order of things" (ibid.) but he was obviously biased

against the Hispanic New Mexican singer. He wrote,

It is curious how little the New Mexican is a singer. Unlike theclear-voiced Sonoran, he seems not to have the wherewithal,though his intention is equally tuneful. Among the nativeCalifornians beautiful voices are not rare; but California is a landwhere nature herself knows how to sing. In arid, lonely, gaunt NewMexico, where the centuries have been so beset with danger thatspeech sank to timid intonation, and where nature herself seemsdumb, music has taken the imprint of its surroundings. Thepaisano sings in palpable doubt of his own voice. Perhaps thatphenomenally dry atmosphere has somewhat desiccated his larynx,too. * (*And yet, as I have noted, the voices of the Pueblos arealmost universally clear.) At all events, his tones are very apt to behusky. He slurs his notes sadly, and is prone to reduplicate them.He sings always con espresione, but to him expression has twodevices. The more he is inspired, the higher he clambers after hispitch in falsetto and the more conscientiously nasal he becomes.And yet there is something far from contemptible in the humblesongs of the soil (1954: 218-219).

According to Manuel Peña, while earlier Spanish musical forms, such as

the romance and the religious alabado retained their currency in Mexican musical

life, it was the opera that engaged the attention of first the bourgeoisie and then

later, in a degraded and fragmentary form, the rest of Mexican society (1985: 21).

Meyer-Serra summed up the situation when he wrote the effects that the diffusion

of operatic music had on Mexican musical production:

. . . two types of production emerged: one of high status, esoteric, and,in principle, accessible only to the elites; the other of inferior quality,cheap, mass-produced and aimed at the lower classes, who werehungry for participation in the advances of civiliation (Mayer-Serra,1941: 70; translation by Peña).

35

Charles Lummis being a bourgeois elite was quite familiar with the

influence of opera on Mexican musical life throughout the nineteenth century.

Due to New Mexico’s dire poverty and relative cultural isolation throughout the

period prior to the arrival of the artists and the establishment of the formal music

schools, it is unlikely that there were many operatic performances of the high

status outside of the artist colonies where Lummis was collecting. Lummis and

other music ethnologists took the sounds of the Southwest out of their historical

contexts and socio-economic realities and arranged them in ways that addressed

Western preoccupations.

Charles Lummis published numerous examples of New Mexican

folksongs he collected in The Land of Poco Tiempo, in several articles published

in Cosmopolitan, and in his magazine Land of Sunshine, later named Out West.

These appeared between 1892 and 1901. The earliest recordings of Hispanic

genres in the Southwest were produced on wax cylinder. Charles Lummis also

founded the Southwest Society of the American Institute of Archaeology. By

1905, he had recorded some 400 romances and other folk songs at fiestas and

other folk gatherings. He collaborated with the composer Arthur Farwell who

transcribed and annotated much of this material. Two hundred of these cylinders

survive and are held at the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles, which Lummis

founded. According to John Koegel,

Examination of the Lummis Collection reveals as much aboutCharles Lummis's own cultural attitudes and biases-as well asthose of his European-American contemporaries--as it does aboutthe music he recorded and the cultural artifacts he preserved. Likemany English speakers in the Hispanic Southwest at the end of thenineteenth century, Lummis espoused a romantic view of"Spanish" culture and society which was not completely based in

36

historical reality. Though almost all of his Spanish-speakinginformants were Mexican Americans from middle-or workingclass backgrounds, Lummis idealized them and the music theyrecorded for him as representative of Spanish rather than Mexicanculture. This view permitted European Americans to look beyondthe truly Mexican origins of Spanish speakers in California toavoid becoming involved with negative stereotypes of Mexicansand Mexican Americans then prevalent in Anglo-American society(1998: 3 also see Koegel 1994).

In his chapter entitled "New Mexican Folk-songs" in The Land of Poco

Tiempo, Lummis includes a dozen popular songs and seven short verses in

Spanish with English translation. As Paul Walter comments in the foreword to the

fourth edition of the text, "The Land of Poco Tiempo”, when it first appeared. . .

aroused the interest not only of the traveling public, but also writers, painters,

scientists, to whom the volume disclosed an inexhaustible vein of subjects of pen,

brush, and research" (1952: xi). During the 1890s, Lummis edited the Land of

Sunshine, a travel magazine of the West, into which he poured riches on the

Southwest—articles and photographs by himself and others, documents and

translations--at the same time that he encouraged new writers and artists such as

Mary Austin, Sharlot Hall, Eugene Manlove Rhodes, Ed Borein, and Maynard

Dixon. Nearly all remained devoted to the patron.

Lummis placed himself at the center of the circle and was enormously

influential in directing these and numerous other novelists, poets, ethnographers,

historians, and artists to move to New Mexico where, once settled, they

participated in the "preservation" of Indian and Mexican cultural practices.

Despite his partial skirting of issues relating to racial discrimination, Lummis was

always the strong promoter and protector of the Southwest as a concept and of the

causes of people he adopted (Koegel 1998: 3). The interest in dramatic production

37

and music concerts became a big attraction and one of the first commercial

tourism endeavors. Tourism increased steadily during summer months until the

Great Depression.

Edgar Lee Hewett, Santa Fe music and theatre booster and impresario,

lead the civic drive for a modern public facility. During the 1920s, he promoted

the notion of an open-air theatre modeled after the Pueblo Kiva with a seating

capacity of 7,500. This design was naturally cool and dry and preserved the

character of the state's Indian architecture. This phase of Hewett's plan for fine-

arts enchantment at Santa Fe was deferred, but consumated finally in the grand

open-air Santa Fe Opera facility built in 1957. It was recently remodeled and

expanded in the 1990s and this year (2001), the Santa Fe Opera has a second

Director who recently announced a new marketing plan aimed at attracting a

larger New Mexican audience. Since its opening, roughly 20% of the Opera’s

audience have been New Mexican residents. This is not surprising as Santa Fe has

long catered its elite artistic attractions to summer tourists.

Southwestern Early Modern Music History

Mary Austin and John Sloan became publicists for Indian art and

promoted it in the Eastern United States in an effort to encourage more interest.

Sloan was particularly concerned over the appeal of "primitivism" among artists

who generated an appreciation of Aztec, Mayan, and African art. However, the art

and material culture of the Southwest Indians remained confined to natural

museums and presented as ancient curios. Regardless of what went into the

museums and magazines, the collectors created illusions of possession, of a stable

and complete "humanity," and the possibility of ordering the exotic and foreign.

38

Sloan urged that Southwest Indian dance, ritual, and music be recognized

nationally as "100 percent American art produced in this country."

However, Sloan became concerned that tourist patronage would adversely

harm Indian art "for the worst" and recognized the dire poverty of New Mexico's

Indian population. Always in need of money, "most of the time Indians could be

driven to produce at an unbecoming level" (Gibson 1983). Sloan and Austin both

urged government officials to guard genuine Indian creativity. In choosing

systems of classifications or explanation, both magazine editors and museum

directors provided an illusion of adequate representation and an opportunity to

construct stories about Otherness.

Also seen as a political activist lobbying in favor of New Mexican

statehood was Mary Austin. Mary Austin and other Santa Fe-based Spanish

Colonial Arts Society members sought to promote Hispanic art by extending

display and sales opportunities beyond Santa Fe and Taos. Through their wide

contacts, they were able to persuade galleries in New York, Boston, Chicago, and

Kansas City to show work by Spanish-American artists from northern New

Mexico. Austin expressed an interest in the musical aspects of Penitente ritual.

Her interest developed well before she became acquainted with northern New

Mexico. She began collecting Penitente "tunes" during her visit of 1919. Once

Austin explained to a writer-critic that:

"The Penitente hymns are authentically American as the NegroSpirituals, although their music is far inferior; just as Indian andeven Spanish folk music are inferior in emotional content and evenmelodic range to the spirituals. This is because the Negro gainsimmensely in not having to fit his religious expression into a tightlittle mythology such as Roman Catholic religion of the sixteenthand seventeenth centuries" (quoted in Gibson 1983: 212).

39

Austin's romantic nationalism and her status as an educated cosmopolitan

elite were no doubt typical and prevalent in most of the popular literary accounts

dating to this period, even those of the intellectual leadership with a more pressing

political agenda. Gibson concludes that "the attitude of the town of Santa Fe

toward the colony varied, for the most part it was that of approval" (1983: 77).

The tendency on the part of the American colonizers was to idealize and render

exotic third-world Mexican and Indian peoples, with an accompanying tendency

to downplay or erase evidence of poverty and violence. The photographs,

monographs, folk songs, and paintings show these people as either cut off from

the flow of world events or involved in a singular story of progress from tradition

to modernity.

Hispanophile Studies and Salvage Ethnology

Much of the American Southwest remained under Spanish rule until the

18th century, and this region retains powerful cultural bonds with Mexico due to

this colonial link. Spaniards (both criollos and mestizos) not only missionized

Indians, they imposed European music-culture on the inhabitants. Twenty five

cities were established from Florida to Paraguay between 1494 and 1565. The

Spanish crown sent viceroys to govern the American territories. Until the

eighteenth century there were only two viceroyalties in Spanish America --that of

New Spain (including Mexico, the Southwestern United States, and the

Philippines) and that of Peru.

The oldest Hispanic tradition of the Southwest dates back some 400 years

ago to the earliest colonial settlements in New Mexico (1598); next Arizona was

settled in 1700; Texas in 1716; and later California in 1769. By the early

40

nineteenth century, twenty-one Franciscan missions were established along the

California coast, each with a vigorous musical life based on the liturgical services

of the Catholic Church. Criollo and mestizo composers working in a Neo-

Hispanic Baroque stile galant composed masses for choir and polyphonic choirs

at the Collegio de Música at the Mexico City Cathedral. Prima prattica elements

mixed with Baroque tendencies and musical techniques and piece were performed

throughout the Mexican urban centers of the states of Jalisco, Michoacán, Oaxaca,

and Puebla, and possibly as far north as San Antonio and Los Angeles. For

example, choral directors Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla and López Capilla composed

double choir and polychoral works while at the Puebla Cathedral. Manuscripts of

Ignacio de Jerusalem were discovered in the Southwest missions. The criollo

Manuel de Zumaya (c. 1678-1756) seems to have spent his entire life in Mexico

although his manuscripts have also been found in the Southwest missions.

Zumaya also composed for the secular stage including chamber music and

oratorios.

Spanish missionary music dating back to the California missions includes

plainsong, some 24 cycles of the Ordinary, individual mass movements, settings

of the Proper, Psalms, canticles and hymns. Most of these have been investigated

and described by several scholars including Nettie Benson (1969-70) and Robert

Stevenson (1970). A bibliographic reference guide to this Mission material has

been prepared and edited by M. Crouch, W. Summers, and K. Lueck-Michaelson

(1976). University of Texas Librarian Lota May Spell (1885-1972) was a prolific

writer on the colonial music of Texas and Mexico. Her doctoral dissertation,

Musical Education in North America During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth

41

Centuries (1923) deals primarily with Mexico but also treats music education in

the French and English colonies of North America. Two of her articles devoted to

Hispanic music of the Southwest include Music in the Early Southwest (1930) and

The Contribution of the Southwest to American Music (1931).

Spell's research (1925; 1927) suggests the first music teacher in North

America was one Franciscan Cristóbal de Quiñones, who probably worked in

New Mexico between 1598 and 1609. Historical musicologist Lincoln Bunce

Spiess later published an article on Franciscan Missionary Fray Alonso Benavides

and Church Music in New Mexico in the Early 17th Century (1964). Fray Alonso

de Benavides arrived there in January, 1626 in the capacity of custodian of New

Mexico, where he was assigned to missionary activities amongst the Pueblo

Indians. Benavides established ten missions during the period when Mexican

choral music was at its height.

In a later article Spiess describes a mysterious group of liturgical books

related to colonial mission music from New Mexico (1983). These include several

published religious texts with references made to the colonial New Mexican

provenance. These were found at the Franciscan-run Saint Leonard College near

Dayton, Ohio and were later sent to the Museum of New Mexico. Speiss notes

that the condition of all the books in the collection is rather poor and most likely

originated from the Franciscan retreat at Peña Blanca, New Mexico although how

they got there remains a mystery.

Another important religious figure during the nineteenth century was a

parish priest, Father Juan B. Ralliere, who worked in Tomé, New Mexico from

1858 to 1911 and is mentioned in local ballads dating to this period. His

42

biography is described in an account of his career by Florence Hawley Ellis.

Father Ralliere produced a collection of religious music entitled Cánticos

Espirituales (1908) originally published in Las Vegas, New Mexico in the

nineteenth century and which has been reprinted in numerous later editions. These

today include musical transcriptions, some in four part harmonizations. John

Koegel's Master's thesis (1991) examines continuity and change in Tomé since

1739 and a recent (1997) article is an investigation of the village's musical life.

Folklorist Américo Paredes cites the collections of romance survivals of

Aurelio Espinosa in New Mexico, Vicuña Cifuentes in Chile, and Menéndez Pidal

in Spain as the most important works before World War II. The conquistadores

arrived in Mexico and brought this romance tradition with them when it was still

strong in Spain. Along with the romance-corrido evidence of the persistence of

this musical phenomenon remains. According to Paredes "in its epic period in

Spain the romance was sung to a sixteen-syllable line, all lines making the same

assonance for long passages, in the manner of the epic poem. Later, the line was

broken into octosyllables, and still later into rhymed octosyllabic quatrains with a

refrain taken from the dance lyric (Paredes 1993: 132). The romance without

refrain continued to be sung in Andalusia, where it was called the romance-

corrido in reference to the ballad which was through composed rather than

strophic.

According to Paredes, the refrainless form of the romance arrived with the

Oñate expedition of 1598. Later it diffused to California and Texas (Nuevo

43

Santander) (ibid.). Among early Spanish-American3 folklorists, Aurelio Espinosa

collected ten archaic romances tradicionales which first appeared in 27 versions

in (1926). Espinosa also produced two important ballad compilations called

Romanceros which were published in (1915) and (1953). An early collection of

popular Hispanic songs and lyrics from the Southwest was published by Eleanor

Hague (1917). Juan B. Rael presents seven versions of one New Mexican entriega

de novios (wedding song) (1940), and his later (1951) study of the New Mexico

Alabado (lament) is an important study of sacred balladry. Arturo Campa

produced some especially important ballad studies (1933 and 1946). Terrence L.

Hansen's anthology of 33 corridos (1959) and Charles Lummis's (1923) Spanish

Folk Songs of Old California must be included among these.

Several important studies produced by female scholars with an interest in

Hispanic dance must also be included here. Aurora Lucero White's Folk Dances

of the Spanish Colonials of New Mexico was published in 1941 and she completed

her literary study of Hispanic musical materials in 1953. A comparative study of

Mexican and New Mexican Folkdances was completed by dance ethnologist Mela 3 There has long been an ongoing debate and discussion over Hispanic nomenclature in theSouthwest (see Blaut and Rios-Bustamante 1984; Meinig 1984; Nostrand 1984; and Van Ness1987). The dialogue and debate continue. Suffice it to say that I regard myself as a culturemember. The labels Spanish-American, Chicano, and Hispanic to designate particular political generations in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado primarily. According to historianMario Garcia, political scientists and historians refer to a generation as being "a group of humanbeings who have undergone the same basic historical experiences during their formativeyears"(1989:3). Hence, identity of an ethnic group may change over time and socio-historically.He proposes the following working designations to refer to a Mexican American generation assharing a historical experience during 1930-1960; Chicanos from 1960-1980; and a Hispanicgeneration emerging from around 1980 to the present. This last group is what anthropologist JoséLimón also calls the Postmodern Mejicano. Ethnomusicologist Manuel Peña refers to the samegroup as the Post-Chicano generation. Despite the numerous labels and confusion over terms, thisapproach works well in some parts of the Greater Mexican Southwest especially Texas (see Keefeand Padilla 1987; García, M. 1989; Peña 1997).

44

Sedillo in 1935. Literary folklorist Rubén Cobos also collected marginal survivals

of Spanish folklore (1983) including romances, décimas, versos, alabados, and

coplas and he discussed these genres in his popular newspaper column published

in El Nuevo Mejicano during the 1940s and 1950s. In my opinion the most

important New Mexican music study was produced in 1947 by the Mexican

musicologist Vicente T. Mendoza and his wife Virginia. This book was not

published until 1986 and is entitled: Estudio y Clasificación de La Música

Tradicional Hispánica de Nuevo México. This is the most comprehensive and

rigorous regional study of Southwestern Hispanic music completed prior to the

Cold War.

Hispanic Music Culture in the Southwest: Arthur L. Campa

Arthur L. Campa was born in Guaymas, Sonora in 1905 before his family

fled Mexico during the revolution, living in El Paso prior to his arrival in

Albuquerque. Campa graduated from the University of New Mexico in 1928 and

completed his M.A. in languages two years later. He began a distinguished career

as a professor and was later accepted into a Ph.D. program at Columbia

University, where he studied with anthropologists Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict.

According to historian Mario T. Garcia, Campa in his numerous articles

and monographs probed the deep rooted nature of Mexican-American culture

(1989: 274). He early embraced the ever changing nature of music-culture

alongside the contradictory phenomenon of persistence and endurance in certain

traditional forms. Unike Américo Paredes in Texas, Campa was not always vocal

in describing social injustice and domination occurring in New Mexico.

45

He noted that the Spanish-Mexican tradition within the borders of the

United States antedated the Anglo-American presence in the New World and had

persisted over the centuries. He expressed his view that Mexican-American

culture was not only authentically native, but its historic foundations meant that it

could not easily be dissolved. According to Garcia, "Campa (alongside other

Mexican-American intellectuals from his particular generation) framed the

ideological argument for a Mexican-American pluralist world view" (1989: 274).

Campa's research was directed toward the study of popular culture, or the culture

that emanated from the Spanish-speaking common people of the Southwest. This

included folk poetry, folk-tales, folksongs, and folk theater, as well as sayings and

riddles. Campa noted;

The Spanish folksong in New Mexico owes its existence today tothe relatively small group of troubadours and singers who, forcenturies, have composed and sung the traditional songs of Spain,Mexico, and New Mexico. Had it not been for their efforts andtheir continued interest, the Spanish folksong in the Southwestwould have perished long ago. The cantadores of New Mexicowere not the only ones who sang, but it was they who kept alivethe tradition and perpetuated a heritage that otherwise would havebeen lost. We acknowledge today the debt that we owe the NewMexican troubadour for having enriched the repertoire of folksinging during its three and a half centuries of existence north ofthe Rio Grande (1946).

Mario Garcia explains that "through musical compositions such as the

décima, cuando, corrido, romance, indita, and cancíon as well as other forms of

folksongs, Campa collected numerous examples of folk poetry dating back to the

Spanish colonial period" (1989: 276). These folk songs along with other forms of

folk poetry were certainly not exclusive to New Mexico. Many of the same song

types were common throughout Latin America, Spain, and the Southwest.

46

However, only one genre, la indita, was New Mexico's indigenous music genre

that best illustrated how Spanish, Mexican, and later New Mexican culture

adapted musically to the region. Campa believed that to see it written, "one would

take the indita for a ballad, and to hear it sung one would think it was an Indian

chant. It is this combination that makes the indita a truly New Mexican product."

Not since the 1960s have New Mexican Chicano intellectuals studied its popular

music. More recent investigations of La Indita have been put forth by Lamadrid

(1995) and Romero (in press).

Texas-Mexican Folk Music: Américo Paredes

Folk songs of the Lower Rio Grande Border were collected by folklorist

Américo Paredes (1958a & b and 1976), a Texas Mexican scholar whose studies

of the Texas Mexican ballad called the corrido provide a record of an important

aspect of the Mexican-American's long struggle to preserve his identity and affirm

his rights as a human being. Paredes believed that Mexican immigration and

cultural exchange across the border region continued to revitalize and reinforce

Mexican American music. Paredes's Texas-Mexican Cancionero (1976) contains

a selection of 66 folk songs. He has also documented the décima tradition in

Texas in two articles (1958c, and 1966).

During the late 1950's, Don Américo Paredes pioneered a new intellectual space

in his discipline. His approach stressed the importance of cultural conflict in the

development of a truly Mexican-American folklore. The corrido developed from

the Spanish romance and is similar in some of its musical characteristics and

poetic qualities. In Paredes's Texas Mexican Cancionero (1976), he devotes an

entire section to songs of intercultural conflict. In another essay, The Mexican

47

Corrido: Its Rise and Fall, he also raised several important questions and issues

regarding New Mexican balladry and folklore (1958b: 130-131). According to

Paredes, the romance and its sibling genre the décima flourished in New Mexico

and southern Colorado until as late as the 1940's, but the corrido did not.

Paredes was the first to challenge the common explanations provided by

Hispano scholars who were firm in their conviction that throughout colonial

times, New Mexico had remained isolated from other areas of Latin America and

Mexico. In my graduate work (see Garcia 1996), I addressed some of these earlier

questions asked by Paredes about why during the late 19th and early 20th century,

the corrido was an important musical form elsewhere except northern New

Mexico. I am especially indebted to him for pointing my own research in a

particular direction and will address the mystery again later.

According to anthropologist José Limón (1994), in 1958, Paredes's new brand

of Mexican American scholarship appeared to offer an analytically advanced,

comprehensive, and compelling elaboration of the Texas-Mexican male heroic

tradition and its corridos. Using analytic tools of the Chicana literary feminist

movement, Brenda Romero suggests in her forthcoming article (in press) that the

indita genre previously mentioned functioned as an indigenized and feminized

form of the corrido in New Mexico around the turn of the twentieth century. We

will examine examples of various forms of New Mexican balladry in the next

chapter.

48

Texas-Mexican Working-Class Music History

Music of the Mexican American generation belonging to the 1960s Civil

Rights Chicano movement has been studied most by ethnomusicologist Manuel

Peña. Peña's The Texas-Mexican Conjunto: History of a Working-Class Music

(1985a) is one of the most innovative studies devoted to changes in musical style

from the 1860s through the 1980s along the Texas-Mexican border. Written from

the vantage point of a native ethnographer, Peña's book provides insight and

information otherwise overlooked or ignored by non-native scholars.

According to Peña, the introduction of the accordion into Texas-Mexican

music took place sometime after 1850, though the 1860s seems more likely to

him. He believes Monterrey and northern Mexico are the logical sources for

diffusion of the instrument throughout Greater Mexico because “during the

Porfiriato (and even earlier) the city certainly had its share of immigrants from

Europe, where the instrument had been invented a bit earlier in (the 1820s).” He

explains,

There is, of course, the possibility advanced by Strachwitz and others,that Polish, German, and/or Czech immigrants settling in areas aroundSan Antonio during the 1840s may also have served as donors.However, despite such suggestions of an American-Mexicaninterchange, the evidence indicates otherwise. My comments, ofcourse, are not intended as proof of the accordion’s provenience; thatmay never be known. What I want to suggest is that a contact betweenAnglos and Texas-Mexicans, we must remember that this contact wasviolent and that cultural interchange between tejanos and Anglo-Americans was minimal throughout the nineteenth century, sporadic inthe early twentieth. It was not until the 1920s, when Americaneconomic development began to encroach deeply into Mexican Texas,that an American musical repertory presented itself as an alternative(1985: 36).

49

Peña uses an analytical criticism of socioeconomics and class formation in

his studies of the Chicano community and analyzes the reasons why conjunto

music as a style became commercially successful exactly when it did during the

post-WWII years. He also looks at its commercial success even when it receded

as a meaningful musical form central to the music-culture of Texas Mexican

Chicanos. Conjunto music has been studied along other areas of the border with

Mexico by folklorist James Griffith. Griffith's (1981) study examines conjunto

music among the southern Arizona Indians, who call it Waila music. Richard

Haefer also has a study of Arizona conjunto music, also known as Chicken

Scratch (1986).

According to Peña, the orquesta típica formed a rival musical style that

was symbolic of the upward mobility of Texas-Mexicans wishing to advance

themselves socioeconomically as a middle class segment in the United States.

Peña's study views the conjunto and the orquesta in Texas as cultural expressions

that are symbolically linked to intraethnic conflict, class struggle, assimilation,

and resistance in a class-based capitalist society. Peña is among the first scholars

to have related adoption of musical style to Chicano attitudes and ideas expressing

conflicting views. In my opinion, such a study could not be completed by a non-

native scholar.4 4 Peña has produced several important articles, including a study of ritualstructure and Chicano dance (1980), and a study entitled The Emergence of theConjunto Music, 1935-1955 (1982a). Peña completed a study of the corridoentitled: Folksong and Social Change: Two Corridos as Interpretive Sources(1982b). His later article on ethnicity and class mainly discusses musical style inTexas-Mexican working class popular music (1985b), and another article (1987)entitled Music for a Changing Community: Three Generations of A ChicanoFamily Orquesta is based on his investigations completed in California. Anotherimportant investigation by Valdez and Halley (1996) examines the issue of gender

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California-Mexican Popular Music Studies

Another Chicano ethnomusicologist whose work deserves mention is

Steven Loza. Loza's book is called, Barrio Rhythm: Mexican American Music in

Los Angeles (1993). Loza attempts to broach history and ethnomusicology in this

work. A native of East Los Angeles, Loza completed his graduate studies at

UCLA, where he teaches. Loza's book is the first serious attempt to address Peña's

earlier call "that of the three most important areas inhabited by people of Spanish-

Mexican descent for as long as three centuries, only California has remained

relatively unexplored with respect to the music of this ethnic minority." This book

is organized into three major sections- History, Ethnography, and Reflections.

The book's focus provides the reader with several interesting, detailed

personal accounts, and interviews with many leading Chicano and Post-Chicano

musicians and other people working in the California Latino music scene and

industry. The book is perhaps overly ambitious in its aim to be the first serious

study of the musical life and history of one of the nation's largest Hispanic urban

centers. I find that it attempts to condense three monumental investigations into

one.

New Mexican Hispano Traditional and Folk Music

Recent multi-sited investigation of the Matachines dance in Northern New

Mexico was completed by ethnomusicologist Brenda Romero (1993) and

in the culture of Mexican American conjunto music. Joe Nick Potaski'sbiography of the late Tejano singer Selena is also a valuable study (1996)although it is not very musicological. The recent video entitled SelenaRemembered (1997) is another autobiography that provides excellent footage ofconcert performances and intimate interviews with fellow artists, family, andfriends. It was produced by EMI Latin, Selena's record label.

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anthropologist Sylvia Rodriguez (1996). Continuing an emphasis on

Hispanic/Indigenous interaction, Romero has recently extended her work on the

Matachines to Mexico, and in a forthcoming publication she explores the effects

of New Mexico's border status on the gendered musical construction of the indita

in New Mexico. Today, much music research continues to be completed by

folklorists especially in Texas and New Mexico.

Literary folklorist Enrique Lamadrid has completed several important

studies including a fine compact disc recording collection of New Mexican folk

and traditional music (see Lamadrid 1988; 1995; and 1986). Anthropologist José

Limón has produced another important study, Texas-Mexican Popular Music and

Dance (1983). The works of feminist literary scholar Maria Hererra-Sobek treat

the “Mexican Immigrant Experience in Ballad and Song” (1993a). She was also

first to complete an earlier feminist analysis of the Mexican Corrido (1990) and

of the Chicano/a décima in New Mexico using archival materials (1989). Her

studies analyze ballad narratives that champion the traditional agrarian values of

hard work, honesty, simplicity, and morality (1993b).

New Mexico as a Fragmented Cultural System: Theoretical Framework

Attempting to devise a theoretical framework that organizes and distinguishes

observable phenemona in a coherent, verifiable, and honest manner, I will attempt

to show wherever possible the relationship between my selection of data,

methodology, and theories from which the research proceeds. Regarding the

nature of music-culture, there are three theoretically developed areas which I will

explicitly draw from. These are related to the concepts of culture, ideology, and

hegemony. First, from anthropological thought I have accepted that there is an

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entity which is visible and conceptual which we call music-culture. Because

music and all the activities and beliefs associated with it are a part of culture, I use

the ethnomusicology concept “music-culture” to refer to “a group of people’s

total involvement with music” (Slobin and Titon 1992: 1). Music-culture

embodies the interrelationships between the structure of ideas and the structure of

society.

Music-Culture as Ideology

It is not my intention to attempt an exegesis of culture, ideology, and

hegemony; but I believe it is necessary to provide a basic definition so that no

confusion will arise when I refer to them in my forthcoming discussions of the

multiple sites of music-culture in New Mexico. Manuel Peña points out that “the

relationship between culture and ideology has not been adequately resolved and

remains problematic” (1985: 167). Abercrombie, Hill, and Turner observed, the

concept of ideology “has given rise to more analytical and conceptual difficulties

than almost any other term in the social sciences” (1980: 187). Anthropologist

Clifford Geertz regards ideology as “that part of culture which is actively

concerned with the establishment and defense of patterns of belief and value”

(1973:231). Ethnomusicologist Donna Buchanon believes ideology consists of the

deeply rooted cognitive strategies which structure our social reality and make it

coherent. She explains,

Although intangible in itself, its principles appear in our value andbelief systems; in our cultural world view. It is ideology that allows usto recognize that we belong to a larger socio-cultural whole. It is thereference by which we perceive and evaluate our own existence incomparison to the existence of others, and the world surrounding us(1991: 22).

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Manuel Peña does not find Geertz’s position a particularly illuminating

comparison between culture and ideology. He finds more useful the conception

adopted by Dolgin et al (1977; cf. Lefebvre 1977). Their views regard culture as a

more or less “neutral” system of symbols and their meanings for organizing social

life. According to Peña,

in this way culture can conceivably serve as a true mediator betweenhuman thought and action and can thus reveal the objective nature ofsocial organization, providing a relatively undistorted interpretation ofhuman relations. . . Under capitalism, culture long ago ceased toaccount for the full consequences of social relations, but operatesinstead to conceal or distort at least some aspects of these. It creates, ineffect, a “false consciousness” about the world: It has beentransformed into ideology (1985: 168).

Peña points out that as false consciousness, ideology does not restrict itself

to the limited domain staked out for it by Geertz,

rather, ideology comes to be seen as the system of representationswhereby everyday life is produced, and understandings of itrepresented as “natural” and about which, as it has been frequentlyremarked, those who believe in the ideology are not self-consciousexactly because ideology is obvious to those who are “inside” it, tothose who believe in—and through—it (Dolgin et al. 1977: 39).

Ideology usurps the place of a “genuine” culture becoming a “way of life,”

which, moreover, does conform to Geertz’s view of ideology as a symbolic

system whose purpose is the “defense of patterns of belief and value.” But it does

so in a much more pervasive manner than Geertz seems willing to admit. Peña

explains,

of course, it would be inaccurate to claim that all communicationunder capitalism is ideological. Furthermore, within a broadertheoretical framework for the study of culture, ideology should still besubsumed under the larger generic term “culture,” since it is, like therest of culture, a “system of symbols and meanings.” But it is itspervasiveness in modern capitalist society (cf. Miliband 1969)—the

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way it unconsciously permeates so many areas of social activity—thatmakes it such a formibidable component of culture (see Barthes (1972)on its mythical dimensions) (1985: 169).

Peña has shown in his investigations that culture may be viewed as a

conceptual system mediated by symbols and their meanings (cf. Schneider 1976).

He proposes another way of approaching the matter through Eco’s suggestion that

“the whole of culture should be studied as a communicative phenomenon based

on signification systems” (1976: 22). Peña raises yet another point regarding the

universal organization of these systems of signification around “patterns of

action,” or norms (Schneider 1976). Expressible in terms of “values,” “attitudes,”

“traditions” – in short, of shared beliefs and their sanctions in a given society

about the nature of human relations and the world in general—these patterns often

assume an immutable quality and thereby become a powerful force for social

control. Ideologies are manipulated (as Eco demonstrates), for once they take root

in the collective consciousness (and unconscious), they become increasingly

resistant to change. Edward Sapir contended that certain productive arrangements

lend themselves to the development of genuine cultures or their opposite, spurious

cultures (Peña 1985: 170).

Precapitalist and even caste societies (which Sapir would call genuine as

long as no efforts to mask basic social relations) ideologically are in evidence.

Peña does not suggest that Sapir would condone unmediated, nonideological

oppression. Since systems based on domination and oppression almost always

require the defense of the indefensible, some form of ideology seems inevitable

for their long-run survival (Peña 1985: 170). Sapir states:

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The genuine culture is not of necessity either high or low; it is merelyinherently harmonious, balanced, self-satisfactory…It is not a spiritualhybrid of contradictory patches, of water-tight compartments ofconsciousness that avoid participation in a harmonious synthesis. If theculture necessitates slavery, it frankly admits it; if it abhors slavery, itfeels its way to an economic adjustment that obviates the necessity ofits employment. It does not make a great show in its ethical ideals ofan uncompromising opposition to slavery, only to introduce whatamounts to a slave system into certain portions of its industrialmechanism (1945: 315).

Peña argues that what Sapir was hinting at was that in modern capitalist

societies, where the productive process is based first on the expropriation by the

capitalist of the worker’s labor, and second on the alienation of the worker from

that labor, cultural structures that mediate social relations cannot but be

“spurious”. He explains:

this is so because the culture—the bundle of concepts, symbols, andpatterns for action that regulate society—is often in directcontradiction with the structurally generated inequalities of capitalism,wherein the capitalist dominates and exploits a numerically muchlarger working class. Thus, to maintain this arrangement, capitalistsociety (whose prevailing ideas are those of the bourgeoisie) marshallsa potent array of symbols built upon “fuzzy concepts” (Eco 1976) inorder to perpetuate and legitimize a system of privileges whose nexusis capital accumultion through the exploitation of labor (cf. Miliband1969 quoted in Peña 1985: 171).

In order to be effective the symbols must succumb to ideology in order to

mystify the structural inequalities inherent in capitalism. Peña explains,

mystification is facilitated by the “conceptual displacement of contradiction”

(Dolgin et al. 1977: 41), wherein potentially disruptive counter-cultures (or, more

likely, counter-ideologies) are defused—“encompassed,” by being coopted by the

dominant bourgeois ideology. According to Dolgin,

cooptation is the encompassment and recruitment of people throughthe appropriation of their symbolic forms to an over-arching,

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encompassing structure which is the property of a dominant group, isuniversal, and at the root of the stability of culture and its extensionthroughout a population . . . (1977: 42).

Anthropologists Charles Briggs, Sylvia Rodriguez, Paul Kutsche and John

Van Ness have best described the unfortunate ideological manipulation and the

hegemonic domination that exists in New Mexico today. First, Charles Briggs

suggests that "the pressure that is extended on Mexicanos by the dominant society

has not been limited to acts of direct economic intervention, such as land

expropriation and regulations of the use of national forest lands" (1988: 360). The

more diffuse forms of control that are used by the dominant sectors of society are

pin-pointed by Gramsci's notion of hegemony which Briggs believes "is quite

telling to the Mexicano political situation in the Southwest" (ibid.). Like many

other ethnomusicologists (see Slobin 1993) and anthropologists, my work is

deeply informed by Gramscis sparse texts as amplified by Raymond Williams

(1977).

Peña believes that in American society encompassment is facilitated by the

ideology of cultural assimilation (1985: 164-166) –a system of universally

accepted symbols and norms clustered around the popular concept of “the

American creed,” which is held up as a mirror to the best-of-all-possible-worlds

that American democracy represents (cf. Myrdal 1962). Thus, as Kenneth Burke

states, when conflict rooted in class exploitation threatens to burst upon the social

consciousness, “you are likely to confuse the issue by ideals that give a semblance

of national unity” (1969: 108). That is, you invoke the principles of “equal

opportunity,” “self-determination,” or, to quote Burke again, those of “liberty,”

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“dignity of the individual,” “Christian civiliation,” “democracy,” and the like, as

the motives impelling at least our people and our government. . . “ (1969: 108).

Peña believes that this is precisely when a cultural system becomes ideology:

when the actions and symbols that are invoked in the name of democracy or

liberty come into conflict with social reality—with the actually existing relations

of domination and exploitation that govern a capitalist economy. Under these

circumstances social relations assume a contradictory quality, as does cultural

expression. In sum, ideology is a distorted reflection of reality. As Lefebvre

observed, “Every ideology is a collection of errors, illusions, mystifications,

which can be accounted for by reference to the historical reality it distorts and

transposes”(1977: 259). Every ideology has a starting point in reality, however,

but it is a “fragmentary, partial reality. . . [Ideologies] refract [rather than reflect]

reality via preexisting representations, selected by the dominant groups and

acceptable to them” (Lefebvre 1977: 259). And lastly, as Lefebvre notes, “every

ideology worthy of the name is characterized by a certain breadth and a real effort

at rationality” (1977: 260).

Finally, according to Peña, as long as a given ideology holds sway over the

majority of the people, the reigning social order will survive. It does this by

permeating the most important sociocultural institutions, a large part of whose

legitimation is assigned to more or less specialized “ideologists”—priests, jurists,

politicians, philosophers, artists, and the like. These are Gramsci’s “organic

intellectuals” (1971), whose task it is to maintain the ideology’s hegemony.

Hegemony may be defined as

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an order in which a certain way of life and thought is dominant, inwhich one concept of reality is diffused throughout society in all itsinstitutional and private manifestations, informing with its spirit alltaste, morality, customs, religious and political principles, and allsocial relations, particularly in their intellectual and moralconnotations (Williams 1960: 587).

"The power of hegemony emerges from the fact that it does not simply

seek to bring individuals in line with the interests of the dominant sectors of

society through external, coercive pressure" (Briggs 1988: 360). Further, "the true

condition of hegemony is effective self-identification with the hegemonic forms: a

specific and internalized “socialization” which is expected to be positive but

which, if that is not possible, will rest on a (resigned) recognition of the inevitable

and the necessary" (Williams 1977: 118). One of the crucial features of the

diffuse and pervasive control exercised by the dominant society is the way that

this "lived system of meanings and values" seeks to suppress competing points of

views. We will examine this process through the State of New Mexico’s cultural

productions of the Hispanic Cuarto Centennial festivities but it may also be seen

through the lense of local festivals and musical performances such as those we

will examine in Bernalillo. The ways in which this lived experience are

pronounced along class lines are explained by Williams from the perspective of a

given hegemony. He explains,

the relations of domination and subordination, in their forms aspractical consciousness, [are seen] as in effect a saturation of thewhole process of living--not only of political and economicactivity, nor only of manifest social activity, but of the wholesubstance of lived identities and relationships, to such a depth thatthe pressures and limits of what can ultimately be seen as a specificeconomic, political, and cultural system seem to most of us thepressures and limits of simple experience and common sense(Williams 1977: 110).

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In his development of the implications of the concepts presented by

Gramsci and Williams for the Hispano case, Briggs recalls that a number of

agencies of county, state, and national governments exert direct control on the

lives of rural Mexicanos. Briggs charges local government, like the United States

Forest service with regulating access to former grant lands and the destruction of

culture and language and its replacement with English and American

consumerism. Briggs has shown in his studies how Mexicanos are forced to

submit to rules that usually favor commercial interests and urban recreationalists

or face possible fine and/or imprisonment.

Social service and other state and county agencies administer Aid to

Families with Dependent Children, Food Stamps, unemployment benefits and

workman's compensation, assistance for the elderly, and other programs. Briggs

notes that checks, stamps, and meals all carry hidden costs, including frequent and

lengthy trips to government offices, required disclosures of personal information,

visits by low-level officials designed to monitor compliance with regulations, and

the labeling and stereotyping that are applied to recipients of public aid. Yet

another major problem in New Mexico are the militarized police tactics and other

corrupt law enforcement, that resemble a state of martial law. Briggs continues,

Mexicanos similarly come under the direct control of the dominantsociety as employees, particularly when they work for state orfederal agencies. Mexicanos also encounter the dominanthegemony as consumers and members of television and radioaudiences (Briggs 1988: 362).

By virtue of the loss of our most crucial resources such as land, language,

political leadership, and religious cohesion, we are at the mercy of an intolerant

and oppressive dominant hegemony. This brute domination goes far beyond direct

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political influence, "it is rather the constant bombardment with cultural, political,

material expressions of the hegemonic perspective" (Briggs 1988: 362).

According to Williams:

hegemonic processes are complex, diverse, and dynamic; it wouldaccordingly be dangerous to present an abbreviated picture of themultitude of messages that are conveyed in this fashion. It wouldhowever, be safe to argue that a basic theme is apparent: Survivalin a modern capitalist society is predicated on a commitment toselling one's labor to institutions that represent the dominantsociety and, in turn, to occupy a socially legitimated positionwithin this process one must be willing to act as an individual whocompetes with other individuals in attempting to sell one's laborfor the highest price and to buy commodities that will satisfy one'sparticular needs and desires at the lowest cost (ibid.).

As I will attempt to show throughout the remainder of this dissertation,

Mexicanos in the Southwest have made a number of attempts since 1848 to resist

political-economic domination. Lacking access to an independent industrial base

and quality education, we have been largely unsuccessful in reversing the land

appropriation and proletarianization process. In developing a collective self-

identity of impoverished native speakers of Spanish, Sylvia Rodríguez argues

forcefully, "ethnic identity became a means of focusing the struggle for cultural

survival and social self-determination" (1987: 314). Stuart Hall points out that

Antonio Gramsci was not the originator of the term hegemony; although he did

expand on the concept, moving beyond an essentially “class alliance” way of

conceptualizing it. According to Hall,

First, 'hegemony' becomes a general term, which can be applied tothe strategies of all classes' applied analytically to the formation ofall heading historical blocs, not to the strategy of the proletariatalone. In this way, he converts the concept to a more generalanalytic term. . . The second development is the differenceGramsci comes to articulate between a class which 'dominates' anda class which “leads”. Domination and coercion can maintain the

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ascendancy of a particular class over a society. But its “reach” islimited. It has to rely consistently on coercive means, rather thanthe winning of consent. For that reason it is not capable of enlistingthe positive participation of different parts of society in a historicproject to transform the state or renovate society. “Leadership” onthe other hand has its “coercive” aspects too. But it is “led” by thewinning of consent, the taking into account of subordinateinterests, the attempt to make itself popular. . . Hegemony is notexercised in the economic and administrative fields alone, butencompasses the critical domains of cultural, moral, ethical andintellectual leadership (Morley and Chen 1996: 426).

Rodríguez suggests that with the establishment of Anglo-American

political control and hegemony, Mexicanismo was increasingly defined vis-á-vis

this new population and the political economy that it championed. However, as

this political economy adapted creatively to changes in the character of the

dominant society's hegemonic pressures, it transformed cultural and artistic

elements into conscious symbols of counter-hegemony. Land and water have been

of central political-economic and cultural importance throughout the history of the

region as has music, language, and history.

These same conscious symbols of counter-hegemony were ready to be

manipulated and exploited as the political-economy developed into an industrial

base promoting cultural tourism. Rodríguez argues, the ongoing expropriation of

land and water resources "have, in concert with various local, regional, and

macrosocial factors, intensified rural Hispano resistance to further usurpation and

displacement, and stimulated the crystallization of land as a symbol of Hispano

cultural survival" (1987: 382).

During the 1990s the state of New Mexico faced another concrete political

problem, conservatism under the political leadership of Republican Governor

Gary Johnson. Hailed as the fittest politician in the nation because he regularly

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competes in biathlons, he is a Forrest Gump-like self-made millionaire and

professional politician of the Dan Quayle type. Johnson's political agenda and

influence have been in a significant way, a bit different from traditional

conservative ruling ideas throughout the Southwest. Johnson's conservatism is a

distinct, specific and novel combination of ideological elements similar in Texas,

Arizona, Colorado, and California politics especially under New Mexico’s

neighboring state's conservative Republican political leadership.

Classical Marxist theory and its notion of ideology explains nicely the

penetration and success of the ruling ideas within the working class by recourse to

a false consciousness. According to Marxists, the popular classes are duped by the

dominant classes, temporarily ensnared against their material interests by a false

structure of illusions, which are porportedly dispelled as real material factors

reassert themselves. This process has been polished during Johnson's second term

because mass poverty has taken a much longer time than once predicted to

percolate mass consciousness. Although the economic picture may have improved

in most of the surrounding states, in 1998 New Mexico slipped from 49th to 50th

in per capita income. New Mexicans are getting poorer and are worse off now

than they were a decade earlier.

Likewise, the economic displacement of Hispanics, Indians, and the poor

whites is a direct result of the state's inferior education system, which has failed to

produce qualified graduates to attain high-paying jobs. The increasing gap

between the affluent and New Mexico's poor is most obvious and extreme in

Albuquerque, Taos, and Santa Fe, where changes wrought by newcomers have

been dramatic. Real estate prices have skyrocketed, and many local Hispanics

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have been relegated to low-cost mobile homes. In the Rio Abajo region, due in

part to the new job market, newly arrived people from other places are induced to

fill the better paying jobs. Many of the newcomers move into upper-middle class

enclaves reflective of wealth and power, such as "the Heights" of Albuquerque.

According to UNM sociologist Felipe Gonzalez, "the new arrivals "come

with resources" or land the high-dollar, middle-management jobs that allow them

to build larger homes in places distant from the downtown and the traditional

Hispanic settlements along the river. Able to pay higher prices, they force up the

cost of housing adding another layer of inequality for native New Mexicans”

(Krza 1999: 11). It is clear that ideological unity among classes is nonexistent in

New Mexico and that Johnson had to fight to gain ideological ascendancy within

the ruling classes, let alone the dominated ones. His claim to fame was the

legalization of Indian Gaming. The Indian Gaming compacts he introduced are

now being renegotiated. The current compacts require the state's gaming tribes to

pay the state sixteen percent of their profits from slot machines, and only three of

the eleven gaming tribes--Sandia, Santa Ana, and San Felipe --have been paying

the sixteen percent to the state. Most of the tribes believe the sixteen percent is

illegal under federal law. Johnson has re-negotiated a six percent revenue sharing

agreement with the tribes.

In 1999, Johnson made a controversial declaration that the United States

"War On Drugs" had failed. He proposed the legalization of marijuana, cocaine,

and other drugs, this in light of the fact that New Mexico suffers twice the

national average of heroin related deaths and suicides. The issue of suicide and

drug addiction are in my opinion the most dire problems facing the state of New

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Mexico. Drug abuse, addiction, and overdose raise questions which urgently bring

before us the marginality of critical thinkers who have a real effect in the world.

Yet, the problem has often been represented for us in contradictory ways. Against

the urgency of people dying in the United States as a result of overdose and

addiction, one must ask what is the point of cultural studies? Stuart Hall writes:

What is the point of the study of representations, if there is noresponse to the question of what you say to someone who wants toknow if they should take a drug and if that means they'll die twodays later or a few months earlier? At that point, I think anybodywho is into cultural studies seriously as an intellectual practice,must feel, on their pulse, its ephemerality, its insubstantiality, howlittle it registers, how little we've been able to change anything orget anybody to do anything. If you don't feel that as one tension inthe work that you are doing, theory has let you off the hook. On theother hand, in the end, I don't agree with the way in which thedilemma is posed for us, for it is indeed a more complex anddisplaced question than just people dying out there (Morley andChen 1996: 272).

Anthropologist Michael L. Trujillo believes that "poverty and the painful

experience of alienation symbolized by land-loss seems to go far in explaining

why Rio Arriba County has the highest rate of drug-related deaths in New Mexico

and why New Mexico has the highest rate of drug-related deaths of any state"

(1999: 8 also see Ferry 1998). Johnson admits to using marijuana during his

senior year in high school and through college and then having quit. He believes

that marijuana does not compare, from an impediment standpoint, at all to

alcohol. Likewise, Johnson admits to having used cocaine more than once. When

asked why he stopped, he replied because he is a health fanatic. When Johnson

proposed the legalization of marijuana and heroin the summer following his re-

election to a second term, he became the highest-ranking elected official in

America to back legalizing drugs.

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The state's per capita income and government salaries, consistently rank

in the bottom five of the nation, along with the states of the Deep South. Long-

time residents with modest state salaries and minimum-wage tourism service jobs

rarely can afford to live in places like Santa Fe, Taos, and some parts of

Albuquerque. By 1990, the Anglo population had surpassed that of Hispanics in

Santa Fe, and the social disproportion in the state capital is accepted as

confirmation that New Mexico's Hispanos and Indians have been dispossessed of

their ancestral homeland.

Governor Gary Johnson is what Raymond Williams describes as an

ideologist- one who brings ideas to “the people” for their liberation or destruction.

A connected knowledge is replaced with “an abstraction of ‘ideology’” or

category of illusions and false consciousness. The oppressed are fooled into

believing that the course of political action is the best reason they know in order

to prevent extermination. The material social process in which conceptions,

thoughts, ideas’, of course in different degrees, become practical (1977: 67).

Vladimir Lenin described socialism as the ideology of struggle of the proletarian

class which undergoes the general conditions of birth, development, and

consolidation of ideology (Collected Works, Moscow, 1961:6, 163). In the class

struggle of the proletariat which develops spontaneously, as an elemental force,

on the basis of capitalist relations, socialism is introduced by the ideologists.

Conceptual Remapping: Towards Southwestern Postmodernity

According to Gerard Béhague "throughout the 20th century Latin

American and Caribbean music scholars have viewed the musics of their

countries according to the prevailing ideology of a particular period affecting the

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perceptions of a social group’s constitutions" (2000: 20). These musics were

considered in terms of a given cultural and ethnic heritage or origin, or their

alleged position within a given social stratification, and/or of their geographical

location following the classic rural-urban distinction (ibid.). Likewise, musical

investigation of the Hispanic and Native American areas of North America has

been no different. Folklorists, ethnologists, and other music scholars in the first

half of the 20th century held quite Eurocentric views on the boundaries of the

musics of their respective states, ethnic groups, or cultural regions.

The general tendency in later Mexican-American and Chicano cultural

studies has been to view the borderlands as a monolithic cultural area. Too often

this resulted in naive, simplistic and reductionist generalizations over the

traditional and popular musics of Greater Mexico, particularly in the writings of

non Mexican Americans (see Stark 1973; 1983; Robb 1980; Loeffler, Jack & K.

& LaMadrid, Enrique 1999). According to Béhague, the ways in which we have

classified the musical traditions of the area need further reflection (1995: 3) and

he proposes a "conceptual re-mapping of musical boundaries and borders" for

Latin America. I view the Southwest as an extended cultural area of Latin

America and an integral part of Greater Mexico, one that intersects culturally with

the United States and poses an excellent challenge for cultural cartographers.

Recent investigations of popular Mexican singers have been completed by

Gustavo Geirola, whose study of Juan Gabriel opens the door to the virtually

ignored issue of music and sexuality. Fabio Correa's investigation of Gloria

Trevi's eroticism and musical style paves a promising direction (1995). Helena

Simonett has completed studies of banda music in Los Angeles. Her most recent

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article is a social history of Sinaloan Band music (1999), and her earlier work on

banda in southern California (1995) is exceptional. Sony Discos has also

produced excellent commercial recordings by Banda America (1994) and (1995)

and other groups.

Mark Fogelquist's master's thesis titled "Rhythm and Form in the

Contemporary Son Jalisciense" (1975), was a musicological investigation

addressing transcription and analysis. Mark Pedelty notes that "there is a mariachi

renaissance taking place, within certain areas of Mexico, the southwestern United

States, and even Japan" (1999: 54 f.n.). One of the most important studies of

Popular Music in Mexico (1976) was by Geijerstam and is still very useful. Mark

Pedelty's article on the Mexican Bolero (1999) suggests the importance of

specialized studies in music devoted to particular music genres, styles, and song

forms. Pedelty's attention paves the way for further studies of urban popular

music and issues of technology, modernity, and singers, whose claim to fame is a

particular song type or style.

Experimental Moment in Social Science

It stands to reason that if we are to understand better and to represent more

honestly the musical cultures of Greater Mexico, "we must rethink critically the

old paradigms that were forged during the last few generations on the anvil of

Eurocentric and North American-centric perceptions and assumptions" (Behágue

1995: 8). Behágue believes such critical re-thinking requires a deeper penetration

into the "realities" of the societies or social groups we study (ideological, socio-

economic, and political), their past and their present as revealed through the

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expression of musical identity. He proposes giving the native voice, native

motivation, and resulting strategies of expression "a larger place in our conceptual

re-mapping of borders and boundaries and their obvious and constant

overlappings.” He expects that the old boundaries and borders tend to fade away

as people more and more share the same space and more frequently rely on

several existing traditions and create new ones (ibid.). The resulting fragmentation

is creating a multiplicity of parallel popular music expression and trends to which

José Limon is hard put to apply a specific and accurate "postmodern mejicano"

label (1994: 97-122).

Ethnomusicologist Timothy J. Cooley explains what this postmodern shift

means for ethnomusicology in the recent textbook Shadows in the Field: New

Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology (1997).

The fieldwork methodology of collecting data to support goalsexternal to the field experience is no longer considered adequate.This model has not been replaced by a single new model or singlemethodology, but we have entered an experimental moment whennew perspectives are needed. If the claim of an objective stancefrom which to analyze and compare the musics of the world'speoples can no longer be made, what can be known by the practiceof ethnomusicology? Do ethnomusicologists--and ethnographersgenerally—have anything to offer humanity? As field workers andmusicians, do ethnomusicologists have particular obligations andopportunities? These are the types of questions that populate thepost-modern atmosphere. . . (1997: 11).

Considering the postmodern predicament facing all social sciences, the

experimental moment is quite attractive in its openness to possibilities for new

perspectives, theoretical orientations, and methodological practices. My

investigation examines various genres of music and cultural poetics situated

within four specfic sites of public life and ritual and is thus different from style or

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genre based studies. The reason for this is that during the time I was completing

dissertation fieldwork, I intuitively maintained a bifurcated focus on several

events, genres, and styles. I believe this was a crucial step toward a new and

multidiminensional perspective of New Mexican musical life. George Marcus

explains,

For ethnographers interested in contemporary local changes in cultureand society, single-sited research can no longer be easily located in aworld system perspective. This perspective has become fragmented,indeed, “local” at its very core. With the collapse, then, of the easydistinction between system and lifeworld as the mode for situating anddesigning ethnographic research on the contemporary world, the onlyalternatives have been to use various successor works of scholarshipon global changes in political economy as the framing for single-sitestudies that are fully defined and contextualized in terms of thosemostly nonethnographic works, or to pursue the more open-ended andspeculative course of constructing subjects by simultaneouslyconstructing the discontinuous contexts in which they act and are actedupon. The distinction between lifeworlds of subjects and the systemdoes not hold, and the point of ethnography within the purview of itsalways local, close-up perspective is to discover new paths ofconnection and association by which traditional ethnographic concernswith agency, symbols, and everyday practices can continue to beexpressed on a differently configured spatial canvas (Marcus 1995:98).

The Southwest United States: Multiethnic America and Greater Mexico

Béhague notes that one of the major problems confronting the current

ethnomusicology of Latin America and the Caribbean comes from the scarcity of

reliable field recording collections. Recent efforts of government-sponsored

cultural agencies to issue field recordings have not been entirely successful either

because the selections are not fully representative of a particular tradition or genre

and the recordings lack ethnographic documentation. This is not the case in the

Southwest where Smithsonian Folkways and Arhoolie Records have produced

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some of the best ethnographically informed field recordings on Hispanic and

Native American Traditions of New Mexico and Borderlands Music.

There are also several videorecordings like Chulas Fronteras (1975); Del

Mero Corazon (1977); Tex Mex: Music of the Texas-Mexican Borderlands (1983)

and Songs of the Homeland (1997) that provide excellent perspectives.

Ethnomusicologist T. M. Scruggs recently reviewed most of these videos (1999).

Linda Rondstadt's (1992) Great Performance of her Canciones de Mi Padre debut

mariachi tour continues to be aired on PBS regularly and is available on video.

Gerard Behague prescribes six specific understudied areas and research

issues specific to Latin American ethnomusicology, most of these apply to the

Southwest. These include:

1. Systematic gathering of musical and ethnographic data of folkand traditional music.2. Authentic field recordings with thorough documentation toenable students to assess the diversity of musical expressions in aparticular cultural region.3. On the part of Latin American ethnomusicologists developmentof relevant theoretical approaches (anthropological focus, relevantanalytic models, ethnographic descriptions and interpretations).4. Better communication between researchers in the area throughspecialized publications, now lacking.5. Development of serious and continuous academic programmesfor training Latin American ethnomusicologists.6. A realistic reassessment by Latin American researchers of therelationships between their cultural focus and the actual culturalvalues of the social group under study (1993: 486).

By demonstrating how culture overlaps and influences all modes of human

experience, a broader understanding of the aesthetic domains of artistic

production and musical performance will be developed in the remaining chapters

of this dissertation. The next section is a precursory ethnography intended to

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address the significance of the Hispanic Cuarto Centenario through musical

expression.

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Chapter Two: Histor ical Performance in the PostmodernMoment: New Mexican Music, Legends, and Politics duringthe Cuarto Centenario

This dissertation offers ethnomusicologists a unique position to reflect on

the rich intellectual heritage of several fields of study and to draw inspiration

from previous approaches that have contributed to present-day ethnological

practice. Previous generations of New Mexico music folklorists and musicologists

included Aurelio Espinosa, Arthur Campa, Rubén Cobos, Aurora Lucero White,

Mela Sedillo, Vicente T. Mendoza, Richard Stark, and John Donald Robb. More

recent writers on music and dance include Charles Briggs, Brenda Romero,

Victoria Levine, Enrique Lamadrid, Martha Patricia Espinoza, John Koegel,

Sylvia Rodriguez, and Maria Herrera-Sobek. Most of the early studies were

completed by individuals who mostly collected recordings and then transcribed

the melodies into Western music and dance notation.

Ethnomusicologist Daniel Sheehy's interesting study of popular Mexican

musical traditions (1997) raises several questions regarding the commercialization

of culture, and government-backed canonization and dissemination of folklore.

He asks, is a pan-national "folk" music performed by professional musicians

merely a style of music, or is it still a musical tradition connected to a distinct

cultural community such as that of a region? What constitutes the musical culture

of a professionalized latter-day regional music? His work suggests that the

twentieth century has raised many questions about our understanding of what

"folk music" is and how older, rural regional attachments translate into an urban,

media-dominated modern musical life.

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Other ethnomusicologists like Timothy J. Cooley are quick to implicate

musical folklorists for their involvement in the oppressive policies of colonialism

and imperialism. Cooley explains that "fieldwork within one's own country and

among individuals who share the fieldworker's nationality might seem to

exonerate the scholar from the critique of ethnography that seeks to describe the

Other, but musical folklorists created an Other within their national boarders [sic]

by creating cultural and evolutionary development boarders [sic] separating them

from the individuals studied” (Barz and Cooley 1997: 9).

Musical folklore is an early ethnomusicological model followed by Zoltán

Kodály, Béla Bartók, and Constantin Brailoiu in Eastern Europe. In the British

Isles, the research carried out by Cecil Sharp and Maud Karples shares with

comparative musicology a science paradigm that conceives of music as a

collectable, comparable, and ultimately explainable object within an observable

cosmos. In contrast to comparative musicology, musical folklore focuses on the

peasants of the scholar's native country or region rather than on universal

comparative schemes. In a class of their own are folksong collectors such as

Johann Gottfried Herder who coined the term Volkslied in eighteenth-century

Germany and Oskar Kilberg in nineteenth-century Poland.

Musical folklorists and folk-song collectors Rubén Cobos, John Donald

Robb, Arthur Campa, Aurelio Espinoza, and Cleofas Jaramillo were motivated by

the concern that national folk heritage was vanishing. Fieldwork was associated

with romantic nationalism and a quest for the natural and the pure. In New

Mexico the collection and preservation of folk culture has translated into a state

almost entirely dependent on natural and cultural tourism as its main industrial

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base and, subsequently, amidst a dire political economy for the Mexicano working

class. Much of the early ethnography devoted to the Southwest in general and

New Mexico in particular is based on fieldworkers who worked in a newly

acquired portion of their native country or that portion of the United States that

was formerly New Spain and Mexican territory. Before the Treaty of Guadalupe

Hidalgo in 1848, the Southwest belonged to Mexico. There are many Hispanics,

especially in New Mexico, who still claim the land was stolen by the United

States.

With the professionalization and institutionalization of Southwestern

folkore came the development of an industrial base that was ready to be

transformed into consumer based cultural tourism. This joint cultural and

economic enterprise acritically produced an imaginary landscape filled with

romance, adventure, and enchantment. In these early accounts, exoticism took a

historical form in references to the "old" or "wild" west as a mythical and

legendary place populated by the foreign "past" and historical "other". Within this

mythical construction, the political use of Mexican terms and phrases such as la

gente (the people), la tradición (tradition), nuestra herencia (our heritage) and

costumbres (customs) emerged from the intellectual practice of cultural

preservation.

Much of the common research practice on the part of professional

intellectuals aimed at collecting cultural artifacts and specimens intended to be

studied or reinvented at a later time. It is also through this process of self

preservation, that a society may be forced to reimagine itself publicly through its

past musical, dramatic, and poetic forms. Carmen Ortiz (1999) considers the

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significance of folklore as a scholarly endeavor and a general instrument of

political action.

In the nineteenth century, Mexicans living in the Southwest United States

were subjected to an alien political system and a foreign culture, and a facist

ideology emerged among certain members of the intellectual classes working in

folklore studies. Genaro Padilla believes that "when Mexicans were colonized by

the United States, they immediately gave utterance to the threat of social erasure"

(1993: 4). He suggests that this "rupture of everyday life experienced by some

75,000 people who inhabited the far northern provinces of (Greater) Mexico in

1846 opened a terrain of discursive necessity in which fear and resentment found

language in speeches and official documents that warned fellow citizens to

accommodate themselves to the new regime or at least to remain quiet lest they be

hurt or killed outright" (ibid.).

This language was expressed in "personal correspondences in which anger

and confusion were voiced to intimates; in poetry, corridos, and chistes (jokes)

that made los americanos the subject of ironic humor, linguistic derogation, and

social villainy; and in Spanish-language newspaper editorials and essays that

argued for justice and equality for Mexican Americans in the new regime"

(Padilla 1993: 4). By the turn of the century, the professional collection of

important artistic, musical, and literary forms began and analysis of such

collections voiced important social concerns otherwise overlooked by other

writers. Professional ethnographers, trained as academic researchers, practiced a

uniform methodology of "collecting" data and in turn translated and notated the

material into literary and musical transcriptions.

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Folklore, understood in the classic 19th century sense--that is, as that

which is done, known, and felt by the people--is a sphere that has traditionally

been assigned considerable importance in certain historical periods, countries, or

ideological groups. Southwest folklorists have had considerable social influence

throughout the twentieth century in advancing a nationalist discipline. Behind this

interest in folklore lies the need to claim key symbols of identity for territorial,

ethnic, or political unity. In this way, the valuing of folklore, its establishment as a

form of scientific or academic knowledge, and finally, its ideological use have

been common phenomena in modern European, North American, and Mexican

nationalism, and in totalitarian regimes, including the Communist systems of

Eastern Europe, Cuba and other countries in Latin America as well as fascist

movements in the West.

Publications which contain musical data are too often dismissed as simple

chapbooks or hymnals and are easily criticized because they lack philosophical

orientation, ethnographic interpretation, and attention to details beyond the

mechanical tune, text, and translation arrangement. As academic studies of folk

culture, they generally fall short due to the confinement of research to the rural

context, elderly generational bias, and the rise of nonconflictive themes in these

works. Genaro Padilla suggests that "such work constructs an edifice that

simultaneously marks the native writer’s presence in the world as it marks the

presence of a people whose cultural practices were ostensibly vanishing" (1993:

198).

What my analysis of the social context for Hispano cultural expression

and balladry will show is that the threat of erasure remains immanent to

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Mexicanos and that the production of historical distortion on the part of local and

federal governments for the purpose of promoting tourism is a very dangerous

enterprise. Recent shifts in ethnomusicological method from a modern-era science

paradigm toward more experimental forms of field research may be seen as part

of a response to changing world orders that challenge the superiority of Western

models (Barz and Cooley 1997).

The role of popular and traditional music whether invented or "genuine" in

nationalist political movements is well known. Similar to other cultural and

historical projects, the misuse of folklore and music may be best seen as the

manipulation of history, cultural symbols, and aesthetics. In this chapter, I

examine the dramatic action and performance core of the Hispanic Cuarto

Centenario and attempt to consider its political implications within broader

nationalist discourse as a revealing distortion (Rosaldo 1989: 217). What we find

here is a complex process of historical distortion and social erasure occurring for

various reasons. Investigation of Southwest ritual drama was completed by

Ronald Grimes (1976), Richard Flores (1995), and Sylvia Rodriguez (1996;

1997). These studies examine various Mexican religious and historical dramas

and other cultural performances across the Southwest. In this chapter, I attempt to

show the relationship between politics and folklore and how some aspects of

popular culture such as music may easily be exploited when presented within a

nationalist political context.

Other investigations include communications and multidisciplinary

approaches that integrate folklore with music, genre, cultural performance and

popular entertainment (Stewart 1991); (Briggs and Bauman 1992); (Barnouw and

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Kirkland 1992); as oral culture (Goody, 1992); and as oral traditions and verbal

arts Finnegan (1992). Issues over authenticity, tradition, and invention have been

studied by (Finnegan 1992); Handler and Linnekin (1984); and Hanson (1989);

poetics, performance and ethnopoetics Finnegan (1992); Bauman and Briggs

(1992); Tedlock (1983); and Feld (1988).

According to anthropologist Renato Rosaldo, "the notion of an authentic

culture as an autonomous internally coherent universe no longer seems tenable,

except perhaps as a "useful fiction" or a "revealing distortion""(1989: 217).

Rosaldo’s caveat echos John McDowells similar position on mapping out the

social context of the Mexican corrido. In McDowell’s paper, he was “indulging in

a “serviceable fiction”—assuming for the sake of argument the existence of

“ballad communities” (1981: 44). According to Manuel Peña, “such caveats are

necessary neither for corrido nor conjunto music” (1985: 113). Peña argues that

the corrido’s constituency has historically been the same as that of the conjunto’s.

He explains,

Thus, although up to now I have taken the social context of theconjunto more or less for granted and assumed that a specificconstituency with its own social, cultural, and economic characteristicsformed the human environment for the music’s development, at thispoint I would like to present a more concrete socioeconomic profile ofthat constituency. More specifically, I want to sketch the developmentof classes in Texas-Mexican society-particularly from 1930 to 1960,when conjunto emerged as a fully stylized working-class musicalexpression (1985: 113).

Texas-Mexican working class music and dance has been studied intensely.

In this chapter, I consider more critically the social context and working class

musical history using various ballad types from New Mexico and situating these

into the larger social framework and political economy leading up to the 1998

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Hispanic Cuarto Centenario. Thus viewed, music is best understood in three

broad overlapping cultural domains: traditions, genres, and forms, with symbolic

connections taking place among them. The ways in which composers, performers,

and educators attempt to reconcile newer styles of music with older forms in the

course of daily life speaks directly to how genres symbolically arbitrate between

traditional and modern life. According to Raymond Williams, “genre” has in

fact, until recently, been a term of classification which has brought together, and

then often confused, several different kinds of generic description (1977: 183).

Using Susan Stewart's concept of "distressed" genres, I will show how New

Mexican balladry was marginalized in the process of developing commercial

tourism as an economic industrial base. Williams explains how genre itself is a

problematic category:

Renaissance theory, defining ‘species’ and ‘modes’ within ageneral theory of ‘kinds’, was much more particular but was, onthe other hand, insufficiently historical. It was indeed to cope withhistorical combinations of different levels of organization that thelooser concept of “genre” was adopted. But, in its later stagesespecially, this single advantage was surrendered and genre-theorywas left with largely abstract and diverse collections (1977: 183).

According to Peña, Merle E. Simmons develops the thesis that the corrido

functioned historically as a barometer of Mexican workers’ attitudes towards

events affecting their lives (Peña 1982b: 13). The Mexican corrido may be seen

as an expression reflecting public values and a community’s interpretations of the

historical process. But the menacing question remains about what to make of

other ballad types and song forms. The cultural poetics on the part of musical

folklorists and professional ballad collectors provide an excellent place to

examine a “useful fiction”. There is an absence of reliable holistic models of

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macroprocess for contextualizing referents of research, models such as “the world

system,” “capitalism,” “the state,” and “the nation”. As theoretical capital, this

“usually is not the most proximate source for the terms of the specific

constructions and discourses appearing within a number of highly self-conscious

interdisciplinary arenas that use the diverse high theoretical capital that inspires

postmodernism to reconfigure the conditions for the study of contemporary

cultures and societies” (Marcus 1995: 103).

History as Hegemony

For Stuart Hall, all human practices are struggles to make history but in

conditions not of our own making. For ethnomusicologist Phillip Bohlman,

fieldwork in the ethnomusicological past must not be immune from criticism.

Multi-sited research is designed around chains, paths, threads, conjunctions, or

juxtapositions of locations in which the ethnographer establishes some form of

literal, physical presence, with an explicit, posited logic of association or

connection among sites that in fact defines the argument of the ethnography

(Marcus 1995: 105). In fact, Marcus regards multi-sited ethnography as a revival

of sophisticated practices of constructivism, one of the most interesting and fertile

practices of representation and investigation by the Russian avant-garde that

accompanied momentous social change just before and after their revolution.

Constructivists viewed the artist as an engineer whose task was to construct useful

objects, much like a factory worker, while actively participating in the building of

a new society. Throughout Latin America folklore has been one of the most

creative and de facto ethnographic media through which constructivism was

produced.

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Scholarly studies in modern folk culture of New Mexico were completed

by native folklorists of the region. Earliest among these studies are the

investigations of Aurelio Espinosa at the turn of the century. Often overlooked but

not forgotten are the countless amateur studies produced by community members

and local writers such as Nina Otero Warren who wrote Old Spain in Our

Southwest (1936); Fabiola Cabeza de Baca author of We Fed Them Cactus

(1954); and Cleofas Jaramillo who wrote Romance of a Little Village Girl (1955),

Sombras del Pasado (1941), and the Genuine New Mexico Tasty Recipes: Old

and Quaint Formulas for the Preparation of Seventy-Five Delicious Spanish

Dishes (1939).

Previous studies attempted to gather data with minimal attention to

theoretical concerns and most were interested in issues of taxonomy. The lack of

theoretical perspective reduced the academic study of folklore to the extensive

and bulky compilation and publication of "popular" collections. Such research

was more quantitative and often intended for historical or cultural performances

by professionalized performers and national troupes.

Arthur L. Campa studied Southwest Hispanic folk and popular culture

starting in the 1940s. According to his biographer, Mario García, Campa "bridged

folklore, literature, history, and cultural anthropology" (García 1989: 273). Campa

developed a unique cultural historicism by which to study folk and popular

culture. According to García,

He saw his work as linking history and folklore and in later yearshe reflected that in truth both disciplines were very similar. Bothused different methodologies, but they aimed to rediscover ahuman past and the meaning of the past. Campa admitted that

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folklore could never be as objectively accurate with respect to factsas history, but that through its more subjective approach folklorecould perhaps better understand emotions from the past. Campabelieved that for a people such as the Spanish-speaking in theSouthwest, folklore or popular culture represented the bestevidence for uncovering history and cultural evolution. Songs, forexample, revealed the "unadulterated rhythm of the masses."(1989: 275).

Campa was correct in his appraisal that folklore could reveal important

emotional forms of resistance such as rage, anger, and violence across lived

experience over time. The emotion of coraje, or anger is apparent in much of the

balladry of Texas. Genaro Padilla found it in certain cookbooks from New

Mexico. He suggests, "taken together with other articulations of resistance ( . . . ),

just such voicings (of coraje are) but a complex cultural narrative in which the

repossession (. . . ) is described as one activity within a cultural matrix" (1993:

224).

What such material indicates is when examined as a larger piece of

intellectual history, it is "the construction of the history and culture and lore of the

Southwest (which) was being enacted by nonnative fabulists whose vision of the

land and its people produced a just-so story of the Southwest, steeped in romance

and fantasy that glossed over the strained intercultural relations because it

occluded a social history of the region" (Padilla 1993: 198). Although this

production fashioned itself in different ways depending on region, there were

some commonalities. The eye of ethnology tends to look naturally for cultural

difference and disdains such romantic accounts and evolutionist interpretations.

However, it continually focuses on people in brightly colored dress, engaged in

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ritualistic or inexplicable behavior rather than the mundane, placid, or the

ordinary.

In Romance of a Little Village Girl, Cleofas Jaramillo wrote an entire

chapter devoted to "The Coronado Centennial". In 1940, New Mexico celebrated

the 400-year anniversary of Francisco Coronado's exploratory journey of 1540-

1542 throughout the Southwest. This historical pageant took the form of a

dramatization that followed the Coronado trail between seventeen New Mexico,

West Texas, and Arizona cities. It was billed as the founding day on behalf of the

mexicano community in the Southwest and in many ways it reflected much of the

similar Mexican imagery and symbols associated with local folk drama performed

throughout the Spanish speaking world.

Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes describes the three -thousand mile border

between Mexico and the United States "as a frontier between two memories: a

memory of triumph and a memory of loss" (1985: 8) and as a frontier between

two cultures: the Protestant capitalist, Nordic culture, and the southern, Indo-

Mediterranean, Catholic culture. For other analysts, the border represents

hybridity, syncretism and the the baroque (see Ybarro-Frausto 1990, 1992; Mesa-

Bains 1995). Fuentes describes the border as "at odds with itself, its past, and with

many unresolved conflicts" that may only be understood as culture in its historical

context.

New Mexicans have long used history as an integral component of their

cultural identities. The issue of the past is an especially critical one here because,

as Charles Briggs states, "not only are Hispanos fascinated by their (own) history

and by the moral values it embodies for them, it is (also) a major topic of

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conversation, particularly for elderly persons" (1988: 30). History in Hispano

society is thus seen "as serving as a crucial source of collective identity" . . .

"frequently provid(ing) a locus for the validation of cultural action" (1988.: 98).

Within the Coronado Cuarto Centennial, the historical drama, "Entrada: A

Pageant of the Centuries," was scripted by Thomas Woods Stevens. New Mexico

magazine published an article by Edmund Sherman, titled "New Mexico

Celebrates," in vol. 18, June 1940. According to Padilla,

(Stevens article) opens with an echo of Lummis's project forrestoring the romance of the Spanish conquest. "From the land ofmañana to that of yesteryear, New Mexico is reaching back intohistory four centuries to commemorate this summer an event thatwas the beginning of the American Southwest. . . .Thomas WoodStevens, internationally known pageant writer, produced thepageant book, a precise and dramatic play which depicts theCoronado Entrada on a grand scale. Costuming presented one ofthe major tasks in presentation . . . for nearly 1000 pieces ofclothing were necessary to clothe the cast of the hundreds. . . . Forthis job, Miss Lucy Barton, nationally known costume designer,was employed. . . . Then came the problem of a stage upon whichto produce a show of the magnitude of that planned for theCoronado celebration. The Jerome J. Cargill productionorganization of New York, experts in the construction of stage andlighting equipment, has taken charge of this phase of theproduction. The stage to be used in the featured entradas willmeasure 300 feet in length with backgrounds extending more than50 feet high, depicting the various locations visited by theConquistadors" (12-13 quoted in Padilla 1993: 260-261n31).

Photographs of the Coronado Centennial (Campa 1979), show actors in

colonial military uniforms and other historical costumes. Exotic dress alone may

often stand for an entire alien life-style, locale, or culture. In this way, historical

costume suggests something about the social stability and timelessness of the

people depicted, and in a story drawing attention to the social transformation

taking place. The interest in cultural and historical themes contributed to their

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reproduction. The performers were embedded in history and tradition and

depicted as living in a sacred world. This emphasis or focus "reflected the

assumption of Boas's generation that ritual contained distilled history and cultural

wisdom, that was the most conservative and thus the most meaningful remnant of

culture" (Banta and Hinsley 1986: 106).

Arthur Campa (1979) and Cleofas Jaramillo (1941) described the

Coronado Cuarto Centennial in their writings. Comparison of their accounts

reveal some dramatic contrasts and similar parallels in the historical content and

cultural performance of the event. Both writers emphasized the romance of

exploration and discovery, the traditional culture of Hispanic New Mexico, and

the juxtaposition of things native Indian and Spanish colonial against those

Mexican, modern or American. Omitted from the program are the new

technologies and the Los Alamos National Laboratories’ atomic weapons. The

most important of these narratives is the first: the romance of exploration and

discovery.

One mode of constructing a multi-sited space of research involves tracing

the circulation through different contexts of a manifestly material object of study

(at least as initially conceived), such as commodities, gifts, money, works of art,

and intellectual property (Marcus 1995: 106-07). The Coronado Cuarto

Centennial Commision was formed by the New Mexico legislature in 1935 and

prepared over the next three years. The event was a statewide celebration of the

four hundredth anniversary of the epochal entrada of Francisco Vásquez de

Coronado in 1540. Coronado's exploration from Compostela, Mexico to the plains

of Kansas, and his winter near the modern city of Bernalillo were the main focus

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of the pageant. Much of the publicity makes explicit reference to the state's rituals

and religion(s) as part of a long, ancient tradition. The official program stressed

the point that much of the past traditional lifeways are preserved in New Mexico.

James F. Zimmerman, President of the Coronado Cuarto Centennial Commision

explains the political motivation in the following quote,

During the past five years, the people of the United States, led byPresident Franklin Delano Roosevelt, have sought to bring about acloser relationship among the Americas. New Mexico, with itsessentially Hispanic background, still preserves much of thetradition as well as the language of the Conquistadores, who, fourcenturies ago, brought European culture to both North and SouthAmerica. With the celebration of her four hundredth birthday, NewMexico will have an unprecedented opportunity to further thecultural relations between the United States of America and thosecountries lying to our South, whose historic background is linkedwith ours. To this day a large portion of New Mexico is Spanish inblood and thinking. Through the Coronado celebration, we shallunite our colorful pasts with the realities of the present, and in sodoing lay new foundations of spiritual relationship with our sisternations in this hemisphere (Andrews p. 3).

The official Coronado program is interesting because it downplays

contemporary actuality and the historical changes that preceded the events current

form. A pattern may be recognized of presenting the other engaged in exotic

pursuits, including ritual, and of accentuating traditional life and spectacle. This

fascination with ritual stems from a sense that it is a key to the past. It also

illustrates how Anglo-Americans were attempting to highlight their own history

through the Coronado Centennial.

First on the program were local annual events by Indians representing

tribes "forever emblazoned upon the records of the West: the Apache, the Navajo,

the Ute, and the Pueblo; with white-faced cattle still roaming the broad plains, and

the range rider bringing back the tales of the "old West," -- the West of Billy the

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Kid and brave Sheriff Garrett, of high-heeled boots and the six-gun; these and a

thousand other indelibly inscribed records remain as constant reminders of our

rich heritage" (Andrews p. 5). Second were the dancing and ceremonial arts of the

Southwest Indians. This contrast suggests a continuity with other Western

representations of earlier periods in which Indian people are seen in traditional

clothes and dances while Anglos are depicted as gunfighters. The area is created

as inside history and outside of modernity.

This background is presented annually in the Indian ceremonials, rodeos,

frontier celebrations, fairs, Indian dances, religious observances, and fiestas.

These annual events were woven into the program suggesting New Mexicans

were being transformed into moderns (read Euro-Americans). Also on the

program were the statewide Coronado Pageant. These were enacted in most of the

cities where Coronado had actually travelled, although some of the presentations

had nothing to do with Coronado or colonial history at all. Las Vegas, for

example, presented the following:

At historic Las Vegas, in San Miguel County, one of the mostelaborate pageants has been outlined. With the cooperation of thefederal government it is planned that, in addition to the Coronadopageant, cavalry troops from Fort Bliss will be stationed near thesite of old Fort Union, and there, during the third week of June,1940, scenes from the eventful history of the Civil War in NewMexico will be reenacted. The days of Kearny, Price, andDoniphan, and, not unlikely, the battle of Glorieta can be stirringlyrelived. These, in addition to the regular annual events, will makeLas Vegas one of the bright centers of the Coronado CuartoCentennial (Andrews p. 13).

The spiritual phases of the Coronado Centennial included a major

Eucharistic Congress held on the Mesa near the Coronado Monument, in the

vicinity of Bernalillo on May 21, 22, and 23, 1940. The official Catholic

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observance of the feast of Corpus Christi was on May 23rd and the Archbishop of

the Archdiocese of Santa Fe participated. By presenting the pageant as a feature

of custom or tradition, the spiritual phases can be seen as a routine that people

follow rather than as an expression of individual and group faith.

Historical and Anthropological exhibits consisted of actual written

documents and historic artifacts, such as Spanish armor, helmets, swords, coats,

guns, and other equipment. These materials were displayed in the Museum of

New Mexico. Under the direction of the School of American Research, the

Museum of New Mexico and the Laboratory and Department of Anthropology of

the University of New Mexico also exhibited their vast collections of

archaeological materials. Communities without proper facilities for housing

exhibitions were assisted through state and federal aid by the Coronado Cuarto

Centennial Commision. The exhibits contributed to the theme of exoticism as they

provided official "scholarly" definition of cultural difference and as the tourists

had already seen the dress and festivals involved in the historical performance of

an exotic other.

The Art Museum of New Mexico, the Harwood foundation at Taos, and

various artist organizations throughout the state exhibited outstanding pieces of

Southwestern art in the various galleries and art museums. School activities

provided historical lessons dealing with subjects concerning the Coronado Cuarto

Centennial. Coronado Clubs were organized in schools and were awarded charters

by the Commission. The Coronado staff prepared a series of plays, programs,

stories, and poems which were distributed to the school clubs. The county, city,

and state boards of education and their superintendents and principals endorsed

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county and state exhibits of art, literary, and handicraft work done in the schools

of New Mexico, and promoted school contests.

The remainder of the program included handicraft, Indian, and federal

exhibits, tours, publications, roads, monuments, and publicity. The last portion of

the Coronado Program addressed "What the Coronado Cuarto Centennial will

mean to New Mexico" as it was hoped that, an increased income for New

Mexicans would result out of all this creative activity. With the realization of

transcontinental travel by automobile as a pastime for the masses since the 1920s,

New Mexican economists began to realize that "promoting travel in our state by

advertising our attractions to the scores of millions who hardly knew such

attractions existed within the Union" could prove to be quite lucrative. In 1935

following a test campaign by the State Highway Department, the state of New

Mexico established the State Tourist Bureau, and set aside $50,000 for its

operation in that year, repeating the action in 1936. A slight increased sum was

allowed in 1937 and 1938. According to Willard Andrews,

There is no question of the effectiveness of national advertising inincreasing the flow of tourists to and through New Mexico. Thereshould be no question of the Coronado Cuarto Centennial's valuein bringing in the greatest amount of tourist business and greatestincome from this source that the people of New Mexico have everenjoyed. . . On this basis alone, the Coronado Cuarto Centennialwill not only pay for itself several times over, but it will bring in anincreased income that will pay unprecedented dividends to everybusiness and every citizen of New Mexico for many years to come(Andrews p. 38).

The economic promotion of the Coronado program was dressed in a

rhetorical guise of cultural and spiritual benefits to all the people of New Mexico.

Since the 19th century, many of the elements that were borrowed from folk or

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popular culture were often used for the explicit purposes of propaganda, tourism,

and political indoctrination. Two of the central impressions one gets from a

survey of the program and articles describing the Coronado Cuarto Centennial is

that the region is, first, an exotic area due to its multicultural (triethnic)

population. Second, is that the land is out of time or existing in history or in

transition towards the modern. New Mexicans are represented in various exotic

activities such as dance, ritual, ceremony, or creating arts and crafts which

became ready-made symbols for identity construction.

Arguably, the Cuarto Centennial articulates more about the promotion of

romantic images associated with national tourism and American political relations

with Latin America. The Cuarto Centennial no doubt helped attract tourists to the

Southwest. The Spanish romance also served as an acculturating background to

the many products that use Southwest motifs to sell Santa Fe style products

including homes, curios, art, and food. Images and sounds from New Mexico

mediate nature and culture for Americans in powerful ways similar to those in

other parts of the country.

The People, The Nation, and the Political Possibilities for Folk Culture

The most obvious and conventional mode of materializing a multi-sited

ethnography is what Marcus calls “Follow the People” (Marcus 1995: 106) yet

one of the most vexing problems facing folklorists, anthropologists, and

ethnomusicologists is identifying "the people". According to Ortiz, "It is in a

certain element of folklore, specifically in its fundamental agent, "the people"--

conceived in a romantic, idealizing, aestheticizing, and essentialist way--where

we find the main interest of nationalism (in the 19th century and today) and of

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fascism in the use of folklore for practical ends of an ideological character" (1999:

480). Arthur Campa articulated and defined the historical origins of what he

called "the common people" in one of his familiar excerpts:

And, who are the common people? It is the group of people who,due to its spontaneous and simple way of life, has not abandonedthe realities of life. It is this group which has given us ourdistinctiveness as a race. . . . It is the common people whodetermine all civilization and that remaining culture is ratheruniversal (1939: 4).

Through the political processes of folklore as propaganda intended to

bolster cultural tourism, emerges the concept of nation and its construction of

identity. Historians continue their efforts today to broaden the understanding of

the American past by illuminating the Hispanic or Mexican origins of the country.

In this way the nation expands its temporal scope pointing out similarities in

historical experience with that of colonial Latin America. For Spain and Latin

America religious values and Catholicism were the fundamental elements in the

ideological configuration of what had been the past and this became true for the

former northern provinces of New Spain. One of the basic components of the

Spanish popular mentality is a focus on religiousity and Christian piety. Among

"the people", religious sentiments could still be found in festive manifestations

(above all Holy Week celebrations), prayers, and songs (Ortiz 1999: 487).

There are striking parallels that were taking place among folklorists

working during the Franco Regime in Spain and at the same time throughout

Spanish America. Among these, the southern Coloradoan Aurelio Espinosa stands

out. One of the defining principles of the Franco regime was centralism which

lead to a sense of cultural unity among the "Spanish" people. Ortiz explains that

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Spain became "metaphysical." According to José Antonio, "Spain is diverse and

plural, but her diverse peoples, with their languages, customs and characteristics,

are irrevocably bound in a unity of destiny on a universal plane" (Primo de Rivera

1941: 105 quoted in Ortiz ibid.). The project, therefore, was to turn regionalism

into an aesthetic and emotional element, thus making regional diversity an

unproblematic aspect in the composition of the general framework of the nation.

Regional differences were folklorized. This was summarized in the plural

expression of dialects, customs, music, festivals, and regional dress in which "the

Spanish people" with no other divisions or with so many local versions that it was

not easy to find the concrete cultural manifestation ascribed to either a historical

or culturally defined community (Uría 1984: 115 quoted in Ortiz ibid).

Intellectual Leadership: Aurelio M. Espinosa 1880-1958

The life history is a favored form of ethnographic data. The production

and development of life histories as ethnography has been the subject of much

reflection, but the use of biographical narrative as a means of designing multi-

sited research has rarely been considered. Aurelio M. Espinosa was born in

southern Colorado on September 12, 1880, in El Carnero, a small country town in

the San Luis Valley about fifteen miles northeast of Del Norte and approximately

forty-five miles northeast of the present New Mexico-Colorado border. His family

left their home, moving to Boulder where Aurelio and his brother enrolled at the

University of Colorado at Boulder. Aurelio graduated in 1902, with the degree of

Bachelor of philosophy. His chief studies were Romance languages, Latin, and

philosophy. In 1904 he received the degree of master of arts for work done in

absentia and in summer residence. He received the degree of doctor of

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philosophy, cum laude, majoring in Romance languages and literatures and

minoring in Indo-European comparative philology. His doctoral dissertation,

"Studies in New-Mexican Spanish," was published in three parts between 1909

and 1914 in the Revue de Dialectologie Romane.

Espinosa's professional career began as a professor of modern languages at

the University of New Mexico where he continued his comparative linguistic

studies of New Mexican Spanish and folklore. Later, he taught at the University

of Chicago and eventually taught at Stanford University where he developed one

of the leading Spanish departments in the nation until his retirement in 1947.

Espinosa completed folkloristic research using the current practices and

methodology of his day--collecting, classifying, and studying folkloric materials.

Of central concern for folklorists at this time was the search for origins and

historical antecedents.

His numerous publications included Spanish grammars and linguistic

studies that were written and informed from these schools and approaches. In

virtually all of his published works, Espinosa romantically perpetuated a historical

image of "Spanish" New Mexico. In his 1937 beginning Spanish reader titled:

España en Nuevo Méjico, he wrote:

Spanish New Mexico has remained to this day like a lone sentinelof Spanish civilization in the northernmost frontier of the oldSpanish Empire in America. . . . Everywhere within its confines wefind living evidences of the blood, the language, the religion, thelaws, and the traditions of Spain (1937: 42 translation provided byJohn Chávez 1984: 98).

I have not seen any evidence that Aurelio Espinosa was anti-Semitic,

however he refused to acknowledge that New Mexico's Indians "ha(d) given the

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state its true and permanent character" (1937: v-vi). He also denied that the

Indians had intermarried with Hispanos (ibid.). Historian John Chávez (1984)

explains that one of Espinosa's major reasons for collecting nuevomexicano

folklore was his fear that "Spanish" culture would disappear from New Mexico.

At one point in his España en Nuevo Méjico he asked rhetorically: Will the

Spanish tradition in New Mexico remain forever vigorous? He realized that it

depended a great deal on the problem of language.

John Chávez suggests that “even though Spanish, which Espinosa thought

could be a cultural bond stronger than race or religion, was at a disadvantage in

the face of the economic power symbolized by English, he believed New Mexico

would continue to be bilingual”(ibid.). Espinosa's rationale was romantic. For

instance, he believed the Spanish language would survive because it was "the

language of the descendants of conquerors and colonizers of noble Spanish blood,

men and women conscious of their glorious past and of the spiritual force of the

people" (ibid). He suggested Hispano culture as a whole would survive because

nuevomexicanos "are Spain in New Mexico. They have the power, the privilege

and the duty to conserve, fortify and perpetuate all the beauty, . . . of the great and

glorious Spain of bygone centuries" (1937: 70-73 translation provided by John

Chávez 1984: 99). According to Romero,

following the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848,there existed mexicanos of the same español mentality that hadprovoked rebellion after Mexico gained its independence from Spain, arebellion that led to the assassination of the Mexican Governor AlbinoPérez in 1837. This faction, which included many of the mostprivileged landowners and their genízaros, now emphasized aromanticized Spanish identity, encouraged by Anglo elites. ManyAnglo elites resisted statehood because the lawlessness of territorialgovernment facilitated land grabbing from the Spanish-Mexicans

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(Sena 1999). For them, such romanticization may have been desirableas a way of pacifying the Spanish-Mexicans. For those tired of waitingfor statehood, such romanticization may have seemed to attractstatehood. Many of the privileged Spanish-Mexicans thus distancedthemselves as far away from Mexican "bastardized" identity aspossible, to quote the term that David Montejano uses to describe ageneral attitude--probably deriving from the Spanish casta system, inwhich European racial purity was the key to privilege and status(1998). Many who identified strongly with the old Spanish culturepreserved the old pan-European dances, such as the Vals, the Polka,the Chótis, and the Varsoviana (Romero in press: 106-107).

Drawing from his own linguistic and folklore studies, Aurelio Espinosa

attempted to prove his assertions that New Mexico was pure Spanish to the point

that he even concluded that New Mexico was still an integral part of New Spain.

He wrote,

After I began publishing my New-Mexican Spanish folk-lorematerial, some four years ago, I made the somewhat sweepingassertion, that in my opinion most of the material was traditional,that is Spanish. Further study has strengthened this opinion moreand more. The traditional material- whether it be ballads, nurseryrhymes, proverbs, riddles, folk-tales, or what not- may havesometimes undergone some modifications and amplifications, butit has survived, and not only has it survived, but it has remainedpractically untouched by foreign influences (1914: 211).

Despite this, Aurelio Espinosa expressed a contradiction that the Hispano

community had already lost touch with a crucial part of its cultural identity at that

time. Genaro Padilla suggests that the examples of fragmented verses and other

musical compositions do not so much represent an effort to preserve, or even

recover, oral poetics and musical practices as to come to terms with their loss.

Other writers at that time did express their remorse over the cultural erasure and

musical transformation taking place. However, the prized romances and décimas

were being transformed into modern musical genres so by 1900 traditional

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musical life was almost forgotten, fragmented, or distorted. Nuevomexicanos had

been severed from everyday cultural practice. Padilla explains:

Hence, to reproduce only fragments of oral poetics proves a pathetic,disincorporated textual gesture. Espinosa, working at the same time,did reproduce these cultural artifacts for folkloric study, but when onelooks at the list of over four hundred one-line New Mexican Spanishproverbs," (. . . ) anxiety about the disfiguration of cultural practicesand oral discourse is made manifest. Espinosa himself expresses hisown anxiety about the erosion of proverb practice: "A proverb isconsidered the final word on any subject, on any occasion, and in anyemergency. That a few, however, are beginning to scoff at them, isevident" (1993: 170).

Within Espinosa’s type of fascist folklore discourse, the most common

signifier is the peasant world in general, independent of regional origin. If Spain

is Castille, Castille is the most ideal representation of the countryside; Castillian

is synonymous with peasant, and peasant with Spanish. This would be the chain

of representations leading to the extraordinary ideological appreciation (and not

only on the part of ethnological researchers) of the peasantry.

The national spirit, Spanishness, and Spanish racial origins were all said to

have their roots in the agrarian world and in its culture--in its tools, crafts, dances,

and songs---whereby the specificity of the national essence was found, free of

external contamination by either Indian, Jew, or Anglo. There was no doubt that

the authentic popular culture was the "pure" peasant one as Espinosa described it.

However, it is important not to romanticize the “popular”. Stuart Hall explains,

Since the inception of commercial capitalism and the drawing ofall relations into the net of market transactions, there has been littleor no 'pure' culture of the people--no wholly separate folk-realm ofthe authentic popular, where 'the people' existed in their pure state,outside of the corrupting influences. The people have always hadto make something out of the things the system was trying to makeof them (Morley and Chin 1996: 163).

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The Coronado Cuarto Centennial was presented by the newly legislated

New Mexico office of tourism. It was created for purposes of advancing tourism

but also perpetuated a romantic history or Spanish culture. The appealing image

was of the traditional peasant, obedient and faithful to his or her master (patron)

with no revolutionary or conflictive ideas, the representative of values opposed to

those upheld by other classes (workers, bourgeoisie, or civil servants), creators of

an urban, industrial culture that had given rise to democratic and liberal ideas

(Cirici 1977: 74). The peasant way of life was of value not only because within it

the traditional virtues of the "race" were conveyed but also because small family

units of agricultural production constituted a basis for the political and economic

stability of the country--that is, they fit in with the supposed overcoming of

socioeconomic conflicts. According to Ortiz,

In the people, that is, in the folklore, all those essentially religioussentiments, which could still be found in festive manifestations(above all in Holy Week celebrations), prayers, and songs and, infact, in all traditional culture impregnated with an ancestralreligious sense, were to be preserved. This was lost among theurban and industrial classes, whose pious religious sentiment hadbeen subverted by materialism and "foreign" modernizing trends(1999: 487).

Throughout Latin America, Christian blending with non-Western religious

elements lends itself well to an understanding of cultural hybridity or mestizaje.

For many analysts, New Mexican cultural identity represents a mestizaje of

Spanish, Pueblo, Navajo, Apache, Comanche, Anglo and genizaro identities1.

1 Currently there are 19 existing Pueblo villages in New Mexico. They are: Santa Clara, San Juan,Nambé, Acoma, Cochiti, Tesuque, Laguna, Zuni, San Ildefonso, Santa Ana, Sandia, Jemez,Acoma, San Felipe, Taos, Picuris, Pojoaque, Isleta, and Santo Domingo (Dozier 1970). The termGenizaro stems from the Turkish words Yeni and cheri meaning new troops. Genizaros wereHispanicized Indians who were former slaves during the colonial period (Romero in press: 97; andGutiérrez 1993).

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However, the overlapping of ethnicity and cultural interaction seems to be

deliberately avoided in the studies of most early analysts.

Ortiz explains that the insistence on the "novelty," "originality," or

"revolutionary" character with which the (Fascist) Movimiento identified itself

carried within an apparent paradox. This was the pretension that the system was

rooted in the deepest strata of the Hispanic nation; so the "New Spain" identified

itself as a break with the republican one, but at the same time, it set itself up as the

sole representative of "eternal Spain" (ibid.), Thus, the regime's propaganda

constantly referred to the historical ancestry of this new Spain and by means of

the invention of tradition sought an effective historical continuity for itself (Ortiz

1999: 483).

George Marcus points out that there are stories or narratives told in the

frame of single-site fieldwork that might themselves serve as an heuristic frame

for the fieldworker constructing multi-sited ethnographic research. This has been

a routine technique in the displinary history of Levi-Straussian myth analysis

within so-called traditional societies (Marcus 1995: 109). He explains,

In the framework of modernity, the character of the stories that peopletell as myth in their everyday situations is not as important tofieldworkers tracking processes and associations in their own situatedsense of social landscapes. Reading for the plot and then testing thisagainst the reality of ethnographic investigation that constructs its sitesaccording to a compelling narrative is an interesting, virtually untriedmode of constructing multi-sited research… Perhaps the one genre ofwork where this technique is now being used is the renewed interestamong anthropologists and others in social memory (Marcus 1995:109).

Returning to Southwest balladry, Américo Paredes was first to question

the theory about the antiquity of the Mexican corrido, especially regarding the

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material collected in what had once been the frontier regions of New Spain: New

Mexico, California, and the Lower Texas-Mexican Border—the old Spanish

province of Nuevo Santander. Paredes questioned why the Lower Border corrido

was in the ascendent during the period from 1850 to 1910 while in adjacent areas

of Greater Mexico the corrido at this time was supposed to have been at its lowest

ebb. “Still another question was why the corrido had not migrated into the frontier

outposts in early colonial days, or why the romance tradition did not flower into

the corrido in the provinces- in New Mexico especially, where the romance

tradition flourished until very recent times” (1958: 94). Paredes explains,

In New Mexico the corrido never was an important native form, mostof the better corridos collected in that area being Greater Mexicanimportations. When New Mexico was settled toward the end of thesixteenth century by Spaniards, the argument went, the romance andthe décima had not given way to the Mexican corrido. After itssettlement New Mexico remained isolated from the rest of New Spain,thus remaining “Spanish” as could be seen by the predominance of thedécima and the romance in its balladry (1958: 93).`

Research of New Mexican versos reveals a text organization based on the

décima de Espinel, courtly stanzas of the early seventeenth century which may be

classified in two groups: a lo divino (of the divine) and a lo humano (of the

secular). Its music is based on repetitive recitative-like vocal patterns

accompanied either by guitar or guitarrón. Aurelio Espinosa noted that in New

Mexico the guitar was also called a vigüela. Grebes (1967) also finds this parallel

in ballad singing throughout Latin America, most obviously related to the

romance and the chanson de geste melodic patterns.

As a general rule, New Mexican folksong employs the major-minor tonal

system. However, the presence of modal features in certain romances also called

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alabados and décimas a lo divino indicate perhaps a style within a style that until

now has only been considered in certain studies of versos. It seems likely that

throughout the course of the sixteenth century and throughout later colonial times,

in both Iberian instrumental music and archaic New Mexican folksongs there

remained a modal aesthetic quality that endured. This seems to be evident in later

nineteenth century forms such as the cuando, corrido, and indita which I believe

were in transition at the time they were collected. According to Romero,

The corrido is popular in New Mexico as well, for the politicalboundaries between the United States and Mexico have not preventeda continuous musical exchange. The ready availability of radio sincethe 1950s has also aided the process. To a degree, isolation from therest of the Spanish-speaking world was a condition of the Spanish-Mexican colonies that became New Mexico and Colorado. Suchisolation was reinforced when political boundaries were formedbetween Mexico and the United States in 1848. Consequently, manysong types that developed into more modern, major-minor key stylesin Mexico, continued in an older modal style in New Mexico until theintroduction of radio and television in the early 1950s (Romero 1997:170-171).

Several ballad forms like the cuando show elements of a more modern harmonic

sensibility and formal design. However, because of the preservation of older

Spanish forms earlier in the century, these ballads in my view became

marginalized or "distressed" musical genres. Among Hispanos and Pueblo

Indians, the feast day observance of the Virgin of Guadalupe is celebrated on

December 12. Among New Mexico's Hispanos to La Virgen de Guadalupe is also

venerated in prayer, invocations, and popular hymns. One of the more popular

alabanzas to the Virgen de Guadalupe was collected by John Robb in Bernalillo.

It was sung by the late trovador Próspero Baca. This popular cuando is included

in Vicente Mendoza's (1986) investigation I have heard the Cuando a Nuestra

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Señora de Guadalupe in several ritualized contexts. Mendoza believed it dates to

the 1840s in Mexico and it resembles the primitive form of a villancico. The

verses are double coplas including the word cuando at the beginning of the

estribillo (refrain). Mendoza notes that the melody is unusual and original. The

melodic line ascends and ends with clear defined periods and a full cadence is

marked in the middle of long tones. The meters alternate 3/2 at times in an

extended manner that produces a 7/4 meter in order to accommodate the ten

syllables of the double coplas. Mendoza finds this anomaly originally New

Mexican with the rhythm beginning with an anacrusis. The melody outlines a

tonic triad in second inversion and ends with a feminine ending extended over

three beats.

The extended melody is a minor décima and the cadences give the

impression of an incomplete Hypomixolydian mode. The harmony utilizes

primarily tonic, dominant, and subdominant chords. The overall compositional

organization is a double phrase with a melody that renders a hypnotic and perhaps

mystical quality or religious effect. Here are the first two verses:

Cuando se llegará el cuando When will there be another cuandoque mi fino amor deseya [sic] That my fine love desiresy otro México se veya[sic] And foresees another Mexicoformingde los imperios formando; as part of World empiresque habrá reinas en las Indias Other queens may rule the IndiesPero otra Guadalupana . . . ¡cuándo! But another Guadalupe, when.

Este cuando se compuso This our cuando is composeda la Reina Soberana, To our great and sovereign queenla que bajó de los cielos Who descended from the heavensa la suidad mexicana. [sic] to our Mexican city.

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Madre mía Guadalupana, My mother of Guadalupemi alma se vive implorando: my soul keeps imploringsi habrá reinas en las Indias Other queens may rule the Indiespero otra Guadalupana . . . ¡cuando! But another Guadalupe, when.(Mendoza and Mendoza 1986: 72)

Like other Latin American and Spanish versos, similar New Mexican

musical forms employ primarily Ionian and Hypoionian modes and secondarily

the Mixolydian. The predominance of Ionian mode was also typical of ancient

Spanish folksong. Francisco Salinas' sixteenth-century compilation of "hispanos

vulgares cantilenae," a collection of popular romances, stresses sharply the

preference for the Ionian, followed by the Dorian and Mixolydian (Salinas 1577:

bks. VI-VII). Musicologist Garcia Matos has proved that at least twelve of

Salinas' melodies still survive. It appears that those melodies most closely related

to the major and minor-like modal tunes were the only songs capable of resisting

for four centuries the tendency to modernize the inherited patterns.

John Robb includes several versions of the Cuando de la Virgen de

Guadalupe in his collection including transcriptions of recordings of several

singers such as Próspero Baca's (1944), and Edwin Berry's (1956) recording made

in Tomé. His transcriptions are in Mixolydian mode and he points to "a subtle but

charming musical feature of this text and melody through each of the preceding

lines of each verse contain[ing] eight syllables, the last line of each verse is

unexpectedly prolonged to ten syllables" (1980: 730). This blurring of rhythm and

melody is peculiar because it suggests a crossover with other types of ballad

forms such as the indita, the décima, and the romance.

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In my opinion, the cuando and the indita are both marginalized musical

forms. Such forms are "distressed" according to Susan Stewart, because of the

artificial nature of these marginalized genres. She explains,

"to distress": in common usage (although, curiously not indictionaries), is to make old, to antique, particularly in reproducingmaterial goods from previous times. . . In such usage, "to distress"involves a process of appropriation by reproduction, ormanipulation through affliction. All of these meanings bear uponthe distressing of genres--and in particular on the literary imitationof folklore forms (Stewart 1991: 6).

The same may be said about the musical imitation of folkloric forms.

Another indigenous genre from New Mexico is the indita. It has been studied as a

ballad (Lamadrid 1995), as a poetic form (Campa 1946), as a musical form (Robb

1980, Mendoza 1986), and as a trans-cultural form (Romero in Press). According

to Campa, "to see it written, one would take the indita for a ballad, and to hear it

sung one would think it was an Indian chant. It is this combination that makes the

indita a truly New Mexican product." Cleofas Jaramillo regarded it more as a

dance. She described New Mexican dances as having "three different kinds of

steps. . . , the waltz step, the polka, and the jarabe step, with perhaps a little

mingling of Indian steps in some of them, as in the Indita. In the Indita, the singer

sang the verses of the Indita song while it was danced". Jaramillo provided the

following example:

Indita, Indita, Indita, Indita mía sí no me quieres,Indita de Cochití, Indita mía ten compación [sic]Qué le hace qué para tí. Mira que este hombre qué te idolatra,Si alcabo no soy para tí. Se siente herído en el corazón.

Porqué me miras indita mía,Porqué me miras mí bien hace? [sic]Cual es el crimen que he cometido,Por haverte [sic] amado nomas a tí? (1941: 52).

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Like Cleofas Jaramillo, Espinosa also describes the New Mexican indita

as a dance, "executed in the manner of a jota or a jig, accompanied by songs". He

could not deny the "notable influence of Pueblo Indian music and subject matter"

(1990: 133). There was, however, much debate over the nature and origins of the

indita. Campa later pointed out that the term canción has always been used in

New Mexico to include décimas, corridos, cuandos, and inditas. More important

was his observation that in actual metrical form the last three types are exactly

alike (1946: 2). Robb found the melodic feature the most interesting characteristic

of the indita. He provided the comments of two of his informants who pointed his

curiosity in this direction. Celestín Segura told Robb, "You sing an indita softly,

with feeling. A corrido you can sing loud" (1980: 418). However, Robb disagreed

with Segura and characterized the indita as having "more gusto and vitality than

many of the other forms. The singers sing faster with more rhythmic intensity,

shorter notes" (ibid.). According to Romero,

The Mejicano song genre referred to as the indita, which is indigenousto the New World and emerged during the nineteenth century, alsoutilizes Indian musical or textual themes. An example of this genre isthe Indita de Manuelito , which is in the Dorian mode (Robb 1980:424). The words, which mention the names Charles and Captain Grey,reflect intercultural conflict following the Anglo-Americancolonization of this area (1997: 171).

According to Mendoza (1986),

the first inditas were Indian songs adapted as sones for Spanishmusical/theatrical presentations called tonadillas in the Coliseo de laCiudad de México, Coliseum of Mexico City, starting in theseventeenth century. The tonadilla incorporated also the indigenoustocotín dances, performed to bilingual songs, as well as villancicos(secular songs in the vernacular such as those composed by Sor Juana,often juxtaposing Spanish and Nahuatl, the classic Aztec language)

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(Contreras Arias 1999; Lamadrid 1999). The Coliseo thus offeredample opportunities for the mixing of European and indigenous musicand dance forms, as well as African music and dance traits (brought byslaves) absorbed by the mainstream. This led to the formation ofsyncretisms, new forms reflecting characteristics of the three musicalcultures. Inditas spread to all parts of Mexico after this, entering itsnorthern periphery (what is now Texas and New Mexico) in the earlypart of the nineteenth century (Mendoza 1986:465). Certain textualaspects of some of the Mexican inditas identified many of the NewMexican inditas as well, including the use of the line "Indita, indita,indita," to begin a verse or refrain” (Romero in press: 103).

Robb concluded that the corrido seems to be the form closest to that of

the indita. He studied fourteen corridos and four inditas from his collection with

twenty corridos and eight inditas transcribed by Vicente Mendoza. Mendoza

suggested that musically the indita was a local form consisting of a copla

followed by a refrain, or estribillo, in which the word "indita" always appears

(1980). This feature was true in several examples such as the Indita de Amarante

Martinez but in others the estribillo is absent. On the other hand, Robb concluded

"the mere occurrence of the word "indita" while as important perhaps as the word

"cuando" in the cuando form-- unless used consistently in the same manner as the

word "cuando," is hardly sufficient to serve as the basis of the definition of a

separate form. Either word might, for instance, occur accidentally in a different

type of song" (1980). Robb listed the following three important points,

1. The indita often has an estribillo or refrain, while the corrido,usually does not.2. The corrido is almost always in the major mode, while the inditais as often as not in some other modal scale.3. The feminine ending is a usual characteristic of the corrido,while the indita always ends in a masculine cadence (1980: 418).

According to Romero,

in characterizing the New Mexican indita, Robb seemed unaware ofthe Mexican son, believing the Indian-influenced melody to be the

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indita's characteristic feature (Robb 1980:418). This is not surprising,as melody was the most significant Western musical element for manycollectors of Robb's era, who were not sensitized to non-Westernrhythmic developments, nor to the process of cultural syncretism,although Robb was aware of its implications. I am inclined to thinkthat “the origin of the indita is as natural as the mixture of Spanish andIndian blood by intermarriage" (1980:419). Also, by the time hecollected the New Mexican inditas, primarily in the 1940 and 50s, theywere fragmented and usually collected without instrumentalaccompaniment (Romero in press: 105-106).

Folklorist Rubén Cobos also provided several analyses of New Mexican

balladry in his weekly Concurso Folklore in the Santa Fe Nuevo Mexicano,

throughout 1949 and 1950. From his collection of eighty-six inditas, he concluded

that it was narrative in form, and in fact a form of the corrido. It consists of a

series of four or six line octosyllabic verses. It is usually written in the first person

resembling the corrido in its introductory verse in giving the theme and date of

the occurrence. It employed a realistic language of the local people and is given a

distinctly New Mexican flavor by the mention of the names of numerous persons

associated with the development of the state and of numerous towns and

topographical features. It is distinguishable from the corrido and romance by the

melody, which contains traces of the music of the Indians of the state.

There are several indita types based on thematic material including

cautivas dealing with issues of slavery (Romero ibid.: 113). Others like the Indita

de Jesús Maria Sanchez deal with death but the melody is almost identical to

versions of the Corrido de la Muerte de Antonio Maestas. The Indita de Manuel

B. Otero is a homage to the protagonist and describes a gunfight similar to the

Texas Mexican corrido of intercultural conflict. The aesthetic manipulation may

be described as a creative process of appropriation of rhythmic vitality or what

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Américo Paredes called the "counterpointing of rhythms" (1958b: 208). The

modality, melodic features, and manipulation of rhythm with the extension of the

text are what produce the most discernible aesthetic effect or what I believe is the

emotional core of New Mexican balladry.

Williams explains that “genre-classification, and theories to support

various types of classification, can indeed be left to academic and formalist

studies” (1977: 185). Yet, he notes, that “recognition and investigation of the

complex relations between these different forms of the social material process,

including relations between processes at each of these levels in different arts and

in forms of work, are necessary for all types of analysis” (ibid.). Genre in this way

is not an ideal type in the Durkheimian sense nor a traditional order nor a set of

technical rules. “It is in the practical and variable combination and even fusion of

what are, in abstraction, different levels of the social material process that what

we have known as genre becomes a new kind of constitutive evidence” (Williams

1977: 185).

Romero suggests that early New Mexican corridos were if fact inditas or

what she terms indita corridos (Romero in press: 105). Romero explains:

Many of the New Mexican inditas that were recorded by collectorsconform to an early corrido format, which gives date, place,exposition, development, and farewell, or despedida. The textsplace these surviving inditas at the turn of the twentieth century(Romero ibid.).

She continues,

Robb's own comparison of the indita and corrido indicates thatwhile the corrido is typically in a major tonality, the indita is moreoften modal. While he did not interpret his findings, according toWestern musical conventions, this implies that the indita uses oldermelodies and introspective, if not sad, subject matter. The

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differences between the indita and corrido described by Segurasuggest that the personified indita imbued the ballad with femininequalities absent in the corrido (a male-gendered term), whichdeveloped in Mexico not very long after the indita arrived in theSouthwestern United States. The refrain of the indita corridos istypically a lament directed at an Indian woman, but it is as if theindita somehow is the spirit of the earth itself (Romero ibid.: 120).

The Romance-Corrido: Greater Mexican Balladry

Paredes was correct in pointing out that New Mexican isolation from

Mexico had been greatly exaggerated and that the emphasis on the “Spanish”

character of New Mexico was relatively recent and “obviously a reaction against

Anglo-American prejudice toward the term “Mexican”” (Paredes 1958b: 96):

Anglo writers are not the only ones who have bought this prettylegend. It has flattered the egos of dozens of “old families” fromCalifornia. And, for thousands of “Spanish” in New Mexico andColorado, it has made existence tolerable in a country that hasdespised their too-evident Mexican origins (1976: 3).

Paredes’ interpretation accounts somewhat for the psychological trauma

endured by the old Spanish families whose culture was being transformed; but he

didn’t really solve the corrido mystery in New Mexico. Only recently have his

questions been reconsidered by myself and Romero. Aurelio Espinosa came to

terms with the loss and transformation of New Mexico's ballad tradition in both of

his Romanceros. The ballad fragments that he collected certainly illustrate the

emotional core hypothesis in that what remains are typically lyrics rather than

entire narrative songs. In 1915, Espinosa published his R o m a n c e r o

Nuevomejicano, the first of the two ballad collections. He collected the ballads in

the 1915 Romancero were collected in New Mexico and Colorado during 1902-

1910 while he was a professor at the University of New Mexico.

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He believed that the materials included in this romancero were the best

representatives of New Mexican balladry. He presented them to the American

Philological Association in 1911. He explained that these compositions were for

the most part "examples of traditional popular poetry that were directly related to

noble 16th century Spanish popular poetry" (1915). He admitted that a

comparative and detailed analysis of the romances was not in order since many of

the similar works he studied from Puerto Rico, Chile, and Brazil were not yet

published. Espinosa's romanceros offer a sobering glimpse into the social and

linguistic transformation that has since taken place in New Mexico.

Espinosa expressed his coraje over Anglo American writers like Lummis

and Austin who insensitively described the Hispano folk-songs and singers.

Espinosa attempted to restore dignity to New Mexican Spanish culture. His sense

of nostalgia seemed to be motivated by his own anger through a romantic

historical account of New Mexico's colonial past. At times he expresses a zealous

optimism in his writing and seems proud of the accomplishment of the Hispano's

survival especially following 1848. Yet, at other times he laments the changes

taking place in New Mexico and seems pessimistic and cynical especially

regarding the pressing issue over language. Padilla explains:

So, yes, hegemonic discourse had the effect of lulling theNuevomexicano into a realm of fantasy that was just fantasy, self-conceit, illusion but was also a way of saying "No!" to culturaleffacement. The discourse of the Spanish colonial period provideda means for authorizing "native" status, even though theauthorizing apparatus was a parcel of historical distortions;moreover, it tended toward a double-, sometimes a multiple -voiced discourse that served the simultaneous purpose of beinghospitable toward the extranjeros while providing a sociallysymbolic form of control for Nuevomexicanos, whose world, it

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may have seemed was dissolving like the adobe structures. . .(1993: 223).

Américo Paredes concluded that the presence of the romance, the copla,

and the décima in New Mexico and California (and the absence of the corrido),

did not show a particularly “Spanish” culture in those areas, nor their complete

isolation from Greater Mexico. It indicated on the contrary that before the war

between Mexico and the United States the frontier colonies formed part of a

Spanish-speaking ballad tradition that not only embraced Greater Mexico but the

rest of Spanish America as well. This was a folk tradition in which the décima and

the copla were the dominant native forms and the romance was handed down

from the European tradition. In Paredes view, isolation did not occur until the

Southwest became American territory. The corrido appeared in Mexico after this

time.

Spanish Folklore in the American Southwest: From Modernism to Facism

Financed partly by the American Folklore Society, Aurelio Espinosa

traveled to Spain in 1920 in order to facilitate his comparative study of oral

traditional folktales of New Mexico and other parts of Hispanic America. From

1923 to 1926, he published 280 versions of Spanish folktales collected in Spain

and produced three volumes of a revised collection with extensive comparative

notes from 1946 to 1947.

In 1929, Aurelio Espinosa published El Romancero in Hispania, 12: 1-32.

It was published as El Romancero Español in 1931 in Biblioteca Española de

Divulgación Científica, 9. He was familiar with the social unrest leading to the

Spanish Civil War (1936-39), and was also aware of the folklore research that

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soon followed under the Franco Dictatorship (1939-75). Folklore research

undertaken toward the end of the 19th century, was linked to romanticism and

positivism and the consolidation and regionalist movements in certain parts of

Spain (see Aguilar 1990; Prat 1991; Prats 1988).

According to Ortiz, folklore in Spain lacked the status of a university

discipline, and its study had become mainly associated with various centers of

regional or local studies. Folklore was introduced in 1943 under the title of

"Popular Traditions" within the structure of an organization designed to be

paradigmatic of the centralization of scientific research put forth by the

dictatorship: the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIU, High

Council for Scientific Research) (Ortiz 1994). The CSIU (also with the

"Bernardino de Sahagún" Institute of Anthropology and Ethnology under its

patronage since 1941; see Sanchez 1992) was to fulfill another task set for it, also

in accordance with its centralist function. This was the "cleansing" and

replacement of those provincial and regional centers that had operated before

1936 (the beginning of the war) and had ideologico-cultural positions distinct

from those of the new regime. The maintenance of a network of local centers of

research served to keep up a useful image of the "regionalization" of the CSIU

(Uría 1984: 58 quoted in Ortiz 1999: 481).

Aurelio Espinosa's folklore expedition to Spain is described in detail by

Manuel Espinosa, who chronicles his father's professional career and fieldwork

although fails to mention Aurelio’s political involvement and fascist sympathies

(see 1985: 40-49). Throughout Aurelio Espinosa's career, he received numerous

honors recognizing his contribution to Hispanic scholarship and letters. In 1922,

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he was conferred knighthood by King Alfonso XIII of Spain, with the title Knight

Commander of the Royal Order of Isabella the Catholic. In 1934, he received an

honorary doctor of law degree from the University of New Mexico, with the

citation "Pioneer and leader in the study of Spanish literary heritage of New

Mexico . . . famed son of the Spanish Southwest." Later he received two of

Spain's highest civilian awards: the title of Commander of the Order of Alfonso el

Sabio and membership in the Instituto de Cultura Hispánica.

According to Ortiz "folklore presents itself as the most direct, emotional,

and nonrational way of appropriating the "style" of a community and as such, is a

privileged form of mediation" (1999: 481). Ortiz's research examines how the

Franco regime, produced its own folklore--for example in the form of "refined,"

authored anthems, songs, shouts--that, imposed in a relentless way, became

popular to the extent that they were compulsorily learned and repeated over and

over by the "popular" masses for many years. Ortiz concludes that filtered from

above, the culture that had come from the people was returned to the people.

More importantly, this folkloric and bucolic image of the popular Spanish cultural

heritage could be displayed abroad and serve to put a kind face on the

dictatorship. The idea of profiting from folklore soon followed in the forms of

research intended for educational purposes, commercial tourism, and cultural

preservation and this may be seen through an intensive critical analysis of New

Mexican folklore but is beyond the scope of this dissertation.

The next generation of folklorists following Espinosa was more aware of

the political nature and the sensitivity of the Spanish heritage. Arthur Campa

attempted to redefine New Mexican culture along a more Mexican cultural

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definition. He was aware that Mexican-Americans were organizing themselves

politically and were destined to make their mark on the United States political

consciousness. This would not occur until the 1960s when the political activism

of the Chicano generation began as part of the civil unrest taking place, especially

on university campuses.

Campa attempted to integrate the New Mexicans culturally into the

Greater Southwest which by this time was under complete American political

domination despite the predominance of Mexican and Indian cultures. In a

newspaper article "Our Spanish Character'" published in El Nuevo Mexicano,

Campa wrote, "Essentially, we cannot lose time in foolishness and preoccupations

which make us the mockery of everyone else. By being New Mexican we will be

Mexicans because of our undeniable culture and Spanish for never having denied

ourselves" (Dec. 21, 1939: 5).

The following quote was published on the eve of the Coronado Cuarto

Centenario and it would seem that Campa's remark was critical of the political

implications of the historical pageant.2 Campa described the significance of being

"Spanish" as follows:

The preoccupation with not being considered Mexican, beingbased on the assumption that those north of the Rio Grande aredifferent because they are "more Spanish," is half true; that is, thepeople who have been reared in an English-speaking milieu differfrom those who grew up in a Spanish-speaking environment. TheSpanish speakers north of the river have become Anglicized tosome extent, while those from the south have preserved the use ofthe Spanish language, both written and oral, and have a culturalbackground that is not English (1979: 4).

2 For a full discussion of Arthur Campa and his role in the Coronado Cuarto Centennial seeArellano and Vigil (1980).

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Music History and the Dialectical Struggle for Cultural Identity

George Marcus suggests that following the parties to conflicts defines

another mode for generating a multi-sited terrain in ethnographic research.

According to Campa, "Hispanic people in the Southwest have experienced three

distinct periods of change and development over the last 375 years, and they are

now in the midst of a very factionating and controversial fourth one" (1979: 291).

Campa believed when the current period had run its course the end result might

determine the nature of culture and the place that it would occupy in American

society. According to Campa, Nuevomexicanos and their descendants would

recede into a working class folk culture behind the easel of their historic portrait

through the urging of Anglo writers, painters, and intellectuals. Following 1848,

all Southwest people were referred to as Mexicans -a label reminding them of

their defeat in the war. It was at this point where many more distinctions that had

separated former classes of ricos and patrones from the ordinary peones began to

intensify, as did social relations. The previous leaders lost almost all significance

except as cultural figureheads within their communities. More than in previous

times, the differences now became based on skin pigmentation and degree of

affluence as well as loyalty to Mexico or the United States.

The Spanish Mexicans from New Mexico became Anglicized and many

educated their children in affluent eastern schools in the United States. They

participated in the new life with some degree of success, but the bulk of the

population did not fare so well. Throughout the twentieth century, the descendants

of the Spanish colonists of New Mexico could be found in every walk of life.

Education psychologist George I. Sanchez explained,

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The conditions arising from adjustments which resulted from thedevelopment of the region within the last ninety years have hadvarying effects upon the populace. Some managed to retain theirland holdings and are in comfortable circumstances of neweconomic opportunities and have proven successful in business. Afew have seized upon educational advantages and are to be foundin the professions and in government. Many make their living asclerks and as skilled workers (1940: 27).

Throughout most of the twentieth century vestiges of Hispanic folk culture

continued to reappear and recede into the background existing mainly in the small

villages and rural towns away from the growing urban centers of mixed

population. Campa expressed his regret that eventually these hidden byways of

New Mexico became oases of traditional lore. The lack of a lucrative industrial

base and an aggressive cultural tourism promoted by Anglo elites in the state

served to preserve much of this so-called "folk culture" and some of the pastoral

agricultural economy in New Mexico during most of the early twentieth century.

It was preserved but modified by acceptance and rejection experienced as a result

of further Anglo-American and Mexican migration to the region. As the four

groups became acclimated to the other, discrimination resulted based on social

status, class, pigmentation, genealogy, ethnohistory, and racial pedigree. The

fourth phase of what may be considered the current development began to take

shape in the middle of the twentieth century.

Following World War II New Mexican servicemen were acculturated to

American life and were even more conscious of the role that they were supposed

to play in modern American society. The G.I. Bill was introduced to provide

further opportunities to improve the living situation in exchange for military

service and national duty. Following the enthusiasm and post war euphoria that

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followed, much of the Anglo-American pattern began to manifest itself among

New Mexico's Hispanos.

Acceptance of conditions seemed to be part of the traditional fatalism

which was the norm of previous history rather than the exception. However, the

war also brought with it better education that questioned authority and with this a

disenfranchisement with the status quo. Hispanos were already used to being told

not to rock the boat because that privilege was reserved for the new Anglo-

Americans. Recognizing the changing political tides in the United States, many of

New Mexico's Hispanos joined the civil rights movements supporting populist

activism carried out by Chicanos.

During the initial formation of the fourth phase, New Mexican "Chicanos"

demanded the return of lands that had been previously held and protected by

Spanish and Mexican mercedes. Others demanded proportionate participation in

public life including American politics. Extremists rejected everything Anglo-

American and capitalism and opted for a separate system of education with

Chicano teachers and locally controlled schools. Demands for denationalization

and anti-citizenry became tantamount.

Most noticeable changes occurred in the state university curricula where

Chicano and Mexican-American studies were offered. Cultural nationalist groups

and political organizations were formed and political gains were achieved.

Enthusiastic and educated Chicano leaders emerged eager to participate in the

broader American society and culture. However, what actually developed was a

tolerated but despised minority that remained on the fringe of American society.

According to Campa,

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It seems quite clear that the direction this fourth phase ultimatelytakes will depend on two important factors: first, the consensusreached by all Spanish speakers regarding their self-identity,whether it be Hispano, Mexican, or Chicano. Thus far mostChicanos disavow anyone who does not want to be classified bytheir designation, and most Hispanos are definitely unwilling to berepresented by the Chicano movement. Second, the manner inwhich all can be integrated with American society, in order to livein concord without abandoning their entire cultural heritage, mustbe defined. Otherwise the struggle will continue unabated andunsolved (1979: 292).

Arthur Campa was first to propose that it was conceivable before long for

someone to make an inventory of the content of their bicultural heritage and to

borrow elements that they wished to incorporate in their eventual integration.

Campa notes:

The "new" Hispanic people now tend to compete in the openmarket, rather than among themselves, where they achieve only afalse sense of accomplishment. At one time many Hispanicintellectuals and scholars leaned so heavily on the guidance of thewell-meaning Anglo American that they were reluctant to ventureon their own. Today's intellectuals are relying on their ownresources and are discovering that the genius of accomplishment isnot limited to any one group. Today this confidence tends to becontentious, but as it matures, it will acquire the mellowing thatcomes with age and experience. When enough of theseintellectuals, potential industrial leaders and future governmentofficials take their respective places in American society, there willbe no need for labels. The fourth phase will be a fait accompli(1979: 296).

Not all New Mexican intellectuals from the Mexican American generation

mellowed with age and experience. George I. Sanchez was a New Mexican

scholar whose career, ideas, and writing expressed a disappointment in the United

States (see Sanchez 1996, 1970, 1967. 1948, 1940 and Mario García 1989).

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Kinship, Accomodation, Conflict or Symbiosis: El Corrido deRio Arriba

Throughout the second half of the twentieth century social criticism

continued to be expressed by sociologists and anthropologists regarding the status

of Mexicans in the Southwest. Although, Hispanos were not faring so well in

American schools and universities, the basic kinship pattern and extended family

unit was resilient, holding up under increasing social pressures and economic

inequality. Nancie González concluded,

It seems safe to say that, although certain aspects of the formerstrongly knit family organization of the Hispano way of life havechanged, the extended family unit remains important in waysunparalleled in the Anglo world. Indeed, several investigators havesuggested that persons who cannot be fitted into a kinship categorymay be treated with suspicion, withdrawal, and perhaps shownovert hostility. As Weaver has said recently, "Spanish-AmericanSociety is kin-based society and the most lasting deepest ties arethose between kin-based members" (1969: 62).

Writing during the 1970s, Edward Dozier (1980) suggested that social

relations between Hispanos and Pueblo Indians were strained following the

arrival of the Anglo in 1848. He believed that prior to the arrival of the Anglo,

Hispanos and Pueblo Indians were in a mutually dependent but friendly

(symbiotic) relation that helped foster a culturally interdependent and coexistent

climate for over two centuries. Caroline Zeleny (1971) investigated the nature of

interethnic conflict between Hispanos and Anglos. She suggested that with the

colonization of Taos and Santa Fe by Anglo writers and artists, a competition

began resulting in class antagonism and ethnic conflict. John Bodine (1968)

described this complicated superstructure as an "tri-ethnic trap". He explains:

One would expect, as elsewhere, that the members of the twoEuropean derived groups would jockey for first place in the status

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structure, but there would be little question that the Indiansoccupied the position at the bottom. However, the Taos Anglos inweighing the elements of ethnic attractions have consistentlyplaced the Spanish Americans on the lowest rung of the ladder.The reasons are clear. The Anglos of Taos tenaciously holds thebelief that this community is a kind of Utopia. It is transformedinto a never-never land by the rather constant employment of akind of mental gymnastic in which imagination reigns supreme.From the Anglo point of view one can legitimately speak of the'mystique' of Taos. In its creation the Anglos glorified Taos Indianculture and relegated the Spanish American to the bottom of theprestige structure . . . (1968: 146-147).

For Hispanics, relationship with the land was and still is fundamental for

identity. New Mexicans in particular have a close relationship to the land,

according to Gilbert Romero "not only because of a need for a sense of belonging

to a land that is their own but also because of their great respect for the beauty and

elemental forces of nature" (1991). Historian John Chavez explains that the

Chicano's historic loss of the economic power inherent in the land struggles of the

Southwest underlay the manifestations of militant nationalism that erupted in the

late 1960s. The farmworker strikes in California, the land grant struggle of New

Mexico, the revolt of the electorate in Crystal City, Texas, the school walkouts in

Denver and Los Angeles, and the other major events of what came to be called the

Chicano Movement's lead to social protest and civil unrest (Chavez 1984).

At the center of the political struggles were debates over identity. Romero

notes that “the habit of referring to one in English as Spanish-American, or

Hispanic in current usage, is especially prevalent among the older New Mexican

generations, who generally dislike the term Chicano. The same older New

Mexicans will often refer to themselves in Spanish as Mejicanos, or

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Nuevomejicanos (New Mexicans), and many from younger generations as La

Raza (the Race)” (Romero 1993: 174 also see Briggs 1988).

Romero notes, “coined in the late 1960s as an influence of the Civil Rights

Movement, the term Chicano (formerly a pejorative term referring to lower-class

Mexican-Americans) represented a general movement among people of color to

reestablish pride in their own racial backgrounds to combat the feelings of

inferiority that [Anglo] colonialism had imposed" (Chavez 1984: 130). Romero

explains her own Chicana identity in the following quote,

I personally identify with those political activists of the 1960s andearly 1970s who coined the term Chicano as a symbol of pride intheir mixed origins, emphasizing the Indian and mestizo poor whohad built the Southwest under the European colonial systems ofnorth and south. The term is also a self-designated way ofdifferentiating our North American experience from the generic,gentrified Hispanic and Latino designations which can refer to anySpanish-speaking person from Los Angeles to Argentina andBrazil without regard to culture. In particular, the term Chicano ispolitically removed from the racism implicit in the Spanishcolonial mentality, which regards the conquered Indian and Blackas inferiors; the terms Hispano and Latino do not etymologicallyencompass the indigenous or Black elements (Romero 1993: 174).

Romero admits having been criticized by some American Indians for

acknowledging her mixed ancestry too specifically. She explains that many

American Indians today are offended by such claims unless they were

accompanied by the cultural experience of being Indian; in addition, many

American Indian scholars consider the habit of describing oneself in terms of

mixed ethnicities (describing oneself as one-fourth Spanish, one-fourth French,

and one-half English, for example) as a Eurocentric habit, with strong overtones

of racism at the core (Romero ibid.: 175).

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Edward Dozier realized that economic development and commercial

tourism was further aggravating the social relations between Hispanos and

Pueblos. He wrote,

Anglos rather than relegating the Pueblos to a status position belowthe Hispanos, have tended to assign the same slot to both ethnicgroups. The curious and effervescent tourist is usually moreenthusiastic about the elaborate Pueblo ceremonies than he is aboutthe rather placid life of the Hispanos. As a result, thousands oftourists visit the Pueblos; and they discovered that handsomeprofits can be made from arts and crafts and that the recentdevelopment of recreational facilities on their reservations can belucrative. For Hispano neighbors this change has been a ratherdisturbing one (Dozier 1983: 110).

Following World War II, much urbanization took place bringing large

numbers of Hispanos into face-to-face contact with Anglos. This of course

diversified the pool of potential marriage partners. Examining urban marriage

patterns, Nancie Gonzalez provided a statistical analysis based on the frequencies

of ethnic endogomous and mixed marriages recorded on Mondays of selected

years in Bernalillo County, New Mexico. From her investigation she concluded:

It is clear from accounts of early village life that most Hispanos notonly preferred to marry Hispanos, but even Hispanos from theirown village. Most Hispanos rarely came into contact withoutsiders; even the men who engaged in migratory wage laborworked in specialized male occupations which seldom broughtthem into the company of women. The pool of potential mates forboth sexes was almost exclusively limited to other members of laraza, so it is not surprising that intermarriage was rare, a social factfully supported by a world view which disapproved of exogamyand called the product of such marriages "coyote" (1969: 166).

She concluded that as Hispanos become more acculturated, it might soon

be impossible to identify many individuals in terms of ethnic origin, at which

point, or course, the whole question of how much intermarriage takes place will

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become meaningless. By 1969, there were still two identifiable ethnic groups that

were only partially distinguished by surname, (and) intermarriage was increasing.

By the 1980s, economic underdevelopment and inferior education had

adversely taken its toll on New Mexico's Hispanos and Indian peoples. Social

geographer Richard Nostrand described the situation as follows,

By 1980 the consequences of urbanization for Hispanos were far-reaching. Incomes, also standards of living, had risen. So hadlevels of education, the number of working mothers, and thenumber of mixed marriages. Meanwhile, the percentage ofHispanos with Spanish surnames had decreased, as had thepercentage that was fluent in Spanish. Ties with the RomanCatholic church had weakened. The status of men in 1980 wasbased more on earnings and achievements and less on age andfilial deference. Urban Hispano families faced problems oftruancy, delinquency, and divorce. By 1980, Hispanos had becomemore like Anglos (ibid).

By 1980, most Chicanos were economically subordinated and territorially

segregated by white Anglo-Saxon America (Gutiérrez 1993: 46). The years 1965

to 1969 are regarded as the heyday of Chicano activism. This is usually attributed

to the political protest that occurred on college and university campuses. On June

5, 1967, however, the daily television updates covering the Vietnam war were

upstaged by alarming reports and footage from a war zone in the heart of North

America: Río Arriba County, New Mexico.

The television news reports were sensational showing Army tanks facing

off with children and burros on mountain roads. Small town judges and deputies

with six guns strapped to their sides; and most disturbing were men, women, and

children being herded together like sheep into corrals surrounded by armed

guards. The news reports suggested that a group of back-woods Mexican fanatics

led by a fundamentalist preacher named Reis Lopez Tijerina turned communist

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radical had staged a military confrontation at a remote county courthouse as part

of their efforts to secede from the United States. Enrique Lamadrid explains:

Already sharply divided over the issues of land grant activism, ashocked Hispanic community avidly followed the news andofficial press conferences and waited for informal confirmationfrom more "reliable" sources: the reports of family, friends andacquaintances living in the north (1986: 31).

Within days of the first televised reports several corridos were composed

and sung by balladeers like Roberto Martínez and his orquesta, "Los Reyes de

Albuquerque". They performed as a live broadcast on Spanish language radio

station KABQ in Albuquerque. Lamadrid notes that a recording was released

within a month on a 45 rpm record, and the nine stanza Corrido de Río Arriba

rapidly became an underground hit throughout the state.

El Corrido De Río Arriba/ Ballad of Río Arribaby Roberto Martínez with Lorenzo Martínez

Año del sesenta y siete In the year of sixty-sevencinco de junio fue el día, the fifth of June was the dayhubo una revolución there was a revolutionallá por Tierra Amarilla. there in Tierra AmarillaAllá en la casa de corte, There at the court house,pueblo de Tierra Amarilla, town of Tierra Amarilla,Nuevo México el estado, New Mexico the state,Condado de Río Arriba. Río Arriba the county.

Un grupo de nuestra gente A group of our peoplemuy descontentos bajaron. came down very discontened.Y en oficiales de estado And on state officialssu venganza ellos tomaron. they took vengeance.

Su jefe les suplicaba: Their leader begged them:"No debe de haber violencia." "There should be no violence."Pero no los controlaba, But he didn't control thempues perdieron la paciencia. Well, they lost their patience.

Un diputado en el suelo A deputy on the floorse queja con agonía, complains in agony,con una bala en el pecho, with a bullet in his chest,allá por Tierra Amarilla. up there in Tierra Amarilla.

Las mujeres y los niños The women and childreniban corriendo y llorando. went running and crying.

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En ese instante pensaban At that moment they thoughtque el mundo se iba acabando . . . that the world was ending . . .

(translated in LaMadrid 1994: 162-163

Al Hurricane: El Corrido de La Prisión de Santa Fe

Following the Río Arriba conflict, another violent incident occurred in

1980 at the Santa Fe State Penitentiary. This bloodbath is chronicled by yet

another corrido. There were actually four different corridos written about the riot.

Al Hurricane's ballad is the best known. Al Sanchez was born and raised in a rural

village in northern New Mexico and has performed his original and popular songs

in public since the 1950s. His family left their rural village and later moved to

Albuquerque. Although, his celebrity status has never been in the forefront of

Chicano activism, his musical life and original songs express much of his own

personal experience. According to Claes af Geijerstam,

the Sanchez brothers of Albuquerque, New Mexico, all dropped thename Sanchez in the 1950s and 1960s, recording individually on thefamily-owned Hurricane label as Al Hurricane, Tiny Morrie, and BabyGaby, singing a variety of styles. Morrie's older recordings reveal aconsiderable imitative talent, as many of them are specific copies ofthe styles of such popular 1950s singers as Fats Domino and LittleRichard. Today Morrie's recordings in Spanish under his full namehave had success in the Mexican American market and especially inMexico (1976: 145).

I interpret this act of changing their family names to suit their

performance roles and personalities as an act of kinship solidarity. In an

interview, Al Hurricane proudly expressed to me his mixed ethnicity, being of

Italian-American and Spanish-Mexican heritage, and in his musical role as a

godfather. He explained that like El Corrido de La Prisión de Santa Fe, many of

his own compositions express serious concerns and issues facing the Mexicano

community in New Mexico (Garcia and Al Hurricane 1/12/1997). He explained

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many of his views on political and cultural issues and described his musical career

from the 1950s to the present. He recalled the first music competition that in his

own words “burst his bubble”. “My Mom used to dress me as a “little Mexican

singer.” “Tourists were generous and their intentions were not bad when they

called me a little Mexican singer (ibid). Renaming myself “Hurricane” was part of

this.” In 1994, Hurricane received the prestigious governor's award for excellence

in the arts. He has performed several times on the National Mall in Washington

D.C. as part of the Smithsonian Festival of American Folk Life. He has produced

17 commercial recordings including several hit singles.

According to Hurricane, “La Prisión de Santa Fe is strictly narrative, not a

subjective account or soapbox. The song does not attempt to assign blame”

(Garcia and Hurricane 1/12/98). He is surprised that a movie has not been made

about the New Mexico prison riot. Al Hurricane was attempting his first mariachi

recording with Mariachi Nuevo Tapatío from Albuquerque at the time of the riot.

His picture is on the album cover but he is not dressed in a Mariachi traje de

charro. He included 30 verses of El Corrido de la Prisión de Santa Fe which

became an instant hit due to the controversial theme and the violent nature of the

event described.

El Corrido de la Prisión de Santa Fe, by Al Hurricane

Amigos quiero contarles Friends, I want to sing youuna tragedia muy triste. a very sad tragedy.Esta tragedia pasado This tragedy occurred aten la Prisión de Santa Fe. the prison of Santa Fe

Han muerto arriba de treinta Over thirty have diedy unos ni saben porque. any many still do not comprehend.En el año ochenta corría In the year eighty iscuando empeso la cuestión. when the problem began.

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El día dos de febrero The second of Februaryhicieron revolución. revolution was waged.Unos quantos prisioneros By several prisonersalla en acquella prisión. over in that prison. etc., etc.,

What I found remarkable about Al Hurricane is that long before he

composed El Corrido de La Prisión de Santa Fe, he was interested in other Latino

musical forms such as the rumba, mambo, and bolero. He told me he was never

happy with his arrangements of cumbias and boleros, which were musically

challenging to him. Hurricane listened to the music of Perez Prado and discovered

that everytime he played tropical, “people really liked it”. “Tropical style really

justs gets your feet moving.” Hurricane enjoys taking a tropical song like Rosa

Maria or La Mucura and turning it into a cumbia arrangement.

Al Hurricane is a Nuevo Mexicano, “brought up” as he said, “on New

Mexico music.” My father had an orquesta and we played traditional polkas like

Mi Pecosita, La Trajedia de Oklahoma, and Indita Mia, and other songs from the

1940s. Later they broke up.” He credits his “Pal” Al Tafoya as promoting the

family stage names and the individual careers of his brothers Tiny Morrie and

Baby Gaby. His first recording in 1964 was “Sentimiento”, which did

exceptionally well in Mexico and Texas. Another hit single was La Mula Bronca,

which was written by a California composer and was recorded on a sublabel of

RCA with an altered text. Challenge records promoted it and soon after Hurricane

decided to form his own Hurricane label.

Hurricane Records was never a monopoly in the sense that American

labels like RCA and Colombia had been. It was a small, regional distributer that

grew sharply, at the same time that Mexican subsidiaries, powerful American

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giants, and local rivals increased competition. Like Ideal in Texas, Hurricane’s

success was due to an a priori need for a Nuevo Mexicano music outlet, rather

than a result of its own artificially created and sustained demand, although the

cultural context for New Mexican music had long existed. Hurricane merely

responded to the demand and of course capitalized on the existing musical

climate. In turn, the financial advantage provided a commercial vehicle for his

music’s dissemination. Later, he owned and operated a succussful nightclub

called the Far West which also showcased many local bands and artists. Hurricane

Enterprises remained essentially a regional distributor for one kind of

entertainment—New Mexican music. Most likely by constraint and choice,

Hurricane’s musical and economic parameters and their power to mold public

preference is circumscribed by their own regionalism.

Today Al Hurricane Jr. continues to operate Hurricane records out of his

suburban home in Albuquerque. He has several local recording artists in various

styles including rock, country, conjunto, and Mariachi. Their home is in a modest

neighborhood—not a barrio but unpretentiontious by middle-class standards. The

Far West Nightclub was sold to an American businessman and renamed The

Tumbleweed Steakhouse but continues to feature local Nuevo Mexicano,

Mexicano, and Tejano musicians from throughout Greater Mexico. El Corrido de

La Prisión de Santa Fe and El Corrido de Río Arriba are unique because of the

distillation of the emotional core that has taken place in the compositional process

and technique located within the action and plot. According to Peña, these new

victim archetype corridos are often "deliberately shorn (. . .) of a unified action

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and plot, leaving only the stark, impactful emotional core of the message" (Peña

1982b: 33).

Often unsympathetic radio station managers refused to air both ballads

because they were seen as inflammatory. In 1999, the Santa Fe Penitentiary was

closed indefinitely following years of overcrowding and much corruption at the

administrative and management levels. The desire not to offend, not to bring up

painful matters was viewed by many New Mexicans as being in poor taste but in

fact goes contrary to the state's official pastoral tourist image enmeshed in its

political rhetoric of tri-ethnic harmony. According to Romero

Contemporary Mejicano corridos in New Mexico follow the Mexicanstyles more closely. These include one about the Challenger disasterthat killed seven astronauts, El Corrido de los Astronautas, whichappeared on the radio only one week after the accident and, morerecently, El Corrido del 720, which is dedicated to the members of the720th Transportation Company and their families. The latter aired in1991 during Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf, where the720th was stationed. Both corridos were written by Roberto Martinezand recorded by Los Reyes de Albuquerque, his local mariachi group(Romero 1997: 170-171).

The 1998 Hispanic Cuarto Centenario

In 1998 the Hispanic Cuarto Centenario marked the 400th anniversary of

the founding of the first Spanish settlements of what later became the Southwest

United States. In 1598, Don Juan de Oñate led a group of 500 people to settle

what is today the state of New Mexico. According to Michael Miller, former

Director of Research and Literary Arts at the New Mexico Hispanic Cultural

Center,

The Cuarto Centenario firmly cements New Mexico's place inAmerican history. In commemoration of the historic milestone,many communities throughout New Mexico prepared events thatrange from solemn religious services to historic redramatizations to

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festive celebrations. Delegations of Spanish and Mexicandignitaries, including descendants of Don Juan de Oñate, havebeen scheduled to take part in select activities. In addition, re-enactments of the procession from El Paso, Texas, to San JuanPueblo have been planned by several groups, including acontingency of Spanish military (1998: 38).

The original settlers established New Mexico's first capital at the present-

day Pueblo Indian village known as San Juan. By observing the initial

colonization, the State of New Mexico recognized New Mexico's significance as a

former Spanish province and Mexican territory. In this way, New Mexico's

Hispanos continued to give both nations some tangible basis for claiming

politically and culturally the interior of North America, ignoring Native-America

in the process.

According to Eric Wolf, “nowhere is this myth-making scheme more

apparent than in schoolbook versions of the history of the United States. There, a

complex orchestration of antagonistic forces is celebrated instead as the unfolding

of a timeless essence” (1982). He explains, “that the ever changing boundaries of

the United States and the repeated involvements of the polity in internal and

external wars, declared and undeclared, are telescoped together by the teleological

understanding that thirteen colonies clinging to the eastern rim of the continent

would, in less than a century, plant the American flag on the shores of the

Pacific”(ibid).

The 1998 Hispanic Cuarto Centenario fueled bitter interethnic resentments

over history that resulted in social conflicts in the form of black legends that

aggravated the political relations between Hispanic and Indian peoples. The

cultural performance was supposedly to depict a moral pageant reflecting the core

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spiritual values and historic arrival of the earliest Spanish peasants of New

Mexico. Throughout 1998 I attended and videotaped several of the cultural

performances of La Entrada.

One of the major controversies was over a monument erected in homage

to Juan de Oñate. Some historians like Marc Simmons believe Oñate should be

recognized as the "First Governor and Father of New Mexico" because it was the

Oñate expedition of 1598 which "laid the foundation for the modern state of New

Mexico" (1991). However, political scientists like Deborah Garcia believe that the

current controversies over the Cuarto Centenario "may enlighten New Mexicans

about their current condition, which is a result of drastic changes within culture

society, religion, and politics" (1999: 5).

In a more veiled context, the Cuarto Centenario functioned as a tourist

promotion and perpetuated the Black Legend. Marshal Sahlins has defined

performative structures as those with few or no "bounded groups" and

"compelling rules" that govern "in advance much of the way that people act and

interact" (1985: 28). He suggests that such structures render those systems in

which they prevail particularly "vulnerable to change" (p. 31), that they are a

source of social heat.

Controversy, Cultural Performance, and El Corrido de Juan de Oñate

In 1990, New Mexican State Senator and County Manager in Rio Arriba

County, Emilio Naranjo, introduced a proposal to the State Legislation to build a

cultural center and the erection of a statue to commemorate the Spanish colonizer,

Don Juan de Oñate. This was approved and the funding was appropriated through

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various taxation, bonds, and grants from the Small Business Bureau. The county

donated land and the public site is currently called the Oñate Monument and

Visitor's Center. By 1992, the statue was completed and erected in Alcalde near

the original site of the first capital.

The Oñate statue coincided with the 1992 Columbus Quincentenary

Commemorations in Spain, Latin America, Mexico and the United States.

Virtually everywhere the commemorations were staged, indigenous populations

protested and reminded us of the massive cultural destruction of Indian nations,

land theft, and colonialism. Spain provided much of the funding for these

celebrations as a reaction to the historical bias that exists. Calamity was often

overlooked and the positive outcome of the cultural encounters was emphasized.

La leyenda negra refers to the sixteenth century European Protestant view that

condemned the Spanish Catholics as ruthless and of defensive character.

According to George Marcus, when the thing traced is within the realm of

discourse and modes of thought, then the circulation of signs, symbols, and

metaphors guides the design of ethnography. He explains, this mode involves

trying to trace the social correlates and grounding of associations that are most

clearly alive in language use and print or visual media (Marcus 1995: 108).

Joseph P. Sanchez, Director of the Spanish Colonial Research Center for

the National Park Service in New Mexico, argued that historical interpretations

and propaganda have been damaging in the formation of anti-Hispanic stereotypes

today (1990). Sanchez offers an admonition to those who persist in perpetuating

historical falsehoods about a given people. Pointing out that in American society,

little is acknowledged of Hispanic contributions to the American Revolution, the

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Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I and II, Korea, Vietnam, and

the Gulf War or "Desert Storm".

The notion of a Leyenda Negra -a black legend dates to 1604 during

Spain's Golden age, when writer Francisco Gomes de Quevedo y Villegas wrote

"España Defendida.” In this work he called attention to a malaise that pervaded

Spanish-English diplomatic relations based on anti-Spanish propaganda and

misconceptions that were deeply rooted in the lore of Protestant Europe. In 1914

another Spanish intellectual observed that anti-Spanish misconceptions persisted

in Europe and the Americas. Sixty years later, Chicano scholars and activists

sought to understand anti-Hispanic attitudes that persisted in the United States.

The popular view of Hispanics as evil had developed a negative folkloristic nature

of its own, producing far reaching socio-political effects and a false stereotype of

Hispanics. Drawings from the mid-1500s depicting the conquistador killing

Indians paved the foundation for the Black Legend's popularity. Another

important factor was the Protestant Reformation and Spain's monopoly on the

New World both spiritually and militarily. Although the Inquisition is believed to

target Jews and Lutherans, the Catholic Church in Spain and the Empire was most

severe on Spanish Catholics who strayed from the faith.

Over the next four centuries, the Black Legend has continued to fuel much

conflict between the English- and Spanish speaking worlds. During the 1800s,

four events revived and perpetuated la Leyenda Negra stereotypes: The Texas

Revolt (1836); the Mexican War (1846-1848); the California Gold Rush (1849-

1856); and the Spanish-American War (1898). Each was characterized by conflict

and anti-Hispanic campaigns during which publishers and other popular media

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sensationalized la Leyenda Negra further. In Texas, ballads commemorated

Anglo heroes based on anti-Mexican sentiment following the fall of the Alamo in

1836. Throughout the Mexican-American War, la Leyenda Negra justified Anglo-

American aggression as did Manifest Destiny during the United States expansion.

Several American schools viewed Mexicans as an inferior race and

commonly published these views in the newspapers. Mexicans were seen as

unworthy of keeping the valuable resources and land they inherited from Spain.

Following the California Gold Rush, the Black Legend took on new meaning.

Anti-Mexican legal practices resulted in land dispossession and murder of

innocent Mexicans. If the nineteenth century used the Black Legend as a tool for

discrediting the Hispanic world, "the twentieth century has, in its own way

perpetuated the myth" (Sanchez 1990: 11). Nineteenth century historians such as

Francis Parkman, George Bancroft, John Lothrop Motley and William H. Prescott

wrote as Protestant Nordic preachers and in an outright anti-Catholic style and

historicism.

Sanchez concludes "in today's popular media, elements of the legend are

obvious in newsprint, television programs, and Hollywood depictions of

Hispanics. In four centuries the Black Legend made the jump from a few quill-

written copies to the automated and computerized production of literature and

video" (ibid.). The Black Legend continues to circulate as a colonial metaphor as

it characterizes the Spanish as defective racially and hence therefore unfit for

leading or governing effectively. It has been well explained and demonstrated by

Chicano scholars that the belief remained common among Anglo-Americans who

viewed Spanish expansion in North America as an obstacle to Manifest Destiny.

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Deborah Garcia notes that "Hispanophobia is a sentiment that still exists today

and is evident through the current display of anti-Mexican attitudes, particularly

within the states of California and Texas" (1999: 4).

The New Mexico Office of Cultural Affairs published a packet of research

and literary arts materials explaining the 1998 Cuarto Centenario. Like the

Coronado Cuarto Centennial, it was billed as an event four centuries in the

making. The Office of Cultural Affairs boasts that the State of New Mexico has

lead the nation most in recognizing the Hispanic contributions to the nation. Two

major research and cultural centers have been established to study and promote

Hispanic contributions to American history. According to J. Ronald Vigil, former

director of the New Mexico National Hispanic Cultural Center, 1998 represents a

turning point for Hispanics in New Mexico and throughout the world.

He notes: "New Mexico has the distinction of being the only state in the

union that has a division of government created by statute that is dedicated to

preserving and showcasing the arts and humanities of the Hispanic culture"

(Miller 1998). 1998 was an excellent opportunity to examine the cultural

production of myth and legends enacted within musical performance. The dark

legends and negative stereotypes used for political hype and political

grandstanding were all part of the performance.

Colonial Metaphors as the Adjunct of Legend in the Corrido

By working through metaphorical associations to legends, I agree with

Marcus that this mode of multi-sited research is especially potent and well suited

for “suturing locations of cultural production that had not been obviously

connected and consequently, for creating empirically argued new envisionings of

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social landscapes” (Marcus 1995: 109). El Corrido de Juan de Oñate was

composed and recorded by singer Angel Espinosa in 1997. The ballad received

much radio airplay throughout 1998. I first heard Espinosa perform at the 1997

New Mexico State Fair. Espinosa grew up in Española in an extended family.

Spending much time with her grandmother, Angel's family spoke mainly Spanish

and she began singing for her family immediately after learning to speak.

Angel has performed various concerts and given radio interviews. One of

the most notable performances was in Watsonville, California for the "Strawberry

March For the The United Farm Workers Union" with her friends, Dolores Huerta

and Luis Valdez. She performed an original song entitled Tributo a Cesar Chavez

at a private party after the march. She has interviewed for Radio Campesina in

Bakersfield, California and has performed for 20,000 fans in Las Vegas, Nevada

for the Cinco de Mayo celebration. In April 1997, Angel was awarded the New

Mexico Mic Award for her English song When Grandma was a Girl, in the best

country production category.

Her recent compact disc recording features El Corrido de Juan de Oñate

which was composed by Espinosa and her husband James. In an journal interview

with Carlos Abeyta (1997) she admits her fascination with Juan de Oñate and

admits that "her curiosity about him didn't come about from reading or listening to

lectures at school." It came from her childhood experiences attending Las Fiestas

de Don Juan de Oñate which are held annually in Española. Two years ago, the

Espinosas began researching the conquistador and are proud that the first

settlement was in the Española valley at El Yunque.

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Espinosa believes that "this is the kind of history that our children should

learn in school" (Abeyta 1997: 27). She notes that history books devote tons of

pages of history covering the Plymouth Rock gathering, but the European

settlement of the Southwest is virtually glossed over. Today between

engagements, Angel remains involved in the Española fiesta council. The city

named El Corrido de Don Juan de Oñate as their official song for the Cuarto

Centenario.

El Corrido de Juan de Oñate

Juan de Oñate se llamaba este hombre Juan de Oñate was the name of this manEra valiente y un gran conquistador He was valient and a great conquistadorHombres muy fieles fueron sus caballeros His soldiers were very faithful menSu hijo Cristobal tambien con el viajó. His son Cristobal also traveled with him.

De Zacatecas empezaron el gran viaje The great journey began at ZacatecasHabía familias de muy buen corazón. There were families of good heart.Tambien los curas y bendecitos padrecitos Including priests and holy friars.Todos con almas gozando de ferrór. All with rejoicing hearts filled with faith.

Cuando llegaron por El Paso alli rezaron When they reached El Paso they prayedDieron las gracias y adoraron al señor They gave thanks and adored the lordLo recordamos como el primer día de gracia We remember this first thanksgivingy suplicaron a diós su bendición and ask for God's blessing

Este es un corrido muy merecido This is a corrido very meritoriousal hombre querido por toda la región to the man famed throughout the regionViva Oñate, Viva Oñate, Long live Oñate, Long live OñateViva la historia de este gran señor. May the history of this great man continue.

Era el julio mil quinientos novienta y ocho It was July of Fifteen Ninety EightQue completaron esta expedición when they completed this expeditionEl Rio Grande lo siguierron rumbo al norte The Rio Grando they followed NorthwardCuando llegaron a ese Pueblo de San Juan Until they reached that Pueblo of San Juan

El Yunque, Yunque con toda su belleza The Yunque, Yunque with all its beautyEstablicieron la primer capital They established the first capitalEn este tiempo empezo toda la historia At that time the history begande Juan de Oñate el primer gobernador. of Juan de Oñate the first governor.

Y cada año celebramos nuestra herencia And every year we celebrate our heritagey recordamos a Don Juan and remember don JuanLe dedicamos nuestras fiestas en su nombre Our Fiestas are in his namey conservamos esta bella tradición. and we conserve this beautiful tradition.

Este es un corrido muy merecido This is a corrido very meritoriousal hombre querido por toda la región to the man famed throughout the region

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Viva Oñate, Viva Oñate, Long live Oñate, Long live OñateViva la historia de este gran señor. May the history of this great man continue.

Este es un corrido muy merecido This is a corrido very meritoriousal hombre querido por toda la región to the man famed throughout the regionViva Oñate, Viva Oñate, Long live Oñate, Long live OñateViva la historia de este gran señor. May the history of this great man continue

Angel Espinoza' s recording of El Corrido de Juan de Oñate begins with

the telling of the legend of Oñate and his settlement of New Mexico. The

traditional role of the corridista was as poet, singer, and historian in a community

setting. Although corridistas are referred to as singers, in New Mexico other

labels include musicos, guitarristas (guitarists) and cantantes. Cantadore also

refers to older trovadores or minstrel singers from earlier times. Although

Espinoza’s personality and background shaped her version of this corrido, other

factors were also involved, such as the corrido legend.

According to Paredes, corrido variants generally become shorter as time

passes, not because events have been forgotten but because they have been

transformed into legend (1993: 193). As the legend grows, the ballad diminishes

and is no longer intended as a narrative. Its function is to evoke the image of the

hero in lyrical or dramatic form. Meanwhile the legend takes on more and more

embellishments from the stock of universal motifs. If the process is continued

indefinitely, one expects to reach a point where the ballad disappears or is sung in

such a fragmentary fashion as to be unrecognizable as the complete entity.

Throughout the Cuarto Centenario, the aesthetics resonated in the

configuration of a legend which upholds the prototype of a hero who belongs to

the collective ideal of a rural society, in which the archetypes of saints and

warriors hold sway. Radio and television announcements filled the airwaves

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across the Southwest especially between El Paso, Texas and Denver, Colorado.

Newspaper editorials and world wide web sites announced the various scheduled

public events and social activities planned for the celebrations in towns, villages,

and cities along the Rio Grande corridor. One of the larger Fiestas held in 1998

was held in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. It was billed as the first thanksgiving in

the Southwest and was held on April 30. Events included celebration of the

Catholic Mass and the royal notary, Juan Pérez de Donis, reading the Act of

Possession aloud in public.

The expedition route followed the original trail with public observances

held in Socorro, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and present day Española. Behind all the

public “hype” and high school level history lessons presented, much attention was

given to billing the event as educational. The event managed to successfully

intensify intercultural conflict and rekindle bitter animosity between Pueblo and

Hispano peoples.

Anthropologist Dean MacCannell argues that "the reconstruction of ethnic

identity for tourist consumption represents (. . . ), a (. . . ) freezing of ethnic

imagery which is both artificial and deterministic. . . [groups] begin to use their

former colorful ways both as commodities to be bought and sold, and as rhetorical

weaponry in their dealings with one another" (1984: 375). Since the 1980s,

increasing tourism across the Southwest has continued to generate new and

borrowed ethnic symbols manipulating them for the purpose of promoting

capitalism. The explosion of the tourist economy and the increasing immigration

of Anglo and other ethnic Americans into the area has accelerated competition for

jobs and housing. This has intensified inter-ethnic friction and further aggravated

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the local tradition of resistance as the competition for symbolic capital increases.

Since the 1960s, bloody and violent confrontations occured in public schools,

prisons, churches, art galleries, museums, and courthouses.

In New Mexico, the local population has not really benefited from the

tourist boom. Most tourist dollars are typically spent on clothes, airfare, car

rentals, food, and hotels owned by outside investors. Newcomers continue to

migrate to New Mexico, establishing southwestern style art galleries and chic

Santa Fe restaurants. The overall economic situation is completely embroiled in

most creative productions including the music and recording industries. The

current job market has been flooded by overeducated cosmopolitan elites with

eclectic musical tastes and artistic palates.

As we have seen in this chapter, New Mexican musical life and culture has

long been regarded as a tourist commodity and curiousity for the nation. The

interest promoted from internal sources like the New Mexico Office of Cultural

Affairs and the School of American Research along with external sources such as

the Smithsonian and the National Endowment for the Arts have further exoticized

and romanticized ethnic folk traditions, such as historical pageants and other

cultural productions like the Hispanic Cuarto Centenario. As a result of these

developments New Mexican music, folklore, and history have found itself in the

national limelight. Official recognition has come forth in an increasing pace since

the 1940 Coronado Cuarto Centenario.

American interest in Nuevo Mexicanos has forced us to reexamine our

relationship with our most precious cultural resources, namely land, water,

identity, language, history, and music. In this way, folk traditions and musical

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genres that at their core once represented a counter-ideological response by Nuevo

Mexicanos to our subordination under American politicoeconomic and cultural

hegemony have been decontextualized and “encompassed” by the institutions of

that hegemony, in the process stripping the culture of a vital chunk of its original

symbolic force. Much of this has happened even as well-intentioned “cultural

ecologists” celebrate (New Mexico’s) unique place among the ranks of venerable

traditions that bear witness to America’s multiethnic heritage (Peña 1985a).

Marcus suggests that the strategically situated ethnography might be

thought of as a fore-shortened multi-sited project and should be distinguished

from the single-site ethnography that examines its local subjects’ articulations

primarily as subalterns to a dominating capitalist or colonial system. He explains,

The strategically situated ethnography attempts to understandsomething broadly about the system in ethnographic terms as much asit does its local subjects: it is only local circumstantially, thus situatingitself in a context of field quite differently than does other single-siteethnography. The consideration of this foreshortened version of themulti-sited project gives us the opportunity to ask what sorts of localknowledges are distinctively probed within the sites of any multi-sitedethnography (Marcus 1995: 111).

I now wish to examine this process yet again in Las Fiestas de San

Lorenzo in Bernalillo.

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Chapter Three: Ritual Performance of Music and Dance in Bernalillo, NewMexico: Las Fiestas de San Lorenzo

Ethnography of a Catholic Ritual in Bernalillo:Las Fiestas de San Lorenzo

The annual Fiestas de San Lorenzo held in Bernalillo occur on August 9,

10, and 11 regardless of what day of the week these dates fall. The tradition

constitutes one of the longest recurring Hispano fiestas in North America. The

San Lorenzo Fiestas are smaller than the grand fiestas in Santa Fe, which were

studied by Ronald Grimes in (1976) but no less complex or spectacular. Not only

is the event interesting as a form of public culture on par with the Hispanic

Cuarto Centenario, it provides insight into the larger sociocultural and political

milieu where it is staged. Like the fiestas in Santa Fe, Las Fiestas de San Lorenzo

are an invention by Rio Abajo descendants. It links the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 to

the mythic present through the residual elements and superstructure inherent in

the overall performance.

According to local history, in 1598, the Spanish returned to establish a

settlement at the site of Coronado's headquarters in the Tiguex Province, only to

find most of the pueblos, including Kuaua, abandoned. The Spanish settled east of

the Rio Grande from the Kuaua area. Of the original Tiguex Pueblos, only the

Tiwa villages of Sandia and Isleta remain today. Small land grants were given to

the colonizers allowing them to settle near the Pueblos and collect tribute from the

Indians. Several of these grants were located in the area from Cochití Pueblo to

the present community of Alameda, Corrales, Algodones, and Placitas.

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This area includes the modern town of Bernalillo which was served from

the mission of the Pueblo of Sandía, established before 1614. Sandia's mission

church is dedicated to San Antonio de Padua. Years of tension between the Rio

Grande Pueblo Indians and the Spanish resulted in the Indian Revolt on August

10, 1680. The Spanish colonists fled south to the El Paso/Juarez area, where

according to Ramon Gutierrez, the survivors praised San Lorenzo for their safety,

and it was on his feast day that the revolt took place (1992).

By the Spring of 1693, the Spanish Reconquest leader Diego de Vargas

led the colonists back up the Rio Grande to reestablish Santa Fe as the Capitol.

During the time of the Pueblo Revolt, all of the Spanish-settled areas of New

Mexico and some of the Pueblos, including Sandía, were abandoned. The area of

Coronado's settlement was re-established as the Gonzales/Bernal Camp. The

Bernalillo area, which was referred to as Real de Bernalillo, was among the first

to be resettled after the reconquest of 1692-93. The early church records indicate

that there was a church "en Bernalillo" in 1700. The patron saint of the Bernalillo

chapel at this time was dedicated to St. Francis.

In thanksgiving for their safe return, and for assistance in creating a new

social tolerance among all people of the Rio Grande Valley, San Lorenzo was

named Patron Saint of the settlement. The Fiesta in his honor became an annual

event. In 1695 the Town of Bernalillo was officially founded by DeVargas, on the

site of the Gonzales/Bernal Camp. After 1712, the Bernalillo area was served

from Albuquerque until a mission was re-established at the Pueblo of Sandía in

the 1740s. Bernalillo was again intermittently served from Albuquerque until

1771 when a permanent priest was assigned to the mission at Sandía.

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Construction of a new church in Sandía began sometime after the Pueblo was

resettled and was completed in 1784. It is dedicated to St. Anthony and to Our

Lady of Sorrows, the parish in Bernalillo.

From 1790, Bernalillo was dependent again on Albuquerque and Sandía

until it became a parish in 1857, with Reverend Joseph Fialon appointed as the

first pastor. The parish church took the title of Our Lady of Sorrows church and

the old building still stands today. A new church building was approved in 1969

and construction was completed in 1970. The Sisters of Loretto opened a school

in Bernalillo in 1875 but withdrew from the public school system by 1949. Our

Lady of Sorrows elementary and high school opened and remained in operation

until the late 1960s. The Christian Brothers also operated the St. Nicholas School

in Bernalillo from 1872 to 1950. In 1997, the pastor of the parish was Rev. Bill

Sanchez, and the mayordama for the Fiesta was a widow named Cordelia

González. Father Bill was reassigned the following year and Rev. Virgil Furfaro

now serves the parish and the missions in Algodones, Placitas, Angostura, and

Sandía Pueblo.

When Bernalillo celebrated its 300th annual Fiestas de San Lorenzo in

1993, the original Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church was re-dedicated as El

Santuario de San Lorenzo, and the parish attempted to incorporate the town

Fiesta into the Church. The Fiesta organizers refused over concerns that the

parish would likely transform it into a fund raiser and weekend event. The parish

celebrates the Fiesta of Our Lady of Sorrows but it is not as popular as the larger

Town Fiesta. The biggest objection was over the Church departing from the local

tradition of observing the Fiesta on August 10.

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Like most fiestas and religious events, Bernalillo’s Fiesta offers a

window into the changing face of interethnic conflict and cultural politics over the

last century of an evolving tourist economy in New Mexico. The character and

management of the Fiesta over the last decades register universal social concerns

shared by most New Mexican Hispanos. The conservative political climate and

the economic and natural exploitation of land, water, and culture continue to

suggest an inbalance of local power as they have historically. Rhetorical-

symbolic, organizational, and spatial control over the Fiesta, including the newly

erected site of the Santuario, defines an oppositional contestation that clearly

reflects the larger context of sociopolitical struggle between ethnic groups,

classes, and intragroup factions, and cross-group sectors. This reflection involves

a symbolic link between the fiesta, the community, and the church with the

inversion of meaning as a shift in political control.

Today, in certain towns, the Fiestas are the only time during the year when

local Hispanos physically reoccupy and thus symbolically reclaim the public

spaces of their communities (Rodríguez 1997: 34). In Santa Fe and Taos during

Fiesta time, "this reclamation signals, ironically, a form of resistance occasioned

and defined by the very hegemonic process it seeks to undermine" (Rodríguez

1997: 34). Having attended Las Fiestas de San Lorenzo as a child and seeing los

Matachines dance through the Town is what piqued my own interest and inspired

me to undertake research in Bernalillo. I also had many friends in Bernalillo who

I had not seen in years and wanted to renew some relationships.

"La Tradición" and Devotion: Los Mayordomos

According to Gerholm,

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a theory of ritual should tell us about the effects of ritual and bespecific both about how ritual works so-to-speak in its own terms- thatis, what it achieves according to its own theory - and how it works inways that may not be recognized by indigenous theory-- that is, how itproduces effects in unknown and unanticipated ways, rather likeHegel's celebrated "Cunning of Reason". Gerholm considers all of thefollowing points in his formulation of a theory of ritual: the"efficacity" of symbols Lévi Strauss (1963), the wedding ofideological meaning of emotional (and perhaps unconscious forces),Turner (1967), the role of esthetics in ritual, Kapferer (1983), andritual as a kind of public and constraining definition of the situationwhich is committing to the participants, Rappaport (1979) (1988: 197-198).

In 1998, Bernalillo celebrated the 305th annual Fiesta de San Lorenzo and

the mayordamas were Barbara and Antonia Salazar and their families. In the

printed program for the Fiesta, the Salazar family explained their personal history

with San Lorenzo and what the devotion meant to their family.

We, the Salazar family have had the honor of having SANLORENZO in our home five times. The first time my motherAntonia received SAN LORENZO was in 1939 when she wasliving in Las Cocinitas with her Uncle Francisco and Aunt GavinaGonzalez. She received SAN LORENZO from her Uncle Silverioand Aunt Louisa Montoya. My mother thanked him for helping thefamily get through hard times. SAN LORENZO then went toClimaco and Eloisa Herrera.The second time we received SAN LORENZO was in 1963. Wereceived him one year early from David and Fern Chavez, whowere supposed to be the Mayordomos for the Fiesta of 1964, butwere unable to because David and Fern had to move to California.

The third time was because we were scheduled into the Salazarfamily was when Ramon and Jean Salazar received him in 1977from Ben and Nora Madrid for the fiesta of 1978. We thanked himfor bringing our brother/husband Ramon home safe from themilitary.

Now for the fifth time in 1997-1998, we are honored again withthe presence of SAN LORENZO at the Salazar family. We arethanking him for getting us through sickness, accidents and hardtimes. We received SAN LORENZO from Cordy Gonzales andfamily. SAN LORENZO will be leaving our home on August 11,

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1998 to be received from us to Gloria Garcia and family (1998program).

Anthropologist Eric Wolf believes that liquidating the surpluses of a

society makes all members of the community rich in sacred experience but poor

in earthly goods. Because it levels differences of wealth, it also inhibits the

growth of class distinctions based on wealth. "Like the thermostat activated by an

increase in heat to shut off the furnace, expenditure in religious worship returns

the distribution of wealth to a state of balance, wiping out any accumulation of

wealth that might upset the existing equilibrium" (1959: 216). As a form of social

engineering, it acts as a feedback, returning a system that is beginning to oscillate

to its original course.

Yet, the religious complex is much more interesting in its aesthetic facets.

Cordelia Gonzalez informed me that there was much sacrifice on the part of the

mayordama but that sacred benefits and blessings that her family experienced far

outnumbered the financial burden or cost of sponsorship (personal

communication 1998). The Fiesta with its processions, burning incense, candles,

fireworks, crowds, color, and dance is not only a mechanism of prestige or

economic plumbing. It is also a creation of space in mythological time, in which

men and women transcend the realities of everyday life in their entry and

procession through the religious space towards healing, praise, and spiritual

benefits. The ritual time is not linear but infinite and circular in its conceptual

formation. Charles Aguilar pointed this out to me when we discussed the monthly

rosary devotion. The rosary begins and ends at the crucifixion with the meditation

on Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection through the eyes of Mary.

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In the past, election into political office was based on the qualification by

previous religious participation, political maturity, and community status. These

community officials allocated land holdings, settled boundary disputes,

investigated thefts, confirmed marriages, disarmed violence, and dealt with the

emissaries of outside power rather than seeking political office for its own sake.

The political system, like the religious component of society following the

American invasion of 1848 was inverted. Most of my research associates

expressed enormous disappointment in the political leadership. Many believe that

today, New Mexican government is run by people motivated by power, individual

motives, and greed. Power is bestowed by the community, and reallocated at

intervals to a new group of elected officials. However, instead of helping the

people, the office governs or incarcerates the poor and working classes. In

contrast, the Fiestas of San Lorenzo serve to empower its participants through a

religious and historical process that helps relieve imperial fatigue and restore

political balance.

The social order is permeated on people who continue to struggle for

power and are willing to pay the price against political corruption and anarachy.

Like the Indian communities the Hispanic ones show great consistency and

resilience in refusing to endorse the corruption of the American political system.

According to Sylvia Rodriguez,

As certain Hispano communities attempt to level differences ofclass, it obliterates other internal divisions based on illness, genderconflict, and complex sexuality issues. It intervenes its jurisdictionon behalf of the households that compose it. However, althoughthe cargo system may have been a patrilineal kinship system basedon units sharing a common name, patron saint, and measure ofsocial solidarity, it also serves another more important endogamy

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as a form of common resistance among the Pueblo and Mexicanos(op. cit.).

Eric Wolf explains,

during colonial times, the Catholic missionaries well recognizedthe danger which lay in the maintenance of similar outward formsof ritual upon conversion. Yet they were themselves unable todecide whether these similarities were merely the work of Satanlaboring to duplicate in his hellish church the rituals of the churchsanctified by God, or whether they might not indeed represent theprecipitate of some previous Christian teaching, brought to theNew World perhaps by no less a personage than the apostleThomas. Whatever their doubts, the formal similarities between thetwo religious traditions permitted an easy transition for theworshipper and gave him continuity precisely in the realm inwhich continuity was vital: the realm of religious behavior (1959:172).

The Ritual Context and Interpretation

Interpreting the words and actions of other human beings accords a crucial

role to the consciousness of the interpreter (cf. Clifford and Marcus 1986;

Gadamer 1979; Geertz 1983; Rabinow and Sullivan 1979), and the consciousness

of scholars is shaped by their gender, social class, education, ethnic group, and

geographical region. According to Charles Briggs "if a researcher's socialization

and subsequent experience aligns her or him with the dominant hegemony and

does not include direct contact with counter-hegemonies, this is likely to limit the

degree to which counter-hegemonic forces within a particular social milieu will

prove to be comprehensible. Given the fact that scholars tend to be urban, middle

or upper-middle class, and white, bias in favor of the dominant hegemony is a real

danger" (1988: 370). On the other hand, George Marcus believes, the most

important form of local knowledge in which the multi-sited ethnographer is

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interested is that which parallels the ethnographer’s own interest—in mapping

itself (1995: 112). He explains,

Sorting out the relationships of the local to the global is a salient andpervasive form of local knowledge that remains to be recognized anddiscovered in the embedded idioms and discourses of anycontemporary site that can be defined by its relationship to the worldsystem. In this cognitive and intellectual identification between theinvestigator and variously situated subjects in the emergent field ofmulti-sited research, reflexivity is most powerfully defined as adimension of method, serving to displace or recontextualize the sort ofliteral methodological discussion (Marcus 1995: 112).

Raymond Williams explains that “hegemony is always an active process,

but this does not mean that it is simply a complex of dominant features and

elements. It is a more or less adequate organization of interconnection and

otherwise separated and even disparate meanings, values, and practices, which it

specifically incorporates in a significant culture and an effective social order”

(1977: 115). These are themselves living resolutions—in the broadest sense,

political resolutions—of specific economic realities. This process of incorporation

is of major cultural importance and may be understood as three aspects of any

cultural process, which Williams calls traditions, institutions, and social

formations. Yet, the intersections of these aspects may be examined through

ritual.

According to anthropologist Eric Wolf "rituals can be observed and

learned by imitation" (1959: 171). A theory of ritual should account for what sort

of activity is taking place, a general characterization of the kind Wittgenstein

described as a "form of life" or a "language game". One case in point is Robin

Horton's straightforward definition of "ritual as a means of acting on the world,

bringing about and controlling things" (1982). Edmund Leach's (1968) definition

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describes ritual as "the expressive aspect of all actions." Various definitions

regard ritual as primarily a symbolic statement or expression of structural and

cultural features in the society we are dealing with.

According to Gerholm, psychoanalytically inspired definitions a la

Bettelheim (1962) suggest "ritual is to be viewed as an expression of

subconscious forces of the human mind". Gilbert Lewis' thesis (1980) is a way of

focusing public attention on ritual. Victor Turner's (1977) definition sees ritual as

social action in the subjunctive mood, action "as if". Some of these definitions are

rather descriptive or completely void of theory. After reviewing several

definitions, Gerholm asks, "what gives rise to ritual and what in turn affects it?"

(Gerholm 1988: 196).

Gerholm suggests a theory of ritual should preferably be able to account

for "the native's point of view" so that we understand why we are given so much

information on the "meaning" of the ritual and sometimes so little (Gerholm 1988:

198). Why are analysts sometimes left completely in the dark as to why the

natives think they are performing their rituals? He describes the obvious aspects

of ritual as “formal, rigidly prescribed action”. He explains,

There is a compulsory air to it and a definite way of performing it.There may be a certain leeway for improvisation and eveninnovation especially as pointed out and developed in VictorTurner (1969) -during the liminal phase of transition liberties. But,in general, ritual is not to be fooled around with. Furthermore,ritual is a finite province of meaning in the sense of Berger andLuckmann (1967), an excursion from the mundane reality ofeveryday life. Finally, ritual involves the focusing and intensifyingof attention, public and/or individual as Gilbert Lewis (1980) hasreminded us (Gerholm 1988: 198).

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Among Mexicanos in Bernalillo, the spiritual core of this kind of

community is its political and religious system and organization. The

responsibilities of religious worship are rotated among the households of the

community. This structure or cargo system exists in other parts of the Southwest

too. Each year, a different group of people undertake to carry out the tasks of

religious office known as the mayordomo. These families make themselves

responsible for the purchase and ritual offering of food, beer, candles, incense,

postcards, fireworks, and for all attendant expenditures including musical

entertainment.

A tour of religious duty may leave the family impoverished for several

years, yet in the eyes of the community they receive prestige, status, and spiritual

privilege as a result of their having made an offering or ofrenda. Each tour of

sponsorship adds esteem until old and poor, the mayordomo reaches and

commands the respect of the entire community. In this way individualism is

earned over a lifetime rather than simply acquired at a young age. According to

Wolf,

the essential element in repeated sponsorship is therefore time: theolder the person is, the greater the likelihood that he or she hasrepeatedly acted as religious sponsor. An old person is one who haslabored in the interests of the community for many years and whoserepeated religious activity has brought him or her ever closer to thestate of grace and secular wisdom. Modern institutional education andschooling has failed in its response to these kinds of spiritual needs ofsociety (1959).

Wolf explains that since all members of the community have equal

opportunity to enlist in carrying the burdens of religious obligation, they too may

gain prestige. The religious system allows all households to be ranked along a

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scale of religious participation, prestige, and age. At one end of the scale are the

younger members of the household who are brought into spiritual and social

existence and who are just beginning to play their part in keeping balance

between community and universe. When this order is out of balance, it is the

younger members of that society that react in ways that may be destructive and

violent. At the other end, the elderly of the household provide moral ascendancy

over the community earned over the years of their faithful service and ritual

expenditure. From this explanation, Wolf concludes "certainly this religious

pattern has Spanish prototypes in the Iberian cofradía or religious sodality, a

voluntary association of men for religious purposes" (ibid.). In the communities of

Bernalillo, Alameda, Corrales, Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, Placitas, and

Algodones, the cofradías have long been defunct, although they were intact early

in the twentieth century. Throughout these villages and towns, there remain roads

named after la morada and some of the empty lodges are still standing. Some

older people from these communities recall the exact locations and even names of

former members of these groups.

Doña Marina: colonial metaphor as modern legend

Ramon Gutiérrez observes that "just as Chicano scholars (who) were

interested in interpreting the history of the Southwest as a history of racial conflict

between Anglos and Mexicans explicitly chose 1848 as the beginning of Chicano

history, Chicana feminists began re-envisioning a history ordered by a different

sense of time. For women it was not the U.S. -Mexican War that was most

important. Instead, it was the first major act of conquest in the Americas, Spain's

defeat of the Aztec empire" (1993: 51).

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Judith Sweeney, in her 1977 historiographic review of literature on

Chicanas, was the first person to propose a new chronology for Chicano history.

That history she stated, began in 1519 and could "be divided into three major

periods: the colonial period (1519-1821); the nineteenth century (1821-1910); and

the contemporary period (1910-1976)" (1977: 100). The negated chronology for

Chicana history that begins in 1519 respectively and not 1848-- is not an arbitrary

concern. Both dates place the issue of gender, homeland, and power at the center

of the political debates about the future and the past. The 1519 date refocuses

attention on one of Mexico's most famous women, Doña Marina. Doña Marina

was a Mayan woman of noble ancestry who befriended Hernán Cortés in 1517.

Cortés recognized Doña Marina's cultural knowledge and she became his

mistress, translator, and confidant. Marina helped Cortés forge local militia

toward the Aztecs and he successfully defeated the Indians at Tenochtitlán.

Throughout Mexican history, la Malinche was interpreted as villainous,

having betrayed her race like the Christian Eve in a biblical sense. Chicano

playwright Luis Valdez in his 1971 play, "The Conquest of Mexico," depicted

Malinche as a traitor because: "not only did she turn her back on her own people,

she joined the white men and became assimilated." Octavio Paz explained that the

power and violence of the macho or gran chingón was similar to that of the

Spanish conquistador in Mexico. Likewise, the passivity of the violated mother,

or la chingada became analogous in Malinche. According to Paz,

It is true that she gave herself voluntarily to the conquistador, buthe forgot her as soon as her usefulness was over. Doña Marina

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becomes a figure representing the Indian women who werefascinated, violated or seduced by the Spaniards. And as a smallboy will not forgive his mother if she abandons him to search forhis father, the Mexican people have not forgiven La Malinche forher betrayal (1961: 77).

Ramon Gutiérrez suggests that for activist Chicanas, the historical

representations of Malinche as a treacherous whore who betrayed her own people

were but profound reflections of the deep-seated misogynist beliefs in Mexican

and Mexican-American culture (1993: 52).

La Malinche in Los Matachines

In the popular pantomime Los Matachines, Malinche is always depicted as

a child. In Bernalillo, many of the danzantes are female. As performers, their

identity and gender is masked. Their individual personalities remain anonymous

and their own personal reasons for participation are kept secret. The Malinche is a

central figure in Los Matachines performances by the Pueblo Indians and

Hispanos. According to Sylvia Rodriguez,

In pursuing the generally indirect, passive ethnographic approachone must adopt at the Pueblos, I have encountered littlecommentary as to what the movements or sets representindividually, and only broad notions of what the dance as a wholestands for. Throughout the Taos area, as elsewhere, the dance iscommonly said to commemorate Monarca's conversion toChristianity and the coming of the Virgin to the Indians. Theinnocent young Malinche is associated with the Virgin Mary, theMonarca with Montezuma or "someone with power." The twelvedanzantes symbolize, most people will say, apostles or soldiers(1996: 35).

For the Pueblo Indians, Christianity would seem to be profoundly

ambivalent as it was central to their subjugation. Many are devout Catholics and

this fact is reflected in the extreme honor associated to performance of the role of

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Malinche. Rodriguez concludes "at Taos, the link between Malinche and the

Virgin is hinted at in the little girl's change of costumes, reminiscent of the

seasonal color changes the Virgin's bulto undergoes at the hands of the

Guadalupanas (a Catholic women's society) every year inside Taos Pueblo's St.

Jerome church (1996: 35). Gunfire during the Virgin's procession suggests the

violence and brute force of the Spaniards. John Robb's musical investigation of

Los Matachines (1980) provides melodic transcriptions of the dances and a few

photographs. He collected Matachina melodies from San Antonio, Bernalillo

County (1949; 1954; 1951); Bernalillo, Sandoval County (1967); Llano de San

Juan, (1952); Tortugas (1953; 1965); Tierra Amarilla, Rio Arriba County (1957);

San Juan Tewa Indian Pueblo (1959); and Taos (1953).

Robb explained that "the Malinche is a little girl in white who dances with

the matachines dancers. The guajito is a rattle, and the palma is a three-forked

stick often carved and colored" (1980). Robb unfortunately ignored his research

associate's explanation of the dance roles and the fact that Malinche dances at the

side of Monarca and not "with the matachines". Robb relies on his own analogical

voice providing his own conclusions and interpretation over those voices he

records. In some communities the Monarca is the leader of the dancers.

According to Romero in Alcalde the leader of the performance is the fiddler.

Malinche and Toro are similar in age between 6 and 9 (1993: 273).

Sylvia Rodríguez believes that the pressure of intensifying capitalist

development, which has provoked certain forms of ritual activism throughout

much of New Mexico, is like the same gigantic beast with a different face for

each locale. Thus Arroyo Seco has been affected by growth in Taos, Alcalde by

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the growth of Española, El Rancho de Los Alamos, Bernalillo and the Carnué or

Tijeras Canyon area by Albuquerque, and Tortugas by Las Cruces and El Paso.

Whereas Los Matachines once celebrated Spanish domination, today it also

symbolizes Hispano determination to persist against the tide of Anglo

assimilation. Rodriguez explains,

In Bernalillo, for example, the dance has gone from the verge ofextinction in the late 1950s to being a major festival some thirtyyears later, a ritual organization operates through a prestigehierarchy. The Matachines tradition is linked in native thought tothe survival of the Pueblo Revolt, Bernalillo's official reconquestorigin, and its expressed desire to survive as a community today.Part of its core membership is said to overlap with that of thePenitente brotherhood. By the people's own account, theMatachines symbolizes the community's ethnocultural identity. Asin other Mexicano cases, the dance currently enjoys a serge ofpopularity and strong participation (1996: 148).

Recuerdos de Los Matachines: Memories of the Matachines

Don Diego de Vargas led the reconquest of New Mexico in 1692, the

bicentennial year of the reconquest of Spain from the Moors. According to

popular tradition, De Vargas made a vow to San Lorenzo to commemorate the

suffering and triumph of the colonists with solemn dance and public celebrations.

Today, the people of Bernalillo, New Mexico still observe la promesa to San

Lorenzo made by General de Vargas. Every August 9, 10, and 11 los Matachines,

the spiritual dance drama of the conquest is performed as part of this vow.

According to Bernalillo resident Justin Rinaldi:

In Bernalillo you see the dual role of the Malinche, where sheplays the role of good in this morality version of the dance drama,and yet she is playing the role of the Malinche who is the daughterof Montezuma. The Monarca who dances alongside her here inBernalillo, is Montezuma, her father . . . La importancia de SanLorenzo y su fiesta el día diez de agosto tuvo que ver con la

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revolución de los pueblos aquí en Nuevo México . . . [Theimportance of San Lorenzo and his fiesta had to do with therebellion of the Pueblos here in New Mexico . . . ] y los indios deSandía [And the Indians of Sandía], out of their generosity, really,actually; they gave title to the lands that the Bernalillo people held.But most important to the Bernalillo people was the fact that theygave them a separate parish and actually a saint to celebrate theirfiesta. . . el día diez es la fiesta de San Lorenzo. Tiene origen en lapromesa que hicieron cuando De Vargas volvió a Nuevo México. .. [the tenth is the feast of Saint Lawrence. It has its origin in thepromise that they made when De Vargas returned to New Mexico.. .] General De Vargas asked all the colonists that came back toremember as a devotion of thanksgiving to establish August 10thas a commemorative celebration in honor of Saint Lawrence, theSpanish martyr, and that they would do it by having the Mass andalso to dance the Matachines dance in honor of San Lorenzo. ..Bernalillo is the only community that has kept this promise fromthe very beginning for three hundred and some odd years . . . Whathas developed here in Bernalillo, the whole theme of theMatachines has become "la promesa," and everybody knows whatthey are talking about. . . La promesa has a different variety ofmeanings to different people. One person will say, "Well, I'mgoing to dance to San Lorenzo next year so that my mother can getwell from her cancer." I was in the Phillipines myself duringWorld War II. I heard of soldiers, especially those that were in theBataan Death March making promises to San Lorenzo so that theycould get back . . . (quoted in Lamadrid 1994: 17-18).

The central and consistent choreographic drama observed by Rodriguez involves

the palma-guaje exchange between Malinche and Monarca. This is preceded and

followed by their joint and individual dance sets. The characters of Monarca and

Malinche exhibit little variation, either through time or across traditions. Their

pairing and face-to-face interaction is a constant of the dance. Like the danzantes,

but unlike the Abuelos and Toro, they are serious, conventional figures with no

charter for improvisation or interaction with the audience. According to

Rodríguez, "the reigning metaphors of the Malinche-Monarca exchange are

conversion and marriage. Conversion makes up the explicit or official metaphor

for particular sets and for the dance as a whole, a message telegraphed by the

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danzantes' symmetrical formations and crossovers" (ibid.). Marriage is the

Malinche's resemblance to a bride. Like a bride, she is a virgin dressed in white,

paired with Monarca and pinned with dollar bills in Taos. She scuffles briefly

with the Toro and is escorted by the clowns. Rodriguez explains

In the upper Río Grande valley at least, the virgin Malinche--acontradiction in terms if one keeps in mind her Mexican meaningfarther south--is symbolically much more pivotal than the king shesupposedly converts. She is herself the first Christian convert. ThisMalinche resembles Cortés's famous Indian mistress, the mythictraitor and mother of mestizos, in name only--except insofar asboth are mediating figures of the conquest. But she is also theVirgin Mary, the holy power that conquers the entirechoreographic sequence enacts an ambiguous exchange andtransformation between opposite sides (1996: 149).

Ramon Gutiérrez proposes that marriage practice structured social

inequality in colonial New Mexico. He is not surprised that marriage is an

unspoken motif in the Río Grande Matachines. Conversion and not marriage was

the ideal institutional relation that the Franciscan fathers envisioned between

Indians and Spaniards. In Gutiérrez's model, marriage between social equals

preserved honor and liempieza de sangre (purity of blood), whereas, uncontrolled,

illicit unions across caste lines resulted in mestizaje. While properly sanctioned

marriages perhaps remained the elite ideal, Rodríguez believes that "all manner of

mestizaje nevertheless became the prevailing reality" (1996: 150).

As an analyst, Rodríguez admits two important factors that affect her

initial approach to field work. First, is her initial research of interethnic relations

in the greater Taos area when she first began fieldwork on the dance. She

discovered that the subject matter and social constituency of the dance posed an

ideal opportunity to observe the "elusive public interface between Indians and

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Mexicanos in Taos." She approached the dance conceptually and

methodologically, less as a simple dance ethnography and more as a study of

ethnic relations. Her project attempts to represent a fusion of both perspectives.

However, a second important factor is that Rodríguez is also a marginalized

native of Taos with an ideological perspective molded by her own social status as

a cosmopolitan elite intellectual, in addition to her own biethnicity.

Rodríguez is Mexicano-Anglo, or coyote, to use the emic label for this

casta. Raised Catholic and middle class close to Taos Pueblo, Rodríguez like

most of New Mexico's intellectuals went away to school and became a professor.

She has maintained active familial and other personal attachments in New Mexico

as most New Mexican scholars have. Unlike countless other New Mexican

organic instellectuals and native scholars who investigate New Mexican culture,

history, music, and language, Rodríguez eventually "returned to study my

hometown as an anthropologist." She honestly admits "my attraction to the

Matachines stems in part, I believe, from my coyote affinity for symbolic themes

of ethnic intermediacy, mestizaje, liminality, boundary crossing, and reversal"

(1996: x).

Rodríguez confronts her marginal positionality as a coyote honestly and

courageously and concludes that regardless of whether an anthropologist is a

native or a stranger, the intrinsic ethnographic stance is that of an outsider who

seeks to know what an insider knows. She concludes that "not unlike the

conventional non-native ethnographer, the native ethnographer is by definition as

much outsider as insider to the culture under study" (ibid.). Critics may not

assume that the "native ethnographer" always enjoys epistemological privilege

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with respect to basic cultural knowledge and understanding, as well as a degree of

automatic social entrée into a community under study. At the same time, native

familiarity and community status can pose problems and liabilities described as

"unconscious blind spots because too much is taken for granted" (Rodriguez

1996: xi).

I like Rodríguez's analysis of the Matachines because it shows the contrast

to the stable, narrowly defined roles of the Malinche, Monarca, and the

danzantes, suggesting variation in the personalities and their comic routines. It is

this variability that offers insight into the universal and local meanings of the

dance. The third playful persona in addition to Malinche or Monarca and the

Clowns is the Toro. The Toro is symbolic of slaughter and adolescent sexuality.

Rodríguez concludes, "like Malinche's portrayal by a young girl, perhaps

the enactment of the Toro in some communities by a preadolescent boy alludes to

this history’ (ibid.) So might the symbolic association of the Toro with the war

chief at Taos Pueblo. Yet from the Spanish viewpoint, the meaning of this episode

might carry somewhat different connotations, insofar as castration symbolized

(male-to-male) domination (Gutiérrez 1991: 209). The transformation of this

motif into a burlesque played out by the clowns shows how the struggle was

contained and reinterpreted by both Pueblos and Hispanos.

While this may be true in some performances, it was not as concise in

Bernalillo. The Bernalillo danza is interesting because it consists of several

troupes with a large number of apprentice dancers waiting for their turn to dance

for the town patron San Lorenzo. Unlike elsewhere, the Bernalillo toros were not

the same age as the pair of Malinches who were indeed within the usual

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preadolescent age range. The Bernalillo toros are adult males, as is the Monarca,

suggesting a more lateral distribution of inequality.

The Frontiers Between “Popular” and “Folk”

The late Mexican musicologist Vicente T. Mendoza published an essay in

1955 that was presented at the International Folk Music Council conference. It

considers the various stages through which Greater Mexican musical culture

passed since colonial times. He considers the oscillations between observable

"popular" and "folk" layers of culture. According to Mendoza,

the Pre-Hispanic peoples of Mexico, mentioned by FrayBernardino de Sahugún and others, were divided into groupsaccording to their occupations: a large group of artisans,manufacturers, salesmen, farmers, and the like formed the peopleproper. There was another group, set apart, comprising orators,musicians, priests, soldiers, administrators and nobility (1955: 24).

Mendoza suggests that the rhythm of life was interrupted suffering a total

eclipse with the arrival of Conquerors whose European-Spanish ways were utterly

incomprehensible to the Indians. There was no point of contact, especially with

regard to religious beliefs, between these two antagonistic cultures during the

sixteenth century. Mendoza naively believes there was never any racial prejudice,

and this is typified by the birth of Martín Cortés to Hernán Cortés and the Indian

Marina. Thus were formed the future Mexican people, but at first the mestizos

were accepted neither into Spanish nor Indian society.

It is not surprising that these new racial mixtures not only concerned

Spaniards and Indians, but also Africans and Asiatics, especially Philippines and

Malayans. As a period of gestation, Mendoza views the colonial era as "an

amorphous organism with diverse tendencies, borrowed sentiments and, above all,

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instability" (1955: 24). With Mexican independence, the group which showed

most signs of having achieved a certain degree of unity was that of the creoles.

These were restrained, however, to inferior social power and status due to the

immigrant Spaniards, who held all the administrative positions and received all

the favors, even in the religious orders, and this engendered much bitterness and

resentment.

Popular Culture as Struggle Over Cultural Hegemony

Seen as the struggle over cultural hegemony, popular culture may be seen

to be the global displacement of high/low or modern/traditional distinctions.

According to Stuart Hall, cultural hegemony is never about pure victory or pure

domination (that's not what the term means); it is never a zero-sum game; it is

always about changing the dispositions and the configurations of cultural power,

not getting out of it (Morley and Chen 1996: 468). Hall explains this point better

in the following quotation,

For, if the global postmodern represents an ambiguous opening todifference and to the margins and makes a certain kind ofdecentering of the Western narrative a likely possibility, it ismatched, from the heartland of cultural politics, by the backlash:the aggressive resistance to difference; the attempt to restore thecanon of Western civilization; the assault, direct and indirect, onmulticulturalism; the return to grand narratives of history,language, literature -the great supporting pillars of national identityand national culture; the defense of ethnic absolutism, of a culturalracism that has marked the Thatcher and the Reagan eras; and thenew xenophobia that are about to overwhelm fortress Europe. Thelast thing to do is read me as saying the cultural dialectic isfinished. Part of the problem is that we have forgotten what sort ofspace the space of popular culture is (ibid.).

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Popular Music, Ritual Structure and the Carnivalesque

Stuart Hall believes that popular culture carries an affirmative ring

because of the prominence of the word “popular”. He notes,

And, in one sense, popular culture always has its base in theexperiences, the pleasures, the memories, the traditions of thepeople. It has connections with local hopes and local aspirations,local tragedies and local scenarios that are the everyday practicesand everyday experiences of ordinary folks. Hence, it links whatMikhail Bakhtin calls 'the vulgar'--the popular, the informal, theunderside, the grotesque. That is why it has always beencounterpoised to elite or high culture, and is thus a site ofalternative traditions. And that is why the dominant tradition hasalways been deeply suspicious of it, quite rightly. They suspectthat they are about to be overtaken by what Bakhtin calls 'thecarnivalesque' (Morley and Chen 1996: 469).

The “modeling” of the social and the cultural together according to

classifications of “high” and “low” runs through many permutations between the

late classical times and the present. It is certainly still an active element in

twentieth century debates about the threats to civilization and “minority culture”

from the debased influences of a commercialized mass culture, and in the parallel

debate over “mass culture” between the Frankfurt School and its American critics.

This practice of cultural classification is constantly transcoded across a variety of

different domains.

According to ethnomusicologist Manuel Peña, Mexican folk and popular

music in Texas, has demonstrated cultural distinctions made between música

araballera (vulgar music) and música buena (good music, lo jaitón (literally high

tone) and lo ranchero (lower class). According to Stallybrass and White,

cultural categories of high and low, social and aesthetic . . . butalso those of the physical body and geographical space are neverentirely separable. The ranking of literary genres or authors in ahierarchy analogous to social classes is a particularly clear

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example of a much broader and more complex process wherebythe human body, psychic forms, geographical space and the socialformation are all constructed within interrelating andinterdependent hierarchies of high and low (1988: back cover).

In most of his research, Manuel Peña has continued an important line of

interpretation with a great amount of historical and ethnographic data in his

analysis of socioeconomic class formation and its implication for musical style.

Peña's ethnography makes salient the musical and class division that has been of

particular interest to a entire generation of Chicano scholars and now post-

Chicano scholars. The musical styles of conjunto and orquesta (big band) reflect

the conflicting ideological aspirations of the working class mexicano and the post

World War II middle-class. He proposes

that conjunto music has historically represented the response of theTexas Mexican proletarian worker to the antagonism, not only ofan America which threatened from outside an ethnic boundary . . .but of the emerging Chicano middle class . . . who formed thebackbone of a new and increasingly Americanized or Anglicizedgroup which began to aspire for new cultural symbols to expressits newfound identity. . . . It was at this point, in the late 1940's,that modern orquesta music emerged among and for the middleclass, partly as a result of that search for new cultural symbols(1981: 291).

Peña notes that both musical styles-though not classes--have been

converging, and indeed, that the big band style has also been appropriated by the

working classes (1981). The result is that today it is largely the working class that

dances a mixture of both conjunto and big band styles, either at the same or at

separate dances, or by the same or separate musical ensembles.

Whatever their earlier ideological signification, these two styles and their

associated dancing rituals are now the expressive instruments of the working

class, and to judge from Peña's ethnographic work, they speak in a contestative

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manner to the dominant social order (Limón 1983: 239). In this way Peña's

analysis examines the formation of music hierarchies and the processes through

which the low troubles the high. His monographs and articles are an attempt to

map some of these interlinked cultural hierarchies.

Drawing on Victor Turner's theory, Peña concludes that the Chicano dance

is a sense of communitas upholding key cultural values against the encroachment

of the outside world (1980). Peña's ethnography is consistent with other

investigations such as those completed by Sylvia Rodriguez (1996, 1997) which

examines the Matachines dance as a similar form of ritual activism.

One of the most recent detailed dance ethnography devoted to the

Bernalillo Matachines was completed by Martha Patricia Espinoza Arreola

(1997). However, studies devoted to the Matachines do not address how the

Fiesta complex itself is a contestative instrument used by both the middle and

working classes. Rather than focusing only on la danza and the religious meaning

or origins of the pantomime, I now wish to examine more closely the larger Fiesta

as a musical context for this formation of music hierarchies.

As specialized types of framed festive religious and play activities, the

various dances evince a definite ritual structure, which in its totality of highly

redundant, semantically loaded elements define an intensive Mexicano reality

whose purpose is to revitalize a deeply felt (and threatened) ethnic boundary and

historical experience. The incredible paradox that surrounds the Fiesta is

accentuated by the essentially conservative public ideology of the participants. As

Peña, said about other contexts, "these were not Chicanos caught up in the

romantic nationalist movimiento of the 1960s and 1970s, which sought through

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political means to revitalize "Chicano" culture and improve the economic lot of

the people"(1980: 47). Many of Bernalillo's working class Chicanos are casualties

of land dispossession and were born in the surrounding villages of Corrales,

Algodones, and Placitas.

Yet, in the deep, liminal play and historical detail that characterizes the

Fiesta complex, every symbolic effort is made to negate that very society which

the Mexicanos endorse as citizens of the United States in everyday structured life.

The rest of this analysis attempts to illuminate the musical complexities and

contradictions, that is, the conflict of religious values and capitalist ideologies,

that mark the lives of New Mexicans today. Peña suggests that "in the ritualized

structure of . . . musical occasions a microcosm of this conflict is played out and

ultimately mediated" (1980: 48). However, as symbolic enactments of the Fiesta,

the dances evince elements of structure and communitas and liminality (see Victor

Turner 1969; and 1974).

I attended both the 1997 and 1998 Fiestas and both were essentially a re-

creation of those presented before. The monthly devotion practice held on the

tenth of each month maximizes the ritual effect over the year leading up to the

August observance. This evolution and historical foundation is the basis of the

increasing popularity of the Fiestas and its ever-increasing acceptance and

identification with what the people recognize as the established tradition and the

creation and acceptance of new cultural symbols. The overall sequence of

activities that structure the Fiestas remain constant throughout the three day

period.

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Characterized by repeated, drawn-out, redundant sequence, the actions

within the fiesta communicate "loaded" information between members of the

group, the historical and symbolic significance of which served to reinforce the

values, traditions, and attitudes that the Bernalillo Mejicanos hold important.

Certainly this reinforcement may be understood within the framework of the

dynamics of intercultural contact and conflict (cf. Paredes 1977; Peña 1997) and

ethnic boundary maintenance (see Barth, 1969), as these realities are negotiated

generally in the daily lives of the people and specifically within the religious

Matachines and secular popular dancing. Bakhtin's idea of “carnival” as an

analytic category is useful here. According to Stuart Hall,

Carnival is a metaphor for the temporary licensed suspension andreversal of order, the time when the low shall be high and the high,low, the moment of upturning, of “the world turned upside-down”.The study of Rabelais led Bakhtin to consider the existence of awhole alternative domain and aesthetic of “the popular” based onstudies of the importance of fairs, festivals, mardi gras, and otherforms of popular festivity. Bakhtin uses “carnival” to signal allthose forms, tropes and effects in which the symbolic categories ofhierarchy and value are inverted (Morley and Chen 1996: 291).

The “carnivalesque” includes the vulgar language of the market-place such

as curses, profanities, oaths, colloquialisms which disrupt the privileged order of

polite utterance-- rituals, games, dances and performances. Gerholm points out,

. . .rituals do serious work: they turn boys into men and girls intowomen; they bring about peace; they cure the possessed; theyensure the coming of the rain, etc. In other words, ritual isinstrumental action guided by men's interest in controlling andregulating the world, both the man-made and the natural one(Horton 1982 quoted in Gerholm 1988: 198).

Gerholm takes exception to a symbolist view that would see ritual as

concerned primarily with expression and communication of meaning rather than

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with "doing" things. Many things that rituals do cannot be done without recourse

to meaning. Gerholm concludes that rituals are often sophisticated exercises in

semantics and display a subtle machinery of elusive symbols. They are ways of

doing things with symbols (Gerholm 1988: 198). Stallybrass and White's notion of

“transgression” is grounded in Bakhtin's idea of “carnival.” Carnival as a model is

useful as an ideal type and as an analytic category here. Carnival is the metaphor

for the inversion of the social order. The carnivalesque signifies the point,

however, where the formal, polite forms of conduct and discourse are dethroned,

and the point in popular festive forms where the king or slaveholder temporarily

govern and there is social disorder. The model is useful because it illustrates

clearly and in no uncertain terms that this is the time the symbolic order may be

reversed.

Certainly the Fiestas may be explained easily as a source of musical

entertainment, but the ritualistic manifestation of this type of social action needs

further explanation. The Fiestas also represent a connection with new sources of

energy, life, and vitality--birth, copulation, abundance, fertility, associated with

the moment of “carnival” which makes it such a potent metaphor and symbolic

transformation. Stuart Hall further points out,

In fact, what is striking and original about Bakhtin's“carnivalesque” as a metaphor of cultural and symbolictransformation is that it is not simply a metaphor of inversion--setting the “low” in the place of the “high”, while preserving thebinary structure of the division between them. In Bakhtin's“carnival”, it is precisely the purity of this binary distinction whichis transgressed. The low invades the high, blurring the hierarchicalimposition of order; creating, not simply the triumph of oneaesthetic over the interdependency of the low on the high and viceversa, the inextricably mixed and ambivalent nature of all cultural

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life, the reversibility of cultural forms, symbols, language andmeaning; and exposing the arbitrary exercise upon which theconstruction of every limit, tradition and canonical formation, andthe operation of every hierarchical principle of cultural closure, isfounded (Morley and Chen 1996: 292).

At a more symbolic and functional level the unique sequence of events

constitute what Charles Keil (1966: 15) regards as a "special domain" where

participants prove and preserve their identity. The domain or sphere of interest

may be broadly defined as entertainment from the white and coyote public point

of view and as ritual, drama, or dialectical catharsis from the Mexican-American,

Chicano, or Hispano perspective. The Chicano dances interpreted by Peña were

also seen as a form of musical entertainment, but they were clearly more than

"mere decoration" or escape from reality in the fantasy lives of the people. They

were according to Peña, rather, "an adventure into reality," as John Blacking

described the Venda music and dance (1973: 28). "They symbolized the reality of

men sharing a common and heightened cultural experience that made them more

aware of themselves and of their responsibilities towards one another"(Peña 1980:

49).

The Fiestas are something on the order of a rite of intensification and

religious devotion. "In the technical (physiological) sense, the performance of

these rites prevents the extinction of habits (orders of action) to which the

individual has been trained" (Chapple and Coon 1942: 508). In the context of Las

Fiestas the dances served to "prevent the extinction" of a way of life tied to the

group’s culture and ultimately to their ethnic identity. Thus, Peña concludes that

in actuality the performance of these rites (Chicano dances) was "technically"

psychological and social, rather than physiological" (1980: 49). While it is

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generally acknowledged that dancing as an organized activity has universal

symbolic significance, it is in culturally specific contexts that its ritual measure is

determined (ibid.). Peña continues,

Dancing does not have the same ritual value everywhere. In ourmodern American society, for example, dancing, at least the type Iam discussing here, may be nothing more than an incidental (i.e.,nonrepetitive) form of entertainment, or play. Such is the case inthe generalized American society where people dance innightclubs, discotheques, ballrooms, and other places. This is notto say that such dancing is nonsymbolic; whatever the symbolicsignificance we can ascribe to such entertainment, it is still notpurposive, ritual behavior that marked the Chicano Saturday nightdances in Fresno (1980: 50).

This is an important point that applies to other ritualized occasions such as

Las Fiestas in Bernalillo. Peña believes it is important not to gloss over the ritual,

symbolic import of such features as the posole and enchiladas (food with strong

cultural overtones), the strategic placement of valasos (gunshots) and cuetes

(explosive fireworks), the choice of powerfully evocative Mexican alabanzas and

milagros (praises), and the countless other cues that clearly identify the events as

ritualistic. Gerholm asks,

Having declared my general allegiance to the so-called"intellectualist" camp (Horton 1982, Skorupski 1976, Sperber1975, among others) in its war with the "symbolist" camp(Lienhardt 1961; Beattie 1970, Geertz 1973) et al.), . . . How is itpossible that such a well-studied field as ritual could give rise totwo seemingly so fundamentally different ideas on what ritual is allabout? How could reasonable men differ so radically in mattersthat have been so thoroughly investigated? (Gerholm 1988: 199)

Intellectualist versus Symbolist Interpretations

Gerholm’s answer suggests that there is substantial evidence for both

views and that both of them are partial truths that fly in the face of each other only

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when- but as soon as -they are generalized, totalized. Gerholm believes the

intellectualists rely for their support on the widespread common sense view of

ordinary participants in rituals. Usually they go to no great symbolic depths in

explaining the purpose of these rituals but state quite flatly that they are

performed in order to do this and that. In other words, rituals are performed in

order to achieve the ends of practical reason. On the other hand,

The symbolists . . . base themselves on their own equivalentswithin the societies studied, that is local intellectual (experts) andritual specialists who take delight in speculating on their ownculture and finding ways of making a beautiful system out of whatto others may be only "shreds and patches". . . Of course, somesymbolists do not bother about finding a suitable "native's point ofview" on which to base their interpretation but embark on asymbolic analysis entirely on their own. What sort of reason couldthere be to choose one or the other of these perspectives, that of thecommon man or that of the ritual expert? None, really. For neitherof them is a privileged point of view. Ritual is a socially given fact,in the Durkheimian sense, and both perspectives on it areindividual interpretations of it (Gerholm 1988: 199).

Gerholm expands his views on the non-ritual uses of the context of ritual

as a source of change within ritual. He explains,

in other words, it may be, not the rite itself, but the very fact and thevery way of performing it that is the main motive of the peoplearranging it and carrying it out. Thus, there are actually two ways inwhich rituals may be instrumental. One is to be instrumental in termsof a goal defined by the theory of the ritual: the purpose of the ritual.The other is to be instrumental in terms of a (non-ritual) goal definedby the social context of the ritual: the uses of the ritual (ibid.)

A transition rite, for instance, that redefines the social status of the

participants is instrumental in the first sense. Virtually any ritual could be

instrumental in the second sense, but an especially interesting case would be a

ritual without an immediate tangible effect: a ritual that is not doing obvious

things with symbols, marrying people, curing them or whatever. Even such a

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ritual may easily be maintained for a long time if it has uses, if it gives prestige in

the social context. And so, summing up this point, we could say that for

understanding the historical development of a ritual, it is just as important to

understand its social setting as to construct a symbolic system of which the ritual

is a manifestation (Gerholm 1988: 201).

Jose Limón reminds us that Américo Paredes was first to suggest that "the

dance played but little part in Border folkways1, though in the twentieth century

the Mexicanized polka has become something very close to a native folk form. . .

. There were community dances at public spots and some private dances in the

homes, usually to celebrate weddings, but the dance on the Border was a modern

importation, reflecting European vogues" (1958: 14 quoted in Limón 1983). Peña

agrees with Paredes,

I believe that Paredes is remarkably accurate in this assessment,considering the early date. Since the 1950s what we might call the"Chicanoized" polka has, in fact, become a hallmark of both themusical and the dance musical styles in the Southwest, particularlyin Texas, which has served as a sort of cradle of indigenousChicano music and from which the forms have been exported to

1. Manuel Peña explains the importance of Monterrey as a music-cultural center from which muchexpressive culture diffused throughout Greater Mexico. Monterrey’s influence . . . radiatesoutward as far as the Texas cities of Laredo, San Anonio, and Corpus Christi (1985: 29). Whilecompleting archival research at the New Mexico National Hispanic Cultural Center, I discoveredseveral photographs of Mariachi Infantil de Monterrey and Trio Monterrey performing inAlbuquerque. Unfortunately, the dates of these performances were not indicated. According toPeña, Narciso Martinez, the “father” of conjunto music “was one of the first conjunto musicians tobegin touring beyond the state of Texas-to New Mexico, Arizona, and California. This was in1952 (1985: 59). Prior to the 1920s, “a socioeconomic organization broad enough and stableenough to support a large or permanent musical group was simply nonexistent, with the exceptionof small pockets of petty bourgeois groups in the cities like Laredo, Brownsville, San Antonio, ElPaso, Houston, and perhaps Corpus Christi. According to Strachwitz, El Azote del Valle (TheScourge from the Valley) is today remembered by people as far north as Amarillo, Texas, playingwith a tin cup attached to his piano accordion. . . “ (Strachwitz 1975b). My own research confirmsthis. Several New Mexican disc-jockeys allowed me to browse through their own personal recordcollections where I found albums and 45s by Tony de La Rosa, Beto Villa, Pedro Ayala andNarciso Martinez.

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other parts of the country (e.g. California) where Chicanos haveconcentrated. Thus, as the twentieth century progressed both public(in the form of profit-motivated dances) and private celebrations,such as weddings, quinceañeras, (fifteenth-birthday parties),anniversaries, and other occasions, have shown a tremendousincrease. . . . We may accurately say, then, that public and privatedancing has truly become an important element in the social livesof Chicanos. One has only to tune in to any Spanish-speakingcommercial radio station in any part of the Southwest to learn howwidespread dancing is among our people today (1980: 51).

Bernalillo is no exception, since the 1960s and 1970s several civic and

fraternal organizations in the town have sponsored regular weekend dances.

Likewise, Las Fiestas de San Lorenzo has also been an occasion for popular

dancing, as the annual published schedule confirmed. The importance of dance in

Latin America has a long history that predates the Conquest, among European,

African, and Indigenous people who have contributed to the mestizaje (Romero

personal communication 2000).

Redressive Action as Resistance: Comparative Symbology

In his article, "Texas-Mexican Popular Music and Dancing" (1983), José

Limón presents an ethnographic account as an ethnically defined expressive

cultural system using Victor Turner's ideas in the area of cultural anthropology.

Limón's analysis of this expressive behavior as "comparative symbology"

integrates his conclusions into a history of Texas-Mexican social subordination.

He stresses his point that Texas-Mexican culture and music/dancing have been

carried to many parts of the United States, particularly to the agricultural valleys

of California. Limón's study moves beyond the traditional folkloric genres to an

anthropological analysis of popular culture. His article offers a more defined and

explicit theoretical base than previous ones we have examined thus far. His

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perspective, like Peña's, also considers economic class broadly defined and the

political influences on cultural behavior. In this way Limón succeeds in

integrating expressive symbolic behavior more closely into the social history of

mexicanos in Texas.

The Historical Context of Expressive Performance

It may be the experience of these well-known rituals- that really "work" in

a straight-forward sense- that is the rationale behind the ritual and which may be

seen as "symbolic action". The rituals also purport to be instrumental, although it

is difficult to see how they could effectively be so. It is simply a case of the

migration of thought patterns from one domain to another. Limón focuses on the

social context and on what Juan Gómez-Quiñones has described as "the

prominence of accelerating change as the major social characteristic of the

Mexicano community in the United States since the early nineteenth century."

Gómez-Quiñones explains that "in the nineteenth century, conflict and

turmoil, economic displacement, resistance, are the major phenomena

characteristic of this period of marginalization: socially, politically and

economically" (1971: 35 quoted in Limón 1983). Limón points out the

appearance of cultural fragmentation, demoralization, and how resistance also

begins. According to Limón, the twentieth century brings immigration, migration,

urbanization, and an intensifying socioeconomic exploitation and land

dispossession. World War II contributes to sociocultural change with probable

effects on kinship patterns and language behavior (ibid.). To this, Limón adds

"Anglo-American schooling and the increasing effect of the media also assist the

process of change particularly after World War II" (1983: 231).

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In New Mexico, these themes further result in the disruption of a

monolingual, relatively homogenous, self-subsistent village folk culture

interrupted by the arrival of increasing numbers of Anglo American traders, fur

trappers, and later, professional writers, artists, and intellectuals. Although the

historical record and evidence provided by Genaro Padilla (1993) suggests ample

evidence of resistance, the net result was "conquest and domination.” Limón

suggests, "those would feel the acculturative pressure from the new social order

articulated principally through educational agencies" (op. cit.).

To this Limón adds the fundamental basis for change, however, was the

economic conversion of the native population from settled agriculturists to a

labor-dependent, economically uprooted, and culturally fragmented society. He

suggests that events in Mexico compounded this disruption as the Mexican

revolution and repression displaced thousands of families, further adding to the

surplus labor pool and intensifying the range of exploitation and internal

intraethnic conflict and economic competition (1983). In New Mexico

unemployment was high so Mexican labor was not welcome by the local workers.

World War II would result in the development of Los Alamos National

Laboratories and the testing of the first atomic bomb at the Trinity Site at White

Sands Missal Range in southern New Mexico. Further change would be

stimulated through urbanization into Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Las Cruces. The

suburban developments of Rio Rancho, Volcano Cliffs, Paradise Hills would

boom almost overnight on the west side of the Rio Grande near Albuquerque.

According to Limón:

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In summary, induced and accelerating sociocultural disruption,change and marginalization mark the fate of Mexicanos in thiscountry. This process of change did not go unchallengedpolitically, economically, and culturally; it was neither total norcomplete. However, it was substantial enough to produce adecisive shift from a relatively more stable socio-cultural state ofaffairs (both in Mexico and in pre-Anglo village life in theSouthwest) to a dislocation, subordination, and increasedacculturation. This shift in sociocultural stability is crucial to thedevelopment of my thesis in regard to expressive performances,particularly music and dancing (1983: 232).

Keeping this thesis in mind, in Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the

West, Slobin “chastizes” José Limón’s (1991) recent work on the Mexican-

American dance hall for “choosing to focus on the dancers in his mexicano club

while scorning the musicians as too comodified to constitute a legitimate form of

cultural expression” (1993). Slobin further raises questions regarding Limón’s

cultural poetics that contrast the passion of the Texas-Mexican dancers with the

detachment of the band. Slobin concludes: “I still feel that we cannot understand

one group without the other” (1993: 107). On the other hand he excuses Limón’s

lacking musical expertise because: “What often happens is that observers settle on

one facet of music’s diamondlike array of surfaces and reflections. Particularly

nonspecialists can accept or dismiss whole chunks of musical experience by

taking a theoretical curve around them as an obastacle” (Slobin 1993: 7). Slobin’s

critique of Limón is very useful here and I will review the matter here before

proceeding to my own native ethnography and reflections.

According to Slobin, José Limón (1991) positions himself vis-á-vis his

illustrious predecessor in Chicano expressive culture studies, Americo Paredes,

who wrote a seminal book (1958) on the heroic ballad of the Texas-Mexican

borderland, the corrido. Limón writes,

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If the corrido was the major signifier of the critical politics ofAmerico Paredes’s heroic world, then I take the polka as that ofmy own world—the polka not so much as musical form, but asdance. I opt for the dancing rather than the music because, as[Manuel] Peña has clearly suggested (1985: 157-161), the music isincreasingly more open to late capitalist and postmoderncommodification, while in my view, the dancing stands at somecritical distance from the postmodern effect (Limón 1991: 130).

Slobin is correct to point out the error of Limón’s analysis that summarily

dismisses music as ideologically corrupt, in contrast to the continued purity of the

dance tradition. Slobin charges Limón as separating the “commodified” band

from the “noncommercial” dancers here, in order to make the distinction on a

purely social organization plane. Limón on the other hand questions how we can

“tell the dancer from the dance,” signaling a unity of sound and motion. A point

that Slobin believes should have “led him to a comprehensive analysis of the

entire event” (1993: 8). Another important question raised by Slobin is: “What

about the selling of alcohol, so indispensable to the story (Limón) spins about an

evening at the Cielo Azul café, or the commodified costumes of the dancers, so

important to the image they wish to project, and the fact that they have borrowed

dance steps from the mainstream, presumably commodified, practice?” (1993: 8).

From this Slobin concludes “the careful bracketing of just the affective interaction

of dancers from the entire seems to belie Limón’s ethnographic stance” (ibid.). He

continues,

Further, Limón’s reading of Peña’s pioneering description of theborder dance-band world (of which more later) seems willful.Today’s Mexican-American conjunto musicians are no more“commodified” in a “postmodern” way than most musicians inmost places have been over the last century, since the advent ofcommercial sound recording and the subsequent technology-drivenmedia (1993: 8).

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To this he asks: “Further, do not the musicians themselves form a

component of the community that merits a close, sympathetic look?” He

responds, “in most such “ethnic” contexts, the men on the bandstand also have

day jobs and belong to exactly the same world as the dancers, which is in itself an

important reason for the success of their music in motivating the dance” (ibid.).

Slobin offers Les Blank’s film Chulas Fronteras (1975) and the ethnographic

image of the famed musician Narciso Jimenez on his daily rounds as a zookeeper

in San Antonio as support of his stance. This distancing of the “pure” dancers

from the “contaminated” musicians, renders an “uncharacteristically romantic

view” (1993: 8). Slobin further takes Limón to task for being “a hard-headed

participant-observer who takes pains to empathize with, but not condescend to,

his informants” (ibid.). Slobin writes,

Even on a technical level, the relationship of dancers to the band (asdetailed below) is too important to overlook. Yes, the band“choreographs” the dancers, but it is just because musicians arescrupulously careful to please the paying public that they create a jointaesthetic for which both must take responsibility—and credit, if theatmosphere is as positive as Limón suggests. Finally, seeing the CieloAzul café as a totally distinctive place is certainly correct at onelevel—the Mexican-American experience is unique—but separating itspleasures and participants into mutually exclusive categories does nothelp us in the broader, comparative framework I seek to outline here.My own interests, detailed below, lead toward a general considerationof subcultural band-ing, suggesting some common features across in-group lines (1993: 8).

Nor like Slobin, do I mean to criticize one of favorite Chicano professors

who takes his own and his student’s work on vernacular expressive culture

seriously. He certainly taught me more than a thing or two about Greater Mexican

expressive culture and encouraged me to proceed with my research of New

Mexico as a native ethnographer. Slobin is right when he raises the point that:

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“Limón is exactly the type of ally enthnomusicology needs as it reaches out to

nonspecialists; however, there is simply a problem that arises when one narrows

the focus too much, every bit as damaging as when one generalizes too glibly”

(ibid.). Slobin also points out that Limón limits his scope by “overlooking the

purely musical component of the sung verse creations that form the core of his

research” (ibid.). He explains,

Back on the Texas border, Americo Paredes, archaic though he mightseem to Limón, at least provides the notation of one melody of theballad his study is about before closing the book to music as a vital,indispensable part of performance. So, whether it is the figure of themusicians themselves or the expressive means by which (. . . ) Texas-Mexican border bards convey their craft, music, though appreciated, istill scanted (ibid.).

Bearing in mind Jeff Todd Titon’s (in Barz and Cooley 1997: 87) critique

of the limitations of Western notation in general and the value of descriptive

transcription in particular, Titon reminds us that not long ago, musical

transcription was the distinguishing mark of our discipline, not only as a passage

rite (Hood 1982[1971]; McAllester 1989) but as a generative practice. Titon

explains:

Music was objectified, collected, and recorded in order to betranscribed; and transcription enabled analysis and comparison.Transcription --that is, listening to a piece of music and writing itdown in Western notation--not only became a guild skill but also"wrote across" lived experience, eliminated the life-world, andtransformed what was left (sound) into a representation that couldbe analyzed systematically and then compared with othertranscriptions so as to generate and test hypotheses concerningmusic's origin and evolution (1997: 87)

He continues,

Today, it is not transcription but fieldwork that constitutesethnomusicology. Fieldwork is no longer viewed principally as

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observing and collecting (see Slobin and Titon 1992 [1984]:xvi).The new fieldwork leads us to ask what it is like for a person(ourselves included) to make and to know music as livedexperience (Barz and Cooley 1997: 87).

Returning to the Slobin’s critique of Limóns native ethnography, he writes,

Beyond the presence or absence of music within today’smetadisciplinary explorations, a methodological issue implicit inthe works just mentioned is this: in surveying a scene, what are theunits of analysis and what are the levels on which one works? . . .In Limón’s case the possible units are the reflexive ethnographer,the dancers, the musicians, the club owner, the music/dancerepertoire, the dress and codes of etiquette, the food and drinkconsumption, and so forth. The levels include the plane ofperformance itself, the construction of a typical evening’sentertainments, the management of subcultural dance halls, theindividual experiences and views of participants, the patterns ofgroup interaction, the nature of gender relations, and even largerlevels like mexicano culture. You might notice that units and levelsare only sketches here—it is not always easy to tell them apart. Mypoint is that no matter what the frame of reference, priviligingsome parameters is inevitable, but arbitrarily excluding any hardlyhelps us grasp the essence of subculture. My own bias would ofcourse lead me to argue for music as primary component incontemporary societies, particulaly in the microworlds that are theethnographer’s home (1993: 9).

I agree with Slobin up to a point. I question why descriptive transcription in

Western notation should remain the primary unit of ethnomusicology analysis

especially when there are more interesting levels that for decades have been

overlooked. There exist even more interesting levels of analysis to students of

ethnomusicology, especially those that can’t read Western notation. I do not

believe that transcription enhances the production of meaning of a musical text or

illuminate its performance beyond the abstraction of an aesthetic logic that is

unique to a particular social historical experience and cultural context.

Furthermore, I find Limón’s reflexive analysis and precursory ethnography more

rigorous than other specialized investigations (see Loza 1992, 1993, 1994a,

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1994b, 1999). Limón’s intimate knowledge of Texas-Mexican border culture in

addition to his unique subjective experience having been born and raised there

throughout the hey-day of Chicano political activism and New Left scholarship

informs his own native reflexive stance as an ethnographer (see Limón 1994).

More to the point, it is difficult to measure the utility of descriptive transcription

beyond the traditional measure of “guild skill” for ethnomusicology.

I am convinced that fieldwork is changing for the better during the

experimental moment in social sciences. However, I do not believe that the visual

representation of compositional practices in Western musical notation leads to a

more comprehensive analysis of music-culture as a privileged unit or level of

ethnography. We must continue to challenge the ethnocentrism behind such

ideological underpinnings and motivations and a more critical skepticism is

called for here. Since this dissertation is also a traditional academic exercise to

measure my understanding of various facets of ethnomusicology, I will provide

several descriptive transcriptions followed by a brief analytic discussion of what I

regard as New Mexican popular traditional music and dancing below.

New Mexican Popular Traditional Music and Dancing 1692-1955

I also agree with Slobin’s point that “one is never totally reflexive--it

would be too eccentric. We locate ourselves between people we work on and the

people we work with. The more the two converge, the more our position is

revealed (1993: 4). My New Mexican research associates looked and spoke like

me, came from, lived in, and worked in similar villages, struggled to earn

minimum wage, and hopefully will read and maybe even disagree with what I

write about New Mexicans. In order to conduct fieldwork, I must first position

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myself within New Mexican society, history, and musical life. I am the field and

hence music is one of several openings into New Mexico.

However deformed or inauthentic the forms in which “we” Hispano

people and our communities and traditions may appear and are represented in

popular culture, we continue to see, in these figures and repertoires on which

popular culture draws, the experiences that stand behind them. Such is the case of

the memory of the Pueblo Indian Revolt massacre of 1680 and the Promesa of the

Bernalillo settlers, made through Don Diego de Vargas claimed to be the

historical motivations behind Las Fiestas de San Lorenzo that have followed.

The history of New Mexican popular music and dancing activity following

the reconquest of New Mexico remains sketchy and constitutes an intensive

investigation altogether. However, Ramón Gutiérrez (1991) provides some

historical details that are useful here. He wrote that it would appear that Nuevo

Mexicano people frowned upon excessive music and dancing; to the extent that

people danced, it was mainly confined to ritual celebrations such as weddings and

baptisms. According to Gutiérrez:

Aside from covert attempts to gain the affections of women,enough ritual events existed in community life where the sexescould meet and intermingle with a minimum of supervision. Theseevents usually marked major seasonal changes measuring thepassage of time--rites of sowing and harvest, first fruits, religiousfeast days, or the celebration of a village's founding. During suchrituals, when public comity prevailed and the normative constraintsof the social structure were lowest, egalitarian sentiments such asthose of love and passion could be expressed momentarily withoutpublic sanctions or danger of the social order. . . The lurid andlusty behavior that prevailed at celebrations urged church officialsto demand restraint. One priest exhorted women in an 1800 sermonon penance to refrain from dance because of the occasion to sinthat a swiveling hip or bouncing breast might create. These

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enticements were the work of the devil and tempted men to indulgein the transitory pleasures of the flesh (1991: 239).

The wedding dance fostered public liminality and communal solidarity as

everyone joined in dancing regardless of age or status, in the linear and circular

movements of the group. The Vaqueros and the Inditas were particularly popular

round dances in which participants moved around a circle while someone

pantomimed in the center. If the bride and groom were from aristocratic classes,

courtly dances such as La Varsoviana and La Cuadrilla were perceived as

genteel. These dances are geometrically symmetrical, balanced, clear, and regular

--the quintessence of European classical form in the eighteenth century. The

aesthetics and performance suggest the ideals of the artistic enlightenment and the

influence of Western reason and logic as expressed through peasant folk

expression.

One of the most important ritual songs was and still is the entriega de

novios which is an observance of socially initiating the newlyweds into the larger

community as married adults. I view the performance of the entriega as a form of

"symbolic action" in its ritualized role within a musical event and social

gathering. This was the point where the new married couple were also entrusted to

the care of their appointed godparents or padrinos marking the end of a

sacramental period of ritual liminality. The poet musician was usually hired to

perform the entriega. Arthur Campa provides the most detailed description of

courtship and wedding customs including la entriega (1979: 194-196).

Music and dance in this way are not seen or heard as antithetical to the

status concerns of a family or to the authority relations within the home. Gutiérrez

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sees love as glorifying personal autonomy and portrays sexual passion as an

intrinsic desire of the species--natural, free, and egalitarian. However, as

performed in a ritual, music and dance express the egalitarianism of love as

oblivious to status and kinship considerations. Love pangs are welled up in the

individual and remain true only to the self, the community, and the Patron Saint.

Fighting, intoxication, drug use, and other lewd behaviors were frowned

upon in earlier times. Fray Joaquín Ruiz proposed the establishment of a night

patrol earlier in 1774 to insure that unmarried men were not roaming the streets

engaging in sin. However, by the first years of the Mexican Republic, the

prohibition of dances was achieved through the imposition of heavy taxes.

Gutiérrez explains:

Unconstrained unison at festivals and dances had cathartic, as wellas revolutionary, potential for resolving conflict; both possibilitieshad to be held in check by secular and religious authorities. Everybureaucrat thus hoped that when the lights went out, the musicended, and a new day began, life would continue as before--regimented and hierarchically structured. The fiesta should only bea temporary suspension and release necessary to dispel internalcommunity tensions (Gutiérrez 1991: 239).

In the 20th century, Aurelio Espinosa described the valse despacio as

consisting of several couples, no definite number, holding hands in a circle and

walk(ing) around slowly in step with the music of the guitar. At a regular

repetition of the monotonous rhythm, with quicker tempo, the couples broke the

circle and danced in pairs, either holding hands or separated. "In the valse

despacio the circles are always of two couples and in the quick repetition the

couples dance holding hands in the usual manner" (Espinosa 1990: 71).

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According to José Limón, the Polka together with other European and

mestizo forms, such as the chotís and the huapango, soon became major musical

forms for Mexicanos in the Southwest. Limón suggests that "it would appear that

during the 1920s and 1930s, the performance of polkas and other forms, such as

the waltz, was growing particularly in urban areas in the "new towns" of the lower

Rio Grande Valley and upper South Texas" (1983: 232).

By the 1930s and 1940s he notes a definite shift in the social context of

performance from familial-ritual scenes to public, profit-oriented situations

devoted exclusively and centrally to the performance and enjoyment of music and

dancing. This shift also occurred within many of the fiesta dances which began to

charge admission. By the late 1940s and 1950s in Texas (and New Mexico) a

proliferation of dance hall proprietors, promoters, and musical groups who

engaged in music as their sole means of subsistence, clearly indicates a growing

market for popular music and dancing (ibid.).

Peña points out before 1930, there existed various types of musical

ensembles, for example, the orquestas, in their various forms, a variety of vocal

duets, and a host of sundry other groups, all of which were drawn in to the

commercial market at the same historical moment (1985: 46). From archival

photographs I have seen instrumental combinations including mandolin

(bandolinas), cello, guitar, double bass. Wind bands included saxophones,

clarinet, flute, banjo, piano, trumpet, and trombone. Peña explains,

This variety of groups had been flourishing locally for sometime;and while the accordion ensemble was immensely popular, so werethe other types of groups. Especially favored were the vocal duetswith guitar accompaniment, and these certainly offered the mostsolid competition in the recording market. . . except for informal,

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spontaneous gatherings, the accordion as a rule was designated asmost appropriate for providing instrumental music for dancing,where, at the same time, vocal music was discouraged. Thisincidentally, was true of all instrumental, dance-type ensembles.On the other hand, vocal music, mostly in the form of cancionesand corridos (Paredes 1976), was for listening, to be enjoyed onoccasions devoid of dancing. Besides the other cantina, thesemight include informal gatherings of friends, a mañanita or otherserenade, and even an aficionado contest. On some of theseoccasions the accordion might be present, but it was understoodthat for the moment it had become divorced from its normal dancecontext. After 1930, however, increasing opportunities wereavailable in the home for people to gather round a radio orphonograph and listen to both instrumental and vocal music (1985:47).

In Albuquerque, the Santa Cecilia Syncopaters were formed in 1927 and

were named after the Patron Saint of Music. They played at several civic dances

and various bailes decentes. A more comprehensive popular music historical

analysis is needed here but at this time remains incomplete. I will proceed to

present the precursory data I have accumulated for such an investigation.

Próspero S. Baca

Don Próspero S. Baca is described by Robb as "one of the great folk

singers of his time and place, in Bernalillo, New Mexico" (1980: 376). Best

known as a decimero and a rezador, Baca shared his unpublished notebook called

"Prospero Baca's One Hundred Twenty-one Décimas and Other Folk Songs" with

Robb. From this manuscript, we see that the New Mexican décima tradition

employed a strophic form or standardized tune commonly sung throughout most

of the state. Typically the tessitura was high ending an octave lower and

variations in melody were the normative performance practice. The melody was

modified to fit the text and a peculiar feature was that a major seventh interval

was immediately followed by the minor-seventh tone of the scale, rendering a

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modal ambiguity negating tonally the ancient and modernization of harmony.

Baca made no recordings to accompany the décimas from his notebook because,

as he explained to Robb, "he sang them all to the same basic melody, adapted

freely in each case to the words of the particular text".

Charles Aguilar

Charles Aguilar is the current mayor of Bernalillo, a community leader,

and a former teacher in the public schools. He has played the violin for the

Bernalillo Matachines for over forty years. He learned the music from his

grandfather, Luciano Nieto, who played it for sixty-five years. Charles is also a

cantador and has been the town's rezador (prayer leader) since 1963. He

continues to sing regularly for religious and community functions such as

funerals, baptisms, Fiestas, and weddings. Charles began farming in 1958

learning from his grandfather who also taught him the delicate interrelationship

between land, faith, and music.

I interviewed Charles on December 12, 1997 in his home on behalf of the

Smithsonian Institution's Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies. He

showed me his copy of Prospero Baca's cuaderno (songbook) and also

demonstrated several of the hymns, décimas, and social dances which he performs

regularly. He described the novena and his role as a rezador during the monthly

rosary devotion to San Lorenzo in Bernalillo and San Antonio at Sandia Pueblo.

He explained the New Mexican ritual calendar as being intricately linked with

farming and the harvest and his interpretation of and meaning behind the fiesta.

According to Charles:

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Fiestas are to keep people focused on our need to rely on a powerhigher than ours. Early February begins the planting season ofonions, garlic, and peas. After February melons and watermelons.Between April and May 3rd is La Fiesta de la Santisima Cruzwhich begins the vine crops like chile and squash. Corn comes lastbetween May 3rd and June 13th. Following Santisima Cruz is theFiesta de San Antonio at Sandia Pueblo. May 15th is La Fiesta deSan Isidro in Corrales and July 14th is el Dia de Buena Ventura.The Chile harvest begins after July 15th through early October.The ristras are a sign of prosperity for the farmer. . .

In June, the Feast of San Juan de las Aguas recognizes that ditchwater is holy. The end of June and beginning of August is the timeof dried fruits and meats, grapes and wine. Bernalillo celebrates itsannual wine festival during Labor day weekend. November 14th isLa Fiesta de San Andres. . .

San Lorenzo is the patron of the poor and is celebrated on August10th. Los Misterios de San Lorenzo recreate his life and emphasizethe limosna tradition associated with poverty. The alabado de SanLorenzo (Baras de Oro) is more somber than the alabanzas ormilagros. However, the fiesta also includes social dances andmusic entertainment such as favorite Mexican songs like ElAsesino, El Gato Negro played in the traditional New Mexicanstyle but also the local area bands play too (Garcia and Aguilar12/22/97).

Another cantador/rezador is Robbie Sisneros, a local actor who performs

regularly with the Albuquerque Civic Light Opera and the Albuquerque Little

Theater. In 1998, Robbie performed the Monarca, one of the lead dancers in the

pantomime. He danced for about twenty five years and retired after performing as

Monarca. The tradition may easily be understood across the male generations;

however, what has not been considered and needs further research is the role of

females as the bearers of this tradition.

While Charles Aguilar inherited his role as community leader in political

and spiritual matters from Próspero Baca, it is interesting that Baca's daughters

also are credited as teaching Robbie Sisneros the role as a leader too. I am not

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sure what to conclude from this as I did not interview Baca’s daughters while I

was working in Bernalillo. Gerholm provides a final word on the very common

view of ritual as a tool of ideological domination, a way of legitimizing a social

order in the interests of the dominating group. Even if we consider rituals as

basically open to varying interpretations, it is of course still true that certain

interpretations can be favored and publicly instilled. One can also manipulate a

ritual so that a certain interpretation is furthered. But this does not automatically

guarantee that the participants or the observers will actually experience the ritual

as a legitimation. Viewed as a tool of ideological domination, Gerholm describes

ritual as a way of legitimizing a social order in the interests of the dominating

group. Gerholm explains,

The individual's possibility to take his distance from the officialinterpretation is often made too little of in analysis treating ritual asideology in action. We should remember that there is a possibility --socially conditioned, of course--for the individual to stay clear ofthe normative system, to manipulate its values and even to avoidhaving those experiences that may be such a potent force inmaking one accept one's place in society. This "Manchester"insight is equally valid for the analysis of ritual (Gerholm 1988:202).

The Plurality of Perspectives

Perhaps the first thing that strikes one about the ritual complex in

Bernalillo is what Gerholm calls the plurality of perspectives. There is one ritual

but one can distinguish several different vantage points from which it is being

approached. First, is that of the cosmopolitan intellectuals like John Robb and

Sylvia Rodriguez. They observe the scene and perhaps record it in music notation

or on tape. In the case of Rodriguez, she certainly knows very well what it

theoretically means but standing outside it, she does not become a part of it.

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Robb, on the other hand has virtually no clue as to the theoretical perspective and

is more inclined to archive the recorded collections he has made and use them

later in his own academic compositions.

The second perspective is that of Cordelia Gonzalez (la mayordama);

Charles Aguilar (musico and rezador) or Robbie Sisneros (danzante). They are

the (more or less) traditional ritual experts. Not very informed on social theory

perhaps but no less informed on spiritual matters, Catholic theology, and cultural

history. The males are as important as females in the leadership roles as singers,

rezadores, and performing musicians and dancers. Examining Charles Aguilar's

roles as town Mayor, community leader, Matachines director, and spiritual

counselor, he is doing what the situation calls for without any great spiritual

authority but he has earned the respect and high social status within the Bernalillo

community. He has a family and lives a domestic private life and is well regarded

in his public capacity as an intellectual, artist, and overall leader. The work of

ethnomusicologist Brenda Romero deserves mention here as she played the violin

for the Matachines Dances in the Pueblo of Jemez for 9 years. This has both an

aspect of applied ethnomusicology, as well as a spiritual commitment. She was

active in recruiting and teaching local players to take over, so that the tradition

could continue.

The third perspective is that of the lay participants like Justin Rinaldi and

the Salazar family. They perform the rite for the welfare of their family, friends,

and community. They may not be theological authorities or historians but as

devoted Catholics and residents of Bernalillo, they know and understand the

official meaning and purpose of the ritual and they know that something utterly

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serious is occurring. They are deeply moved by the present and past fiesta

occasions and are especially concerned over the ritual's continuing among future

generations.

Until now most analysts have only focused on la danza and completely

ignored the ritual structure, cultural history, and personalities behind los

matachines. Music collectors have been mainly interested in the folk and

traditional music, transcribing the melodies, and making recordings, and have

ignored altogether the prominence of the social dancing and musical

entertainment that occurs. During La Fiesta de San Lorenzo, the Matachines

provide one interesting way of understanding the larger ritual structure; however,

la polka de San Lorenzo and the Trio San Lorenzo provide alternative readings of

la tradición and la promesa from a modern secular perspective.

According to Gerholm, a theory of ritual should give us an idea of the

causal origins of ritual. By causes he means "the driving forces which give rise to

it, both on the individual and the society levels" (ibid.: 197). What we want, in

other words, is explanation in terms of "in order to" as well as in terms of

"because of ". . ."a theory of ritual should give us an idea of how ritual is affected

by non-ritual factors, how it develops and changes with changing circumstances"

(Gerholm 1988: 197).

Another striking thing about the whole scene is that the participants are

really safely anchored in one system of cultural meanings. None of them moves

within an unquestioned cultural whole. They all live in a fragmented cultural

universe combining elements from various musical systems. It is apparent in the

leaders like Charles Aguilar, who has been to Washington D.C. several times

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performing in the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife. Likewise Robbie

Sisneros travels often in his second term as vice-president of the International Gay

Rodeo Association. For both Robbie and Charles, religious life is a feature of

ethnic identity in a situation where the believers are constantly confronted with

non-Catholics. "Religion is not only an outlook on life but also a means to assert

the interests of one's own people" (Gerholm 1988: 194).

On the basis of the plurality of perspectives and the fragmentation of

cultural systems, Gerholm concludes that each of the participants walks away

from the ritual having experienced something different.

Whatever the ritual is officially said to "do" or "mean", it will havebeen a specific personal experience for each of the participants andobservers. The same point could be made in another way. It does notseem reasonable, in view of what I have just said, to claim that any oneof them walks away with a false view of the ritual. And, by the sametoken, there is really not one of them who could be said to have thecorrect interpretation of it. No one has the privilege of defining for theothers what the ritual, in its many details, is all about. There is a"correct" view as to how the ritual, in its many details, is all about.There is a "correct" view as to how the rite should be performed andpossibly also as to what it is suppose to achieve. But there is no correctexperience of it. Something happened, that is all we know, and thereare three different experiences deriving from it (Gerholm 1988: 195).

By the 1970s, Arthur Campa explains that the Hispanic population tended

to follow the current vogues in dancing. Although he admits that the folk dances

of the Hispanic tradition had become a spectator event performed moreover by

those who have had special training. The traditional folk dances once regarded as

popular in northern New Mexico were preserved through the efforts of the

Folklórico or Santa Fe Folklore Society. On festive occasions such as the Santa

Fe Fiesta, this society presented several dances such as la cuna (the cradle), and a

variety of waltz forms such as the valse despacio or the vals de los paños

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(handkerchief waltz). The latter form is common throughout most of Latin

America although not always in waltz time. Campa also describes the revival of

Spanish and Mexican folk dances as part of the Santa Barbara Fiestas held

annually in California.

According to Campa, "in years past the traditional varsoviana was a must

at the governor's ball" in New Mexico (Campa 1979: 244). He explains that a dual

tradition in folk dancing has evolved in all states of the Southwest, with the

possible exception of Texas. "The Hispanos tend toward the Spanish dance, while

Mexicans along the border naturally are more inclined to continue their national

dance tradition" (ibid.). My research suggests otherwise as we shall see. Since

World War II, renewed interest in Mexican culture has gained intensity among the

urban Mexican-American groups and many former dance masters, former

members of the Ballet Folkórico of Mexico City, have taught old Mexican folk

dances and music in the United States. Likewise, media, including television and

radio programs have also maintained interest in the traditional dance forms as

have the motion-pictures of the United States and Mexico.

One of the best comprehensive field recordings of New Mexican folk

music was completed by John Donald Robb. In 1952 Folkways released Spanish

& Mexican Folk Music of New Mexico (Ethnic Folkways Library Series Fe 4426;

available on Smithsonian/Folkways Cassette Series 04426). This album consisted

of sixteen selections recorded in New Mexico by Robb between 1940 and 1951.

His compilation included several genres of folk and popular styles including a

hymn of farewell despedida possibly used in the Catholic Mass, Matachines

dances, social dances such the valse del chapulin and polka, an entriega de

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novios, corridos (including one version of the Corrido de Elena), and a number of

canciónes including a children's song la cuna, a bilingual song Canción Inglés in

"Spanglish," and two Mexican rancheras including Cuatro Caminos and L a

Jesucita. It also included a trovo "el viejo Vilmas" and a Mexican son huasteca,

or huapango.

Like folk song and dance, the popular mariachi orchestra became the sine

qua non of local television shows and Mexican movies. Until recently in New

Mexico, the Val de la O program was a nationally syndicated music television

show featuring local and international Chicano, Tejano, and Mexican singers and

dancers. Mariachis perform at all sorts of bailes, at fiestas, and in Catholic

churches where mariachi masses are presented. At the Santa Fe Fiesta, local

mariachi bands from Greater Mexico continue to perform regularly. Today,

Albuquerque's Mariachi Tenampa is by the far the best known local group.

The World War II years witnessed a sharp drop in the commercial

recording of Mexicano music across the Southwest. Manuel Peña believes that

this was due, at least in part, to the scarcity of materials (1985a: 70). At least in

Texas, the most important result of this curtailed activity was the major

recordings labels' decision to discontinue permanently their operations. Peña is

not certain why American companies withdrew from the Southwest. However, he

points to the explosion of American popular music after the war that may have

provided a powerful incentive for companies like RCA and Decca to concentrate

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on mainstream American music to the exclusion of more marginal markets such

as that of the Mexican community in the United States2 .

What is apparent is that by 1929, RCA and the other major labels had

begun to realize that a much more lucrative Hispanic music market lay ready for

development in Mexico. In 1935 RCA established a permanent studio in Mexico

City. During World War II, RCA decided to eliminate regional operations in the

Southwest and turn their attention exclusively to the more lucrative emerging

Mexican music industry. The American strategy was to concentrate on the

popular music in Mexico, promoting it throughout Latin America and the United

States.

According to Peña, the first export was the successful genre of Mexican

film, the comedia ranchera. By 1940 a number of ranchera film stars were

enjoying a dual career as actors and singers. Among the best known were Tito

Guízar, Jorge Negrete, Pedro Vargas, and the idol of the Mexican masses, Pedro

Infante. Since Mexican movies held a monopoly in Mexican-movie theaters in the

United States, these and other stars were equally idolized throughout the

Southwest too. Thus, as a result of major-label domination, Mexican music came

to pervade Hispanic broadcasting in the United States, one result of which was to

stymie the production and distribution of home-grown Chicano music, especially

outside Texas (Peña 1985a: 71).

2 Peña notes this is not to say that Mexicans in the United States have been totally excluded fromthe rosters of the major labels. They have not-as performers like Andy Russell, Freddie Fender,Vikki Carr, Richie Valens, and others have demonstrated. But these performers have for the mostpart adhered to mainstream American music currents.

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While Mexican music reigned supreme in Southwest commercial radio

stations, Peña points out that in Texas, "on many stations conjunto music was

simply too much in demand to cede its territory" (1985a: 71). Peña points out that

"it was in Texas where the most successful Chicano recording companies

established themselves," even though it is not to say that Mejicanos elsewhere

were not recording in small studios and beginning the commercial dissemination

of their music. In New Mexico, I have come across several mysterious labels that

provide only scant information regarding the date when the recording was made.

The most useful study of the industry to date is entitled Ethnic Recordings in

America: A Neglected Heritage (1982). This investigation was published by the

American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

What one finds is usually a local address on the record labels. It is often a

residential home and the studio has either been defunct for years, or the original

owner and operator no longer lives there or is deceased. I conducted several taped

interviews with six New Mexican disc jockeys and we discussed this matter. The

transcripts of these conversations are housed at the New Mexico National

Hispanic Cultural Center archive. These interviews confirmed Manuel Peña's

assessment of the commercial music industry in the Southwest. Peña concludes:

Thus, soon after the departure of RCA, Columbia, and the otherAmerican labels, a number of Chicano-owned companies hadappeared in Texas and elsewhere. However, I must emphasize thatunlike their well-financed American counterparts, Chicano firmswere without exception operated by small-time entrepreneurswhose access to capital resources was extremely limited (1985a:71).

In New Mexico a few of the Hispano labels pointed out to me by the

Chicano disc-jockeys included CRISTY, Alta Vista, M*O*R*E (minority owned

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record enterprises); MB Norteños; Placitas; KTM Records; and Villa. The best

known recording studio of Nuevo Mexicano music is Hurricane. A few more

labels were also pointed out to me, including Bego Record Co. of McAllen and

Disco Grande of San Antonio in Texas. In Arizona there was Marques Records,

and Infal Records, Inc. from Commerce City, Colorado. Like the smaller

companies in Texas, the equipment and facilities of these enterprises were often

outmoded and of inferior quality. "Most Chicano recording operations were short-

lived or achieved but limited solvency, despite the fact that a public hungry for

music--and with more expendable cash than during the prewar years--was eager

for their favorite artists" (Peña 1985a: 72).

In New Mexico, none of my research associates mentioned any of the

early Tejano artists whom Peña names as those constituing the "formative years".

Unanimously, the disc jockeys listed the Texas big band leader, Beto Villa and

later conjunto artists, Tony de la Rosa, Pedro Ayala, and Santiago Jimenez. As

one person explained to Manuel Peña,

Tony counts on 35 years of professional experience and hassucceeded in maintaining his position for many years . . . but, aspeople say, good things last, and Tony has confirmed this, playing yearafter year, having traveled for three and a half decades to such placesas Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Florida, Colorado, Arizona, and NewMexico- in short, wherever there was raza that liked accordion music,which is part of tejano culture (1985: 85).

Other Tejano artists mentioned included Ramon Ayala, Little Joe Hernandez, and

female singers like Lydia Mendoza.

As in Texas, many New Mexicans enjoyed orquesta tipica and American

big band jazz. The accordion was no less popular in New Mexico than it was

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elsewhere. It seems that the acordeon accompanied by the guitar was first

introduced to New Mexican folk style. These musicians mainly played old social

dances and European salon music which remained in vogue throughout the

Southwest but was often played on the violin. My great uncle Juan A. Lucero

from El Torreon played in this style as did my paternal great grandfather from the

Barelas neighborhood in Albuquerque. My geneology of New Mexico's conjunto

musicians is not as detailed as Peña’s early genre study, but it is a start. Since the

1950s, some of the better acordeonistas from the Rio Abajo included Max Baca,

Felipe Trujillo, and Nato Chavez, to mention a few.

According to Manuel Peña, the 1950s witnessed a series of changes in

conjunto music that in a dramatic way climaxed the emergence and maturation of

this tejano artistic expression. I will use my transcriptions to illustrate how

popular the standardized conjunto sound had become. Peña summarizes the most

important stylistic changes as follows:

First and most important was the virtually complete adoption by 1960of the four-ensemble; the three-row button accordion (tuned in variouskeys, e.g., F,G,C, etc., to accommodate specific melodic ranges), thebajo sexto, the electric bass, and the drums. The inclusion of the lasttwo, in particular, had profound effects on the ultimate stylistic shapeof conjunto music. (1985: 95)

As far as I can tell, the bajo sexto was not used in New Mexico. However, Peña’s

outline of the changes wrought on conjunto music during the 1950s, as they were

described by his informants may readily be discerned by comparing various

recordings and by comparing my own transcriptions in the Appendix.

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Nato Chavez

Born in Bernalillo, Nato Chavez was known in New Mexico as "El

Monarca de la Acordeon”. He died only a couple years before I began my field

research. Growing up near Bernalillo, I was familiar with his "hits" and my

parents had recordings of his music. His biggest hit was Polca de San Lorenzo

which debuted on Spanish Radio during the 1970s. It was recorded on the

CRISTY label. It became immediately popular and was played on KABQ and

KAMX radio stations in Albuquerque. A longtime resident of Bernalillo, I

interviewed disc jockey Alonso Lucero in his home on November 20, 1997. We

discussed Nato Chavez and New Mexican radio in general.

At the time of this interview, Alonso was 62 and recalls that his

broadcasting career began in 1970 at KABQ but he also worked for KAMX and

KXKS in Belen and was very familiar with Chavez’s style. According to Lucero,

KABQ is the oldest station in Albuquerque and for years held a monopoly on

"Spanish radio" (1997 interview). Until recently the station was privately owned

but for the most part promoted mostly norteño and Tejano. More recently the

station has included more Mariachi, and Country Western. Also until recently one

of the popular spiritual programs was "the rosary" recited in Spanish by Isabel

Chavez and following her death by Charles Aguilar. This was a daily afternoon

ritual for many Hispanos that waned during the 1980s. It was replaced by talk

radio and the "swap shop".

According to Lucero, the movies introduced New Mexico to Mexican

cinema and the Mariachi singers mentioned earlier, these theaters included El

Sunshine, El Rey, and the Linda Vista. Recording studios were few and far

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between but Norteño, Hurricane, and Alta Vista seem to have been the most

successful. Lucero recalls one of the most memorable local radio disc jockeys was

“Pal” Al Tafoya who worked at KABQ. Another popular musician and disc

jockey was Max Roybal who played guitarron with Mariachi Aguila in

Albuquerque. Al Tafoya’s younger brother Richard was a popular saxophonist

with the Nato Hernandez Pan-American band throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

Later he formed his own group called The Ernie Ricardo Band playing jazz and

rhythm and blues. A couple of rock ‘n roll bands from Albuquerque included

Thee Goop led by Tommy Gonzáles and The Chekkers. Of local trios, Steve Ortiz

is the best known. He performed with a puppet named Don Lolo during the 1950s.

Lucero listed the most important conjunto artists from New Mexico as Nato

Chavez, Max Baca, Felipe Trujillo and Miguelito Romero. I was not able to find

any other information or recordings of the last artist. The style of conjunto music

at this time was similar to the sound in Texas and my research of New Mexico’s

artists confirms Peña’s conclusions. Slobin explains this as follows,

It would be hard to find subcultural music-makers who are not awareof supercultural styles, styles of parallel small groups, and of coursethe many modes of expression of their own micromusical colleagues.The resources that even bathtub singers can draw on are numerousenough: popular, patriotic, seasonal, advertising, and many othermaterials are on the tip of the tongue. The really problematic questionis: Do musicians switch from style to style on purpose? When a jazzmusician quotes Beethovan, when a Latino singer mixes Englishphrases into his Spanish, when an ultra-Orthodox Jewish songwritersets Hebrew texts to a rock tune, we can hardly imagine that they do soaccidentally. It is no easier to determine exactly why, where, and howcodeswitching occurs for players and composers than it is for speakers(1993: 86).

Slobin makes a crucial point about music: “it’s richer in codes than

language. He explains,

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True, utterances can be combined with intonation patterns and gesturesto add layers of meaning, but even highly expressive speakers candraw on fewer variables than can musicians. A band playing a songcan pull together not just text and tune, but timbre, rhythm, andinstrumentation for several performances simultaneously in a stratifiedsystem I call code-layering, style upon style upon style; it can shift anynumber of the variables in the next section to produce a newkaleidoscopic code combination (1993: 87).

In order to illustrate how Slobin’s notion of code-layering works in New

Mexican performance, I must review Manuel Peña’s analysis of conjunto styles.

According to Peña, with the bajo sexto, electric bass, and drums providing solid

harmonic and rhythmic accompaniment, accordionists of the 1950s came

increasingly to neglect the bass-chord elements on the accordion. This may be

heard in virtually all of Nato Chavez’s recordings although his harmony is pretty

innovative and his use of expressive dissonances stands out. I regard these two

qualities as musical codes specific to New Mexican working class music-culture.

Another code for Texas Mexicans is idiomatic technique. Likewise tempos,

accelerandos, and deceleration may serve as other codes too.

Like Texas-Mexicans, New Mexicans did not develop a very sophisticated

left-hand technique. The left hand harmonic and bass support continues to be used

but in a less random manner. The accompaniment is more of a harmonic scheme

performed in time with some of the melodic pitches filling out more colorful

chords of 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths. According to Peña, “with its almost total

reliance on right-hand technique, the newer style of playing engendered a new

crop of virtuosos who had divorced themselves almost completely from the style

of their predecessors” (1985: 95). The combination of ornamented melody and

walking bass renders a baroque aesthetic characterizistic to other Chicano cultural

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expressions (see Ybarro-Frausto 1990). Chicano art historian Tomas Ybarro-

Frausto’s concept of “rasquachismo” is useful for understanding working class

Mexicano artistic styles and I am surprized that it has not been used more

frequently by analysts working outside of the visual arts. According to Ybarro-

Frausto, rasquachismo is the “aesthetic sensibility of the underclass” Mexican in

the United States. It denotes an excessive if not decadent use of ornamentation in

certain Chicano cultural expressions like Mexicano conjunto music.

Peña explains “the addition of the drums, polka and canción corrida

tempos experienced a marketed deceleration—from the earlier 125-135 beats per

minute to a more leisurely 110-120 beats per minute. Whether the drums had the

effect of “pulling back” the tempo, as de la Rosa once commented, or whether it

slowed as a result of a changing conception of what “the right speed” should be is

difficult to assess, though a combination of both seems plausible. In any case, the

shift in tempos was an important development, one that also happened to

correspond with changing dance styles, specifically the introduction of el

tacuachito, which, according to Paulino Bernal, was perfectly suited to the slow

tempo of the new canción corrida (1985: 95).

La Polca San Lorenzo (See Appendix No. 1 for musical transcription).

What stands out in La Polca San Lorenzo is of course the title which is

without question a reference to the Bernalillo fiesta complex. Since dancing of

various sorts --ritual, community, and social take place throughout the fiestas, the

polca performed in the conjunto style may be seen as another code-layering of

meaning. Recontextualing La Polca San Lorenzo into the Bernalillo fiesta, it

seems to me that this dance is the hard surface of the ritual, the ruling, which is

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there for all to hear and dance. It is the public face of private experience. This

hard surface functions as a strong focus of attention without for that reason

prescribing what is to follow in terms of individual experience and private

meaning. It is as if the ruling said: "This is important"- but stopped short of

adding precisely why and how. But the ruling does not act entirely on its own. It

borrows strength from the general situation. It is the general occasion of the ritual

or la danza, as much as the ritual itself that affected Nato Chavez and motivated

him to compose the dance. When he performed la polca San Lorenzo he treats

San Lorenzo as someone he may rely on at a difficult moment. This is a side

effect of the rite that has nothing to do with its official purpose or meaning.

Another important stylistic change to conjunto music was in the

expressiveness which is also evident in the recordings of Nato Chavez especially

his Vamos a Nuevo México. Peña points out another change concurrent with the

decelerated tempo. The appearance of a far more staccato technique than hitherto

heard, beginning with Tony de la Rosa served to distinguish the post-1950s

accordion sound from that of an earlier day. Peña notes “though its relationship

with the newer tempos is evident: the slower speeds made it possible to detach the

notes in a phrase—even in a sixteenth-note pattern-enough to create the choppy,

staccato effect of Tony de la Rosa or a Rubén Vela. And once the new technique

was accepted, it quickly established itself, after 1955 becoming the norm by

which all conjuntos were gauged” (1985: 96).

Instrumentation is yet another code that distinguishes New Mexican

conjunto from the Texas style. In the early recordings that I discovered, the bajo

sexto was absent from the New Mexican conjuntos. It is only more recent

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ensembles that are beginning to use it. Los Garrapatas and the Chile Line Express

are contemporary New Mexican groups that are more akin to the Tejano style.

Peña explains,

On the bajo sexto a different style of accompaniment for polka andcorrida emerged with the addition of the bass and drums. Whereas,earlier bajo sexto players, who usually had to carry the bass and rhythmicload alone (with some help from the accordion), tended to give at leastequal emphasis to the bass patterns vis-á-vis the strum patterns, theyounger players did not. With the bass providing the fundamental basses,the bajo sexto players began to neglect their own bass strings andconcentrate on the treble, off-beat strums. This new technique wasanother identifiable constituent unit in the mature conjunto style of the1950s (1985: 96).

Vamos a Nuevo Mexico (See Appendix No. 2 for musical transcription).

Although Vamos a Nuevo Mexico is not an official anthem, in some ways

it is nationalistic expressing pride in the place, the Mexicano language, and the

working class conjunto style. Another local artist, Roberto Griego is better known

as New Mexico’s hijo del pueblo. He has written various popular rancheras

where he names places and people. His Arriba Nuevo Mexico is one of his best

popular songs and is better recognized as another anthem. The retired Mexican

composer and popular musician, Miguel Martinez who now lives in New Mexico

also wrote a wonderful huapango for mariachi entitled Nuevo Mexico that

deserves further attention.

Max Baca, Felipe Trujillo y sus Conjuntos

Max Baca y su Conjunto Norteño is probably the best known group

outside of New Mexico. As recording artists they have been very successful and

have sold over 40,000 records. Their best known long playing album is Vamos

Albuquerque, which was recorded at M.B. Norteño Productions in Albuquerque.

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Vamos Albuquerque is a lively polca similar in style to Vamos a Nuevo Mexico

(see Appendix A. No. 3 for musical transcription). Another recording by Baca is

El Disco y los Locutores (the record and the disc jockeys)- a humorous satire of

the local radio scene.

Stylistically speaking, changes in bass and rhythm also occurred and these

innovations are apparent in the recordings of Max Baca and his conjunto. Of all

the conjunto groups I found in New Mexico, Baca’s style was most similar to

Texas groups in instrumentation, tempos, techniques, and vocals. His Vamos

Albuquerque is another example of a nationalist polka. Peña explains,

As the modern conjunto style began to crystallize, the bass and drumsbegan in their turn to develop their own technique. By its nature thetololoche (double bass) played pizzicato, as it was, had featured short,marcato, quarter-note patterns when accompanying polkas. Thisconcept of articulation, deemed eminently suitable (we may recall thatfor a time the tololoche preempted the electric bass on recordings),was taken over by the electric bass—or at least a facsimile of theconcept, since the acoustical effect of an electrically amplified basscould never possibly duplicate that of a contrabass. Thus, in its ratherstaccato patterns on the accordion, though of course it was restricted toplaying for the most part simple, quarter-note fundamentals. Thedrums were the last to achieve a degree of stylistic standardization(1985: 96).

Vamos Albuquerque (See Appendix No. 3 for musical transcription).

Another conjunto artist from Albuquerque was Felipe Trujillo, who made

a few recordings with CRISTY records. His recordings illustrate the last

innovation that Peña lists. This is the adoption of other musical forms and dances.

He explains:

Finally, in the latter part of the 1950s the instrumental polka gave wayto the sung cancíon ranchera, or cancíon corrida, as it came to beknown (and performed, again, in polka tempo). This happened at thesame time that conjuntos had begun to adopt the bolero (as well asother related genres, such as the cha cha and occasional danzón), even

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as redowas, schottishches, and other genres of an earlier day—thehuapango excepted—were becoming increasingly rare. Thus, by 1960the redowa and the schottische had become novelty numbers, playedonly be special request. Even the important instrumental polka hadbecome less evident—often performed to show off the skills of goodaccordionists like Paulino Bernal (1985: 97).

An interesting recording I came accross was Shote San Miguel (see

Appendix No. 4 for musical transcription). Peña concludes that by 1960 la nueva

generación had completely asserted itself and its style of performance but there

were links with the pasts, of course. He continues

For example, although the instrumental polka had given way to thecorrida, the polka beat remained; and, while the accordion functionedas a a solo instrument and more as a counterpart to the singers, in itsarticulation—particularly in solo passages, such as introductions—itused the same technique as that used in the instrumental polka. Theother instruments remained unchanged, whether for a polka or for acorrida. As the quintessential genres of conjunto music, the polka andcorrida were consequently subjected to the most intensive elaborationas the younger musicans strove both to bring fresh variety to the newlyforged style while maintaining what they perceived to be anestablished tradition that they knew extended back at least to the daysof El Huracán del Valle (1985: 97).

The stylistic innovations are dramatic when contrasting the old with the

new conjunto styles in Texas or in New Mexico. The historical continuity or

antecedents seem less important but further research is needed of older styles and

New Mexico. What we see through the appropriation of conjunto music by

Mejicano musicians like Nato Chavez, Max Baca, and Felipe Trujillo, is that the

popular regional aesthetic predicated on emphasizing New Mexico’s physical and

social isolation from other Hispanic centers and Greater Mexico negates the

romantic tourist images put forth promoting the population’s cultural

distinctiveness. But conjunto music was not the only greater Mexican musical

style taking root in New Mexico and shaping ethnic consciousness.

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Trio Music in New Mexico

Trio music remains quite popular in New Mexico and throughout Greater

Mexico. A comprehensive study of Trio music and musicians is needed. In the

1950s, according to Peña, “in fact, several Mexican vocal trios, foremost among

which was El Trio Los Panchos, were enjoying immense success in the United

States” (1985: 90). In New Mexico, a typical ensemble consists of a lead requinto

guitar, a classical guitar, and a guitarron. The best known group from New

Mexico is the Steve Ortiz trio that has been performing since the 1950s. Another

group is El Trio San Lorenzo of Bernalillo. Members of this group include Joe

Kloeppel, Celes Trujillo, and Ubaldo "Wally" Madrid. They recorded several 45s

including La Palma, El Invierno, La Mancornadora, and Tu Y La Mentira.

El Chicanito, La Chicanita, Y Los Reyes de Albuquerque

Arthur Campa believed that the New Mexicans would never identify with

the Chicano Movement. Two singers embraced the title as a badge of honor.

Ronnie Lucero of Albuquerque called himself El Chicanito and recorded "Tres

Ramitas" on the Villa label at Mi Sueño studios with Tommy y los Chicos. Not

much else is known about him at this time. However, Debbie "La Chicanita"

Martinez was especially popular in New Mexico throughout the 1970's. Debbie is

sister to Lorenzo Martinez, a violinist of local fame, who performs with Los Reyes

de Albuquerque one of Albuquerque's best known orquestas. La Chicanita

recorded an album entitled "Dios, Familia, Y Tierra" in 1979 on the M*O*R*E

label, as well as other recordings. One of her best known hits are "Mi Tierra

Norteña,”" a song about New Mexico and the importance of land, faith, and

family. This song illustrates the Hispano attachment to place. According to

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Alonso Lucero, she also sang religious songs like 'Resucito' and 'Maestro de

Galilea'. She disappeared from the music scene following a hearing loss and she

focused on her domestic life and other professional talents. She is currently an

attorney. Alonso Lucero informed me that her daughter, Sheila, recently made a

recording. Los Reyes de Albuquerque continue to perform locally and have made

several other recordings of folk and popular music (see Garcia 1995), many

composed by Roberto Martinez, La Chicanita’s father.

Freddie Brown: Boracho Perdido

Most New Mexicans fondly recall Freddie Brown as a musician from the

1960's and 1970's. His best known hit was Boracho Perdido but he recorded four

albums in his career. He recently released a compact disc recording of "Otra Vez-

Shadows on the Wall" from an earlier version of his 1970's cassette tape. Today,

Freddie Brown is a salesman for Duke City Bumper, a chrome and gold plating

company in Albuquerque. He is about 60 years old and his career began while

working for CRISTY Records. In an interview with Carlos Abeyta (1996) Freddie

recalls a group from Arizona that traveled to Albuquerque one Sunday morning to

record in the studio. He tried recording one familiar song with the group and it

was included in the actual album. The recording studio contracted him to make a

recording and the result was his first album "Boracho Perdido" which came out in

the late 1960's. Next came a couple of other hits "El Sensacional" and "E l

Versatil". His last recording in the 1970's was "Shadows on the Wall".

His recordings mix Spanish and English songs. Many of his original songs

are strongly influenced by Country Western music. When asked why he quit the

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music business, he says with a laugh, "I never quit, but the music quit on me. The

music left me back in the 70's." "I got trapped in every day life activities which

demanded of me to make a living for myself and my family," he recalls. He

worked in the Uranium Mines in Grants, New Mexico for more than eight years,

until they closed down in the early 1980's. Although many people assume that he

changed his name to “Brown”, he says "my father's name was Brown, my

grandfather's name was Brown, and I'm Brown. I don't know where the name

came from, its just the way it is. One thing I do know, is that I'm “stone

Mexican,” and norteño hasta el tope" (Abeyta 1996: 47).

He grew up in the South Valley of Albuquerque and was an urban kid. He

has 12 brothers and sisters and has been married several times. He has six adult

children and the youngest son, named Adam (age 21) who was recently

contracted to perform on tour throughout the Southwest as a "hip hop" artist. His

older son Bo performs with the local popular group "Desert Rain". Freddie admits

he never made much money as a recording artist and he never owned the rights to

any of his music. During the height of his musical career, he toured and

performed with René y René, Freddie Fender, and Antonio Aguilar.

Even though Brown performed much innovative music in various styles

from Greater Mexico and the United States, he also recorded some of the older

New Mexican corridos and other canciones. I found his recording of El Corrido

de San Maciel performed in the old trova style with solo voice and guitar

accompaniment.

El Corrido de San Maciel (See Appendix No. 5 for musical transcription)

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Post Chicano Music: The 1980's

Manuel Peña (1994) writes that the cultural power of orquesta music

ultimately derived from its organic connection with the Mexican American

middle class:as it evolved from the era of Beto Villa to that of Little Joe y laFamilia, the orquesta faithfully reproduced the continuities anddiscontinuities that marked the progress of Mexican society in theSouthwest: from a Mexican American to a Chicano orientation.But always, it resisted the reifying effects of commercialization, atthe same time that it symbolically embodied the deepest politico-aesthetic yearnings of its constituents. For the better part of fiftyyears, it maintained a prominent position in the ongoing dialecticthat drives class and ethnic relations (that is racial politics) in theSouthwest. And then, in the 1980's, it went into steep decline(ibid.).

As a system of cultural behavior, José Limón suggests that "Texas-

Mexican music and dancing has certain definable elements" (1983: 233). The

conjunto, dating from the early twentieth century, consists of a lead accordion

accompanied by one or two (often amplified) guitars and drums. In northern

Mexico and in New Mexico, alto saxophones are usually added. The lead singer

may be harmonized by second and third voices with intervals of thirds or sixths

(fauxbourdon six-three writing). Most conjunto musicians are not formally trained

or schooled performers. They learn their art through apprenticeship, and because

of their size, these groups are generally inexpensive and affordable to working

class Mexicanos. They are found among rural and urban Mexicanos and Indians.

In earlier days the upper and middle classes frowned on this low-class music and

the poor amateur musicians. In this way, “analysis becomes a process of untying a

musical knot and seeing where all the strings come from before proceeding to the

next node in the fabric” (Slobin 1993: 87).

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The Reinvention of Tradition

In closing, what we are witnessing in this ethnographic account is also a

strange passing on, a transmission of tradition, almost a reinvention of it or what

Slobin regards as a code-layering. New Mexico social demographics have tilted in

favor of the Anglo American and away from the Mexicano. Yet, la gente de

Bernalillo continue to perform their duties and insist on staging Las Fiestas de

San Lorenzo, keeping their promesa to General De Vargas. The glimpse that we

get from looking at Las Fiestas in a larger music-cultural context is a new

approach to religion according to which it becomes a means to a non-spiritual

end. The ritual itself remains, and so do, in a sense, the correct interpretations of

it, for, at least in principle, it is available to the participants although it may not be

effectively shared among them. They will turn to the ritual and a Hispano identity

for other reasons, reasons that may become more and more divergent from the

official, institutional meaning of las fiestas.

A ritual complex may be seen as a “tradition” but not in the commonly

understanding as a relatively inert, historicized segment of a social structure:

tradition as the surviving past. Rather, tradition may be understood as the practice

where the most evident expression of the dominant and hegemonic pressures and

limits are seen as an actively shaping force or as the most powerful practical

means of incorporation. What we have seen in this chapter is what Williams

regards as a selective tradition: an intentionally selective version of a shaping past

and a pre-shaped present, which is then powerfully operative in the process of

social and cultural definition and identification. He explains,

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Most versions of “tradition” can be quickly shown to be radicallyselective. From a whole possible area of past and present, in aparticular culture, certain meanings and practices are selected foremphasis and certain other meanings and practices are neglected orexcluded. Yet, within a particular hegemony, and as one of itsdecisive processes, this selection is presented and usuallysuccessfully passed off as “the tradition”, “the significant past”.What has then to be said about any tradition is that it is in thissense an aspect of contemporary social and cultural organization,in the interest of the dominance of specfic class. It is a version ofthe past which is intended to connect with and ratify the present.What it offers in practice is a sense of predisposed continuity(1977: 116).

I now wish to examine the music archives produced in the twentieth

century and the role of collections in ethnomusicology. I will specifically examine

the melodies of songs and dances collected in Bernalillo and I will use the Rubén

Cobos archive of Indo-Hispano music as a case study. This recorded body of folk

music is yet another alternative cultural history and ethnography which deserves

attention.

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Chapter Four: Modern Sound Archives: The Rubén Cobos Collection ofIndo-Hispano Music

Another important site of music-culture is the sound archive. There are

several archives with large collections of New Mexican Hispanic music which

were produced throughout the twentieth century. Most of the collectors were

motivated by their fear that New Mexican culture was disappearing. Culture being

seen as part of national heritage, these collectors saw themselves as obliged to

collect and record as much music, verbal art, and other linguistic forms before

these vanished. Most often, like previous generations of folklorists, the collectors

were obsessed with finding the pure “Spanish” or the older colonial forms.

Through their privileging of certain song types over others, they produced a

selective sampling of what they viewed as New Mexican music history- a

romanticized and distorted abstraction of reality at best.

I wish to consider the role of the sound archive in ethnomusicology and

musicology today. I will begin by probing the problem of "whose memory" is

actually being archived. More important than the items being collected are the

people, personalities, and ideas behind the music archive. Charles Seeger in his

early studies of American folk music used songs as a primary source of social

history. Likewise the studies of Alan Lomax examined the interesting cultural

links between musical style and social context. Both of their discussions depended

on some sort of selection and evaluation and in this sense they both engaged in a

creative practice. Yet too often the “truly creative” is distinguished from other

kinds and examples of practices such as scientific investigation or research.

According to Raymond Williams,

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To be “creative”, to “create”, means many quite evidently differentthings. We can consider one central example, where a writer is saidto “create” characters in a play or a novel. At the simplest level thisis obviously a kind of production. Through specific notations, andusing specific conventions, a “person” of this special kind is madeto “exist”—a person whom we may then feel we know as well as,or better than, living persons of our acquaintance. In a simple sensesomething has then been created: in fact the means of notation toknow “a person” through words. All the real complexities then atonce follow. The person may have been “copied” from life, in asfull and accurate a verbal “transcription” as possible of a living oronce living person. The “creation” is then the finding of verbal“equivalence” to what was (and in some cases could stillalternatively be direct experience) (1977: 207).

Throughout 1997-1998, I taught at the University of New Mexico

allowing me an opportunity to spend time studying the John Donald Robb

Archive of Southwestern Music. Two years later, while completing my

dissertation during my residency at the Colorado College, I studied the Rubén

Cobos collection. I intend to use the Cobos collection as a case study for the

remainder of this discussion. I view the production of a sound archive as

“creative” because it involves the practice of artificially grouping various art

forms such as songs and dances. Often the aesthetic criteria that determines what

goes into an archive is the art form’s imagined timeless permanence or aesthetic

value.

Another factor might be the item’s affiliation with the progressive

development of humanity or social value. Any such propositions might eventually

be verified and hence the archive is “created” and intended for future

investigation. “But to know, substantially, even a little of what such phrases point

to, in the extraordinary intricacies and variations of real human self-creation, is to

see the phrases themselves, in their ordinary contexts, as abstract gestures, even

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where they are not, as they have so often been, mere rhetorical cover for some

demonstrably local and temporary value or injunction” (Williams 1977: 207).

Two important but little known sound archives exist in Colorado. These

are The Rubén Cobos Collection of New Mexican Indo-Hispanic Folklore at

Colorado College in Colorado Springs, and "Canciones del Pasado" at Adams

State College in Alamosa. According to ethnomusicologist Victoria Levine,

"Together, the two archives constitute a major source of Spanish New Mexican

music, covering a time period from the early 1930s until 1981" (Levine 1993: 66).

Cobos taught Spanish for some thirty years at the University of New Mexico,

joining the faculty there in 1944. He was inspired to collect Spanish New

Mexican folklore by Arthur Campa, who was a visiting professor at the

University of New Mexico when Cobos arrived.

According to ethnomusicologist Anthony Seeger, "although their numbers

are increasing and their holdings are swelling, strong reservations have been

voiced over the importance, functioning, and potential of sound archives" (1985:

261). His remarks raise several issues over the roles ethnomusicologists and

folklorists play in the creation, enhancement, and future directions of archives.

For ethnomusicologists, folklorists, anthropologists, and linguists, sound

and video recordings constitute a major source of field materials used in the

production of ethnography. Field recordings are unique and systematic and for the

most part are not intended for commercial markets or paying audience, although

this is changing. This gives field recordings a special status, providing their

content as exempt from international copyright law. They are nevertheless an

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integral part of any modern research strategy as they provide an abstract

knowledge of the person recorded.

Recordings typically are deposited in a state institution such as a cultural

center, museum, or library. Seen as a “creative practice,” data collected in the

field serves as evidence of human interaction. Recordings and fieldnotes enable

future scholars to get to know interesting people whom we could not otherwise

have met, or even hope to meet. Williams believes that this is a “kind of social

extension or priviliged accessibility” because “creation of this kind seems to be no

more than the creation of (real or apparent) opportunities” (1977: 207).

Electronic recording is recognized by ethnomusicologists like Bruno Nettl,

Jaap Kunst, and Barbara Krader as an important development and research

practice in the modern discipline. The production of recordings legitimized early

ethnomusicology and comparative musicology by acknowledging the validity of

collected documents as acceptable forms of professional scholarship. Prior to the

development of the technology, only written notation was accepted as an

equivalent and credible form of research evidence. Comparative musicologists

used transcription and analysis as their primary method of documenting their field

work experiences. However, the Western notational system is obviously

Eurocentric and extremely limited in its utility for the study of Non-Western

musics. According to Kunst "ethnomusicology could never have grown into an

independent society if the gramophone had not been invented. Only then was it

possible to study the musical expressions of foreign peoples objectively" (1959).

Recently, ethnomusicologist Jeff Titon reminds us that "transcription told us what

we could know about music and how we could know it" (Barz and Cooley 1997:

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87). The other major technical development that contributed to modern

ethnomusicology was the cents system of A.J. Ellis, a physicist and phonetician

that made possible precise comparisons of different tonal systems. According to

Bruno Nettl,

The idea of having archives for storing, processing, classifying,and cataloging ethnomusicological recordings has become basic inthe field and has led to the development of a special area ofknowledge and skill within ethnomusicology. Archives are in asense, equivalent to libraries in other disciplines insofar as theirimportance in research is concerned (1964: 17).

Nettl stresses the importance of storing recordings and also suggests they had an

effect on the development (or lack of development) of ethnomusicological theory

as a whole (1985: 262). Nettl explained "the fact that archives have, to a degree,

neglected the cultural context of music is perhaps a factor in the relative neglect,

until very recently, of this important phase of ethnomusciology" (1964: 19).

In his The Study of Ethnomusicology: Twenty-nine Issues and Concepts

(1983), Nettl commented on the number and insularity of archives. His remarks

are as follows:

Most of these archives are of great use to individuals more or lesspermanently at their institutions. As a group, however, they maypossibly not justify all the energy that has gone into putting themtogether. Many of the recordings they contain are restricted by thecollectors and may thus be heard but not fully utilized for research. Itmay amaze the reader that few recordings (some in Eastern Europe areclearly exceptions) are fully used by anyone other than the collectors.While the archives continue to grow, most scholars in their researchrely on their own recordings (Nettl 1983: 272).

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The Sound Archive in the Mexican-American Southwest

According to the modern composer Pierre Boulez, "knowledge gained

through records should, in principle, break down barriers whose economic

necessity we can understand, but we observe, on the contrary, that records

corroborate both the public's and interpreters' sense of specialization" (Lotringer

1996: 391). The historical study of Southwest folk music and dance inevitably

lead to the creation of several sound archives intended with the specific purpose

of preserving music as culture and serving as public records or evidence of

scholarship. As far as music archives go, not much has been done with them.

Recently the Library of Congress placed their existing holdings onto the World

Wide Web making their collections more accessible to the public.

Many ethnomusicologists are critical of archives. Nettl criticizes the

archive for maintaining an excessive interest in preservation, especially the

preservation of a "pure" and "disappearing" heritage. Anthony Seeger writes,

As we have come to realize that purity is an elusive trait whosepursuit leads quickly to subjectivity and stereotyping, the role ofarchives as storehouse of tradition naturally diminishes. . .Theoretical shifts, foreshadowed in Nettl's remarks on howarchives may have impeded the study of music in culture, are alsoresponsible for a change in the role archives are thought to playwithin ethnomusicology. Whether the analytic framework is toanalyze ethno-aesthetics, the ethnography of performance, or theeconomic, political, or religious aspects of music, the result is thatthe sounds preserved in archives do not in themselves providesufficient material to address the issues (Seeger 1985: 262-263).

There is no question that fieldwork has become the norm for

ethnomusicological research, and ethnographers possess tapes of field recordings.

Musical performances are infinite in number, and the research objective of many

219

scholars is to document and understand the organizing principles underlying the

performance of particular examples recorded in the field. These are observed,

heard, and experienced firsthand in the field and then discussed with the

performers and audience. They are however, reexamined secondhand via the

recordings. Many members of the ethnomusicological community have deposited

outstanding collections of liberally documented field collections in one or more

sound archives. Some of the most illustrious ethnomusicologists however, have

not yet deposited their field tapes. Seeger points out that there are

ethnomusicologists who believe we "are at a moment when sound archives really

are simply the physical residue of an historical period and further energy should

not be wasted on them. Or perhaps, some perceptions of what sound archives are

do not reflect what they actually are, do, and can be" (Seeger 1985: 262-263).

Based on her investigations of the Cobos and Colville collections,

Victoria Levine believes "archives could form the basis of a study of musical

regionalism since the collections offer a broad perspective on historic processes . .

. illuminating change in musical taste as well as the construction of regional

ethnic identity over the course of the twentieth century" (Levine 1993: 69). Her

study is useful because she concludes that since the Spanish New Mexicans have

always been in contact with cosmopolitan elites and the popular media, the Cobos

and Colville collections help to document this complex interweaving of history,

musical taste, ethnicity, class, and culture in New Mexico (Levine 1999: xii).

Folklorist Ulf Palmenfelt adds several useful and important points to this

discussion. He believes that in archives in general we find things that somebody

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once decided to save for the benefit of future scientific research. Embedded in all

archival collections is the claim for some kind of representativeness. This material

was chosen because it was supposed to represent a reality or some aspect of

reality that other material did not. What aspects of reality were considered

important to save for the future is a question of ideology or epistemology.

Palmenfelt explains,

the ruling ideology in the actual collecting situation met with real,living human beings, and the final collected item is the result ofdialogue where folklore scholars, archive personnel, collectors, andtradition bearers all have contributed. . . Since archive collections aremade for the future, we, as researchers encounter them as representingpast times. Moreover, the material we find in an archive usually is self-contained in the meaning that, typically, it is impossible to addinformation to it from the same origin, since you will normally findthat this origin is out of reach, geographically or temporally. Naturally,this applies to a lot of your own material too, the things you collectedlong ago, on journeys, from informants now dead, or otherwiseunavailable (Palmenfelt 1997: 1).

Sound Archives and Ethnomusicology Today

Changes in ethnomusicological approaches to music and changes in the

discipline itself have affected the way archives are used and imagined (Seeger

1985: 263). Seeger points to the changes in the role of transcription in analysis,

which he describes as "the reward system of academic departments". He believes

that the publication of these materials is what is valued rather than "the time and

effort required to organize, properly document, and deposit good field collections,

not to mention to construct the actual archive" (Seeger 1985: 263).. While many

ethnomusicologists use archives as a resource for preliminary study, few actually

use them as a main source of research data. Seeger explains,

Few scholars would consider the analysis of only those songsfound in archives as anything more than an initial survey. Later,

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after working in the field discussing the matter with members of asingle society, archives can also provide comparative data (1985:263).

Field recordings are believed to be more reliable than commercially

produced recordings because they should supposedly provide more factual

information and are closer to live performances. Seeger points out the possibility

of "posterior reanalysis as potentially enriching ethnomuscologists’ studies" and

proposes that "archives could become the building blocks of cultural and political

movements" because "they could bring to life the voice of a legendary ancestor

for an individual. Some of the music might stimulate future generations of

musicians or soothe the pain of cultural exile" (ibid.). In this way, archives can

serve the fundamental aims of ethnomusicologists, and the aspirations of the

peoples recorded, only if the collections are deposited in them in the first place.

Seeger further points out that ethnomusicology, and archives themselves,

are also inextricably part of the colonial period. He argues that "the people from

whose music we have developed our general theories about music-making are not

always enthusiastic about the theories we have produced. Likewise, the

descendants of the people upon whose recordings the theories were based would

often like to obtain the original recordings for their own contemporary social and

political uses" (ibid.).

Regardless of a researcher's motivations, some groups want to use the

recordings for reviving an abandoned tradition. Others may simply want to hear a

deceased relative, while others wish to examine the transformation or continuity

of a musical tradition. Considering all the energy that goes into producing

recordings, Seeger asks, who, after all, are we ethnomusicologists serving with

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our research? If our recordings are "raw material" and our journals and books are

our finished products, are we not reproducing a colonial pattern in our academic

work? He continues,

Given the price of books and journal subscriptions in third worldcountries, the pattern is superficially very similar--we collect rawmaterials from less privileged societies and groups, and producefinished industrial products which are quite expensive (althoughthey rarely produce a profit for the researcher). If we keep our fieldrecordings and record collections to ourselves, effectivelyremoving them from public circulation, are we not depriving theother countries of the materials from which they could developtheir own ethnomusicological studies? (1985: 26).

While this debate is far from over, one recent direction was when the

Archives of Traditional Music at the University of Indiana at Bloomington

catalogued most of its acquisitions-including field recordings- on the OCLC

database. Since over 5,000 libraries contribute to this database, it is easily

accessed by libraries that subscribe to ARLIN and other systems. Digital

recording technology seems to hold much promise in improving the storage and

longevity of recordings on laser discs; since the quality is much improved, the

copies are just as reliable as the original. Seeger believes that the archiving

process begins in the field and not in the archives, and concludes his article with

several ethical considerations stressing the importance of proper documentation,

recording techniques, research strategies, and the actual deposits. He writes,

The real issue that all university based ethnomusicologists,folklorists, anthropologists and linguists who make field recordingshave to grapple with is this: What is the status of our fieldrecordings? Are they parts of our scholarly lives, production, andresponsibilities or are they subsidiary? In granting tenure andevaluating productivity they tend to be considered subsidiary. Butshould we allow institutions to dictate the priorities of ourdiscipline, especially when the people we record see thingsdifferently? (1985: 272).

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Ulf Palmenfelt offers the following remarks,

Critical voices of today's folklorists have mentioned at least threeother characteristics that make archive material problematic. Thecollecting situations may have been artificial or even forced, thematerial can be expected to lack adequate contextual information,and it may have been uncritically edited by collectors andarchivists. Because of these limitations archive material has beenconsidered useless for studies devoted to several of the centralconcepts in today's folkloristics, for instance analysis ofperformative, communicative, or aesthetic aspects of everydayspeech (Palmenfelt 1997: 2).

The Rubén Cobos Collection of Indo-Hispano Folklore

Victoria Levine has completed the most comprehensive studies of the

Rubén Cobos Collection of Indo-Hispano Folklore. She also prepared a useful

catalogue for the archive. This archive was compiled over the course of thirty

years and is comporised of recordings of northern New Mexico and southern

Colorado. According to Levine, "It represents the life's work of a teacher and

scholar who was dedicated to the documentation of Spanish New Mexican verbal

expression during a time of rapid social, cultural, and economic change in the

American Southwest" (1999: xi.).

Rubén Cobos was born in the border town of Piedras Negras, Mexico. His

family emigrated to the United States in 1925. In 1944, he joined the faculty of

the University of New Mexico, where he taught Spanish and folklore until his

retirement in 1977. He began field recording soon after his arrival in Albuquerque

but did not limit his geographical trajectory to only the Rio Abajo region or

Bernalillo County. With the assistance of several generations of students, his

collection broaches most of the Greater Hispano homeland from Socorro, New

Mexico to San Luis, Colorado.

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Like most New Mexican folklorists before him, Cobos studied the Spanish

language in New Mexico. His linguistic methodology was rather crude compared

to other studies from the same period. He was interested in the dialect and usages

of New Mexican Spanish and collected several speech genres and folk poetry,

including ballads, poems, prayers, nursery rhymes, riddles, proverbs, stories,

personal narratives, songs, instrumental music, and descriptions of children's

games, social customs, and ritual practices.

In addition to his recent studies of Cuentos (1991) and a Spanish

dictionary (1983), Cobos also published several newspaper articles in El Nuevo

Mexicano in a weekly column devoted to New Mexican folklore. His concurso

folklore was devoted to specific musical genres such as "Canciones españoles que

todavía se cantan en Nuevo México" (1950); "Desarrollo de la canción

nuevomexicana" (1950); "Despedida de novios" (1949); "Despedimentos y

cuandos" (1950); "El corrido Nuevomexicano" (1950); "El folklore

nuevomexicano" (1949); "Entriega de novios" (1949); "La copla popular como

planta de la décima" (1950); "La indita nuevomexicana" (1950); and "Trovo entre

el Viejo Vilmas y Gracia" (1950). One of his more useful journal articles was

"The New Mexican Game of Valse Chiquiao" [sic] (Western Folklore 1956).

Cobos also published two other books on New Mexican Spanish Riddles (1967),

and Refranes: Southwestern Spanish Proverbs (1985). I have examined most of

his newspaper articles and other materials. They reveal only minimal and general

information about Cobos, his collecting strategies, and the formation of his

collection.

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What I have learned is that Cobos deposited his collection at the Colorado

College in 1974. He also deposited a substantial part of his collection, including

most of the musical entries, in the John Donald Robb Archive at UNM, the

Library of Congress, and the Archive of American Folk Culture. Cobos

befriended Joe Gordon, a Professor Emeritus of English at the Colorado College

and Director of the Southwest Studies Summer Institute. In 1972, Cobos was

invited to participate in the summer institute program and later Colorado College

provided him with a research grant that enabled him to index his collection during

the summers of 1974 and 1975. With the assistance of Gilberto Benito Cordova

and Ella Martinez Vigil, Cobos compiled a two-volume manuscript index that

contains documentation for 228 reels of tape; no documentation exists for the

remaining 130 tapes. According to Victoria Levine, roughly one third of the

material is in good condition, the remaining third is either in fair or poor

condition. These are audible but distorted, or the initial recording process was

plagued by some technical problems (Levine personal communication 1999).

Like the Robb and the Colville collections, the Cobos archive at the

Colorado College includes several musical genres, including rarely recorded items

such as vendor's cries, children's songs, the game songs valse chiquiado, and

juego de cañutes, the serenades Los días and Las Mañanitas, songs from the

Christmas procession-plays Las posadas and Los pastores, and many different

renditions of the entriega de novios recorded at actual wedding receptions.

The collection contains mostly songs such as canciónes, alabados,

alabanzas, romances, corridos, and inditas. It also contains Hispano

performances of Pueblo Indian and Anglo-American songs, "furnishing evidence

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of musical interaction and exchange" (Levine 1999: xii). The collection includes

many examples of popular music from Mexico, Texas, and California. Some are

actually dubbed from recordings. In addition to live musical performances, the

Cobos Collection contains entries in which the use of music in various social

settings is described. Those entries have been included in the catalogue and music

cassette series available at the Colorado College "even when they do not frame a

musical performance, because of their value in contextualizing the repertory"

(Levine, ibid.).

The entries in the Rubén Cobos Catalogue are arranged according to their

sequence in the Cobos recordings and are not in chronological order. Each entry

contains the title, performer, location, and date of performance, genre designation,

and notes for each entry that were provided in Cobos's original documentation for

the sound archive. According to Levine "The [catalogue] number assigned to each

musical performance in the Cobos Collection by the editors . . . indicates where a

particular performance may be found in the cassette series that was created to

facilitate access to music in the collection. For example, the entry 1.1 refers to the

selection one on tape one in the music cassette series. The accession number that

Cobos assigned to each musical performance in his documentation for the

collection . . . indicates the original reel on which the performance occurs and its

placement of that reel. On pages 88 and 89 in the catalogue, the numbering of the

Cobos reels is out of order due to a cataloguing error, but the materials are

presented in the order in which they may be found on the music cassette tapes

(Levine 1999: xiii).

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The title of the song or instrumental piece is given by the performer. The

name of the peformer(s) or ensemble is indicated last name first. The city or town

and state in which the recording was made is indicated, as is the year in which the

recording was made. An indication of the sound quality or condition of the

recordings is noted. The sound quality of each entry is assessed as good, fair, or

poor (Levine ibid.). Using the Descriptive Catalogue of the Music in the Rubén

Cobos Collection of Spanish New Mexican Folklore, the following seventeen

items are from Bernalillo, New Mexico. Additionally, there are several items in

the catalogue of which the location is designated as unknown, and some of these

could possibly be from Bernalillo. Nevertheless, the selections listed provide a

manageable sampling from the Cobos sound archive and provide yet another

dimension to the ethnographic collage of Bernalillo.

CATALOG NO. 2 . 7 QUALITY f a i rCOBOS NO. Reel #7.A.2,a GENRE cancíonTITLE "Ojitos Negros"PERFORMER Trujillo, AureliaLOCATION Bernalillo, New MexicoD A T E 1 9 7 2NOTES Uncertain whether this is a song text.

Recited. (1999: 3).

CATALOG NO. 2 . 8 QUALITY f a i rCOBOS NO. Reel #7.A.7,a GENRE canciónTITLE "La Severiana"PERFORMER Trujillo, NapoleónLOCATION Bernalillo, New MexicoD A T E 1 9 7 2NOTES Odyssey of a man in search of his beloved donkey,

which, he discovers, he has been riding all the time(1999: 4).

CATALOG NO. 2 . 9 QUALITY f a i rCOBOS NO. Reel #7.A.11,b GENRE i n d i t aTITLE "Indita de Juan Padilla"PERFORMER Trujillo, Napoleón

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LOCATION Bernalillo, New MexicoD A T E 1 9 7 2NOTES New Mexican historical ballad about Juan

Padilla, set on November 18, 1903. (1999. 4).

CATALOG NO. 7 . 2 2 QUALITY fa i r /poorCOBOS NO. Reel #37.B7,a GENRE valse chiquiadoTITLE u n t i t l e dPERFORMER Baros, Lito EmilianoLOCATION Bernalillo, New MexicoD A T E 1 9 7 0NOTES Informant gives an account of the dance game valse

chiquiado , connected with the experiences of a hunter named Cruz Hurtado. Hurtado finds himself in the woods and, hiding behind a pine tree, gets to see a colony of bears dancing and participating in the valse chiquiado. Explanation in story form of valse chiquiado. (1999: 20).

CATALOG NO. 7 . 2 3 QUALITY fair/poorCOBOS NO. Reel #38.A.1,a GENRE valse chiquiadoTITLE u n t i t l e dPERFORMER Baros, Lito EmilianoLOCATION Bernalillo, New MexicoD A T E 1 9 7 0N O T E S Conclusion of the Cruz Hurtado tall tale. As Cruz gets deeper into the forest, he sees a group of bears dancing the valse chiquiado. He is unnoticed by the bears because he is hiding behind a pine tree. Valse chiquiado described. See item 7.22. (1999: 21).

CATALOG NO. 9 . 2 QUALITY poorCOBOS NO. Reel #45.A.1, GENRE valse chiquiadoTITLE "Versos de chiquiado"PERFORMER Ortiz, BernarditaLOCATION Bernalillo, New MexicoD A T E 1 9 6 9NOTES One verso. (1999: 29).

CATALOG NO. 12.15 QUALITY good/fairCOBOS NO. Reel #53.A.4,a GENRE entriega de noviosTITLE "Entriega de Novios"PERFORMER Domínguez, AbranitaLOCATION Bernalillo, New MexicoD A T E 1 9 7 1

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NOTES There are more than thirty-seven verses in this rendition. Recited(1999: 54).

CATALOG NO. 1 2 . 1 6 QUALITY goodCOBOS NO. Reel #53.A.4,b GENRE valse chiquiadoTITLE "Versos de chiquiado"PERFORMER Domínguez, AbranitaLOCATION Bernalillo, New MexicoD A T E 1 9 7 1NOTES Two verses from the dance game valse

chiquiado .

CATALOG NO. 1 2 . 1 7 QUALITY goodCOBOS NO. Reel #53.A.6,a GENRE valse chiquiadoTITLE "Versos de chiquiado"PERFORMER Gabaldon, MaríaLOCATION Bernalillo, New MexicoD A T E 1 9 7 1NOTES Three quatrains used in the dance game valse chiquiado. (1999:

54 ) .

CATALOG NO. 2 5 . 1 7 QUALITY good/fairCOBOS NO. Reel #104.C.1,a GENRE entriega de noviosTITLE "Entriega de novios"PERFORMER Lucero, FilomenoLOCATION Bernalillo, New MexicoD A T E 1 9 7 0NOTES Informant sings a traditional version of the Entriega de novios, a wedding song concerning the laws of matrimony, with suggestions as to how a married couple should lead a happy Christian life as husband and wife. Duplicates item 33.10 (1999: 96) .

CATALOG NO. 2 5 . 1 8 QUALITY good/fairCOBOS NO. Reel #104.C.1,a GENRE corridoTITLE "Corrido de Kennedy"PERFORMER Lucero, FilomenoLOCATION Bernalillo, New MexicoD A T E 1 9 7 0NOTES Informant sings one of several versions of a ballad of the death of the late John F. Kennedy. Duplicates item 33.10 (1999: 96).

CATALOG NO. 2 5 . 1 9 QUALITY good/fairCOBOS NO. Reel #104.C.1,c GENRE entriega de San LorenzoTITLE "Recibimineto de San Lorenzo"PERFORMER Lucero, FilomenoLOCATION Bernalillo, New MexicoD A T E 1 9 7 0

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NOTES Informant sings the "Entriega de San Lorenzo," patron saint of Bernalillo, New Mexico. Duplicates item 33.11 (1999: 97).

CATALOG NO. 2 6 . 1 QUALITY good/fa i rCOBOS NO. Reel#104.C.1,d GENRE himnoTITLE "San Luis Gonzaga"PERFORMER Lucero, FilomenoLOCATION Bernalillo, New MexicoD A T E 1 9 7 0NOTES Informant sings the hymn to San Luis Gonzaga on the feast of this saint, celebrating a church built in 1889. Distortion. Duplicates item 34.1. (1999: 97).

CATALOG NO. 3 3 . 3 QUALITY goodCOBOS NO. Reel #147.B.1,a GENRE entriega de noviosTITLE " Entriega de novios"PERFORMER Lucero, FilomenoLOCATION Bernalillo, New MexicoD A T E 1 9 7 0NOTES Duplicates item 25.17. (1999: 119).

CATALOG NO. 3 3 . 1 0 QUALITY good/fa i rCOBOS NO. Reel #147.B.1,b GENRE cor r idoTITLE "Recuerdo de un gran Presidente"PERFORMER Lucero, FilomenoLOCATION Bernalillo, New MexicoD A T E 1 9 7 0NOTES Ballad about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy

composed by the informant. Duplicates item 25.18 (1999: 120).

CATALOG NO. 3 3 . 1 1 QUALITY good/fa i rCOBOS NO. Reel #147.B.1,c GENRE entriega de San LorenzoTITLE "Entriega de San Lorenzo"PERFORMER Lucero, FilomenoLOCATION Bernalillo, New MexicoD A T E 1 9 7 0NOTES The entriega sings to the old and new sponsors taking place inthe ceremonies connected with the feast of San Lorenzo, patronsaint of Bernalillo, New Mexico. The feast takes place on August10 and the celebration lasts all day, with the dance of the matachines and the entriega de San Lorenzo. Duplicates item 25.19 (1999: 120).

CATALOG NO. 3 4 . 1 QUALITY good/fa i rCOBOS NO. Reel #147.B.1,d GENRE himnoTITLE "San Luis Gonzaga"PERFORMER Lucero, FilomenoLOCATION Bernalillo, New Mexico

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D A T E 1 9 7 0NOTES Duplicates item 26.1. (1999: 120).

From the sampling of musical items recorded in Bernalillo, we see that

Cobos collected a variety of forms such as inditas, corridos, entriegas, canciones,

and other games and hymns. To appreciate the enormousness of the archived

songs from Bernalillo, the ethnomusicologist must also catalogue the items

included in other collections and useful investigations that specify location

including those of John Donald Robb (1980), Vicente T. and Virginia Mendoza

(1986), and the Colville archive at Adams State College in Alamosa, Colorado.

The sheer volumes of musical transcriptions and recordings from Bernalillo alone

is significant when examined altogether.

For instance, acording to Levine there are fewer concordances in song

titles between the Cobos Collection and the John Donald Robb Collection than

might be expected, although Cobos and Robb recorded some of the same singers

such as Edwin Berry and Francisco Leyva. Cobos also recorded other well-known

New Mexican performers, including Cleofas Vigil. To his credit, the Cobos

collection contains a better representation of performances by women and

children than does the Robb collection. According to Levine:

The Cobos Collection has the potential to play a significant role inmusic research. Not only is this collection useful in preliminary orcomparative studies, it offers a broad perspective on historicprocesses in Spanish New Mexican music. The collectionillustrates local change in musical taste and practice, as well as thegradual merging and diverging of local identity with more generalconcepts of Mexican-American and Chicano ethnicity from the1940s through the 1970s. Through his sound archive, Rubén Coboshas provided a record of the complex interweaving of history,musical taste, ethnicity, class, and culture in New Mexico (1999:xii).

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Levine's catalogue is not organized in chronological order or by

geography. Yet it is no less systematic than Cobos’ or Robb's indices and it is

easily reorganized depending on how the researcher wishes to use it since it is

computerized and user friendly. Her catalogue provides entries by title, performer,

location, date of performance, genre designation, and scant notes for each item

provided in Cobos' original documentation. A Colorado College music student is

undertaking the laborious task of transcribing all of Cobo's music and plans are

underway to produce a New Mexican cancionero.

Many folklorists and ethnomusicologists find Cobos’ methodology

questionable as he rewarded many of his students with extra-credit for supplying

him with recorded examples intended for his collection. Many of his former

students refer to him as "el coyote" because he viewed himself as a "culture

broker" or "mediator" between the university and the New Mexican community.

Levine admits that "they were collected in an artificial context, that invalidates

their value in historical, comparative, or regional studies” but cautions “that

ethnomusicologists cannot expect someone who wasn't trained in modern archival

methods to have been using current procedures in the 1940s”(personal

communication 1999). She explains,

We certainly may criticize some of the things Cobos did, just asour own work will surely be criticized in fifty or so years. Onecannot expect scholars working fifty years ago to have used thesame techniques we use today. After all, there was no systematicformula for sound archiving in 1944--that is something we havefigured out more recently, as a means of coping with all of theseearly recordings (ibid.).

Levine also agrees with Seeger and encourages ethnomusicologists to

follow his lead. She concludes, "just because Cobos did not collect the way we

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would now doesn't mean his recordings are not valuable today. They could be

used in a way that is informed by our knowledge of how he built his collection"

(ibid.).

Anthony Seeger lists ten points which I will briefly review here. First, the

collector should realize that the recording process can be an integral part of the

development of theory, the provision of materials to future generations of the

group recorded, and the posterior evaluation of his or her analysis. Second, the

collector should consider the completed collection to be an important part of his

or her total scholarly contribution--a part that may be more important ten, twenty,

fifty or one hundred years from now than today's books and articles. Third, the

collector should consider him or herself to be a part of the archiving process,

involved in the documentation, recording methodology, and ethical issues the

archives must face daily. Fourth, the collector should consider him or herself to be

a producer. All field recordings are produced; they are not simply "objective"

sounds or events (pace Kunst, above), and their usefulness depends to a great

extent upon the collector's reflection on the recording process itself.

Fifth, collectors should prepare their collections for deposit in an archive

as soon as possible after their return from the field. The collection should be

completely documented, including information on recording strategy and ethical

issues. Sixth, depositors should keep their addresses updated, or turn over

responsibility for the collection to the archives itself. They should consider the

desirability of making part of their collections readily available for consultation,

even if they wish to restrict other parts of them for ethical or other reasons. They

should remember that archives have users, as well as depositors.

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Seventh, chairs and members of university departments in which field

collections are part of research should argue for or provide concrete rewards for

the completion of documentation and the deposit of field tapes in archives. These

could include providing summer grants for documentation (not just for field

research), treating the documentation and deposit of a collection as the equivalent

of a major publication, and other possibilities appropriate to the particular

institution and academic discipline. Eighth, granting agencies, foundations, and

universities should provide funds for the preparation of important field collections

for deposit in an archive. A number of major collections by established figures in

the field need urgent attention, and this could be encouraged through small

"documentation grants."

Ninth, university programs, departments, and professional societies will

need to invest in equipment and personnel if archives are to acquire the

technology that will permit increased access and use. Another possibility would

be the consolidation of smaller archives. Tenth, the Society of Ethnomusicology

could issue policy statements on the importance of field collections and archives

as it does on ethical considerations in doing field research. The society could

provide some support to establish a more uniform policy with respect to

establishing monetary values for collections (for tax purposes in the United

States) on what are at once unique collections yet which are practically by

definition without market value. It could, through public pronouncements, support

departmental rewards for the deposit of collections. The society could also

support a movement to establish a policy for rare commercial recordings that

would enable greater use of them by members of the discipline. A scholarly

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society should deal directly with some of the concrete research-related issues

facing the discipline and its associated institutions (Seeger 1985: 272-273).

Transdisciplinary research in ethnomusicology, anthropology, and folklore

involves much more than the studies of symbolic forms in their social contexts or

the microanalysis of performance based on social or psychological models and

theory. According to Seeger, the ephemeral nature of performance and the

constant change and transformations of many aspects of social life, among them

musical forms and styles, are acknowledged. Yet if we are to admit reanalysis of

acts and performances, and if we have an interest in eventually tracing the

transformation of musical forms, then archives can be as useful today in reaching

these goals as they were in the past for different ends.

There is at present no clear alternative to archives. No publication can

document a long performance, or the entire corpus the author used in developing a

theory. Nor can most commercial recordings present more than a part of a

performance. According to Palmenfelt, scholars always work within the episteme

of the ruling scientific paradigm or discourse. Thus, archive collections reflect the

ruling paradigm at the time of collection, and in that respect may be regarded as

terminated, impossible to expand. I believe this is not entirely true. Combinations

of several archives may produce very interesting results. Conducting archive

studies means journeying into worlds you would otherwise never visit. You will

experience times long since past, and listen to people you will never meet in real

life. The disadvantage is that you are not allowed to move around freely in these

foreign worlds. Palmenfelt compares the experience to a train passenger who must

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be satisfied by looking out the windows of the wagon as it rolls along the tracks

somebody else laid down.

Finally, studies based upon archival materials reflect the discourse of their

time, too. By examining the fieldwork and sound archive of Rubén Cobos, we

have interrogated the past, which is problematic on several levels.

Ethnomusicologist Phillip Bohlman points out that "for many who search in the

past for filiopietistic reasons, in other words to glorify their forebears, the selfness

of the past is ipso facto a means of glorifying the present" (ibid.). This was

certainly not my intention in writing this chapter.

The point of this chapter was to show the music or sound archives as yet

anothor example of spurious and genuine culture. If we agree that hegemony is

not only an active but a creative process too, then it is safe to conclude as

Raymond Williams explains, “it is always a more or less adequate organization

and interconnection of otherwise separated even disparate meanings, values, and

practices, which it specifically incorporates in a significant culture and an

effective social order” (1977: 115). Williams notion of “tradition” is useful here

to distinguish better the genuine and spurious. The concept has been neglected in

Marxist thought because it has been commonly understood as a “relatively, inert,

historicized segment of a social structure: tradition as the surviving past” (ibid.).

Williams explains:

For tradition is in practice the most evident expression of the dominantand hegemonic pressures and limits. It is always more than an inerthistoricized segment; indeed it is the most powerful practical means ofincorporation. What we have to see is not just “a tradition” but aselective tradition: an intentionally selective version of a shaping pastand a pre-shaped present, which is then powerfully operative in the

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process of social and cultural definition and identification (Williams1977 115).

Our examination of the Cobos collection through Levine’s catalogue

illustrates this point somewhat. A closer look is certainly in order but not

necessarily here. Bohlman rightfully points out that "indeed, one is made blind to

the otherness of self. Only the visibly present characteristics of the past are

thrown into relief" (ibid.). As this case study illustrates, much ethnic folk-music

research suffers from this dilemma of selfness. The constructs of the present (e.g.,

hyphenated folk musics such as Indo-Hispano, Spanish-American, or Mexican-

American) should have existed in the past because they do, presumably, in the

present. Bohlman points out that a more hermeneutic consideration of self, would

insist on problematizing the identity of self; however, several vexing questions

remain such as whose self is it that the fieldworker seeks to discover? His or her

own, or someone else’s? Must we assume that the identity of the past bears a

relation to the identity of the present? Whose past does the self narrate when

telling from the past? (ibid.).

Bohlman concludes that the selfness and otherness of the past are not

unrelated, and it may well be their relatedness that makes it possible for fieldwork

to examine identity. The question posed by hyphenated ethnic musics might

therefore become not what the history of Mexican-American music, is as opposed

to Hispano, Chicano, Latino or Hispanic popular song. The otherness and

sameness of these identities coexist, and the past takes shape from the tension

implicit in this coexistence. "Fieldwork in the ethnomusicological past ideally

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reads beyond the simple presence of selfness and otherness to perceive how music

brings competing identities into the tension of history" (ibid.).

Yet another place where versions of “selective tradition” may be seen is in

the ethnomusicologists’ fieldnotes. Fieldnotes devoted to a particular cultures are

radically selective versions of tradition because certain meanings, practices, and

details are neglected and excluded from the written comments. Williams suggests,

Within a particular hegemony, and as one of its decisive processes,this selection is presented and usually successfully passed off as “thetradition”, “the significant past”. What has then to be said about anytradition is that it is in this sense an aspect of contemporary social andcultural organization, in the interest of the dominance of a specificclass. It is a version of the past which is intended to connect with andratify the present. What it offers in practice is a sense of predisposedcontinuity (1977: 116).

Fieldnotes

According to anthropologist James Clifford, fieldnotes are typically

analyzed as data "accumulated, jealously preserved, duplicated, sent to an

academic advisor, cross-referenced, selectively forgotten or manipulated later on"

(Clifford 1990: 63). Likewise, ethnomusicologist Gregory Barz explains

fieldnotes are a step taken directly after a given experience and before

representation in the form of ethnography (Barz and Cooley 1997: 53). In

Shadows In The Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology, he

presents a simplified model for a generative, nonreflexive stance. He represents

this approach in an interesting diagram which he describes as "a simple model

outlining a typical placement of fieldnotes in the ethnographic process of "doing"

and explaining fieldwork" (ibid.).

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Barz takes the linear approach to field research to task by pointing out that

the description process of what it is we do as fieldworkers, "denies a basic and

continuing interaction between (various) levels" (ibid.: 54). He points out that “at

the same time, the model does not admit that changes in original perception may

very well occur before the act of producing the fieldnote” (ibid.). In this model,

fieldnotes are locked into the original moment of writing, and do not allow for

cross-influence(s). Furthermore, Barz questions where the "knowing" occurs in

this model. He acknowledges that the model as he outlines it is an overly

simplified reduction. It nevertheless, reflects common treatment of the abstraction

of reflection about experience from that experience itself.

Barz proposes an alternative model for viewing the relationships that exist

among field research, fieldnotes, and ethnography--relationships that are

experienced by most fieldworkers. His approach provides a more fluid interaction

between the three elements considered. For Barz, one of the principal purposes of

any fieldnote is to support the foundation of both initial experience(s) and

ultimate interpretation(s), acting as an adjustable fulcrum of sorts. He suggests

that “if we extend this fieldnote-as-fulcrum metaphor to account for the constant

flux of musical performances, then, as the position of the fulcrum's pivot point--

supporting field research and ethnography--changes, so do the perspectives of

initial experience and later interpretation” (ibid.: 54). He explains,

With the addition of an adjustable fulcrum, our model of fieldresearch becomes more interactive, allowing time, reflection, andchange to assume greater roles in the mediation of knowing. Thethree elements of the model offered here--Field Research,Fieldnote, Ethnography--are no longer static and locked into place(ibid.).

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Although this second model conceptualizes the fieldnote as a fulcrum

supporting experience and interpretation, it also illustrates the ability of

experience and interpretation to exist and interact without the aid of the fieldnote.

This model also moves us beyond what James Clifford suggested, that "turning to

typewriter or notebook, one writes for occasions distant from the field, for oneself

years later" (1990: 64). In this way, the field notes also share an afinity with the

recordings made for later study. Interpretation in this model is part of an ongoing

process rather than a final product. There is, admittedly, something still missing

from the model. What may be said about individual experience in a position of the

ethnomusicologist in the field and in relation to the community under study and

their affiliation and past relation with particular institutions.

For an ethnomusicologist like myself intent on studying his/her home

town, I did at times feel alienated in Albuquerque although I have many friends

and family still living there. I’ve been gone for over ten years and it certainly was

great reconnecting with my old friends and spending quality time with family

members. However, my status as a researcher raised some questions regarding my

position within the community. Was I working for a private corporation bent on

dispossessing people’s land for commercial or residential development? Was I a

government agent spying on people’s private lives and cultural practices. Was I

working for the Museum of New Mexico or the University of Texas?

In Bernalillo, I was welcomed but was still somewhat regarded with

suspicion because I was also teaching at the University of New Mexico, and doing

research for the New Mexico Hispanic Cultural Center and the Smithsonian.

Personally, I was most curious to learn whether or not I was still indeed connected

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to this community and to see how things had changed there. Barz’s model does

speak well to involving reflection in the overall process (Barz and Cooley 1997:

54-55).

The first model he presents is linear and all arrows do indeed point toward

"Ethnography (Interpretation)" as the ultimate destination. However, once

ethnography is reached, for Barz “seldom is it a comfortable resting place”. He

proposes that “one of the key reductionist points of the academic mission is to

capture, categorize, structure, and discipline the practice of others into our own

cultural system of the written ethnography” (ibid.). I hope that I have succeeded

in accomplishing this here in this chapter. This tends to be downplayed in Barz’

second model. In the alternative model, the position of the fulcrum reflects the

fieldworker's specific use of ethnography as an interaction with memory to

understand how we can know what we know (ibid.: 55). Yet we must remember

the academic license and ethical responsibility that are the crux of field research.

Likewise, the institutional imperative must be constantly scrutinized and locating

our allegiance and affiliation as agents of the state must be constantly reckoned

with. Williams explains,

It is true that the effective establishment of a selective tradition can besaid to depend on identifiable institutions. But it is an underestimate ofthe process to suppose that it depends on institutions alone. Therelations between cultural, political, and economic institutions arethemselves very complex, and the substance of these relations is adirect indication of the character of the culture in the wider sense. Butit is never only a question of formally identifiable institutions. It is alsoa question of formations; those effective movements and tendencies, inintellectual and artistic life, which have significant and sometimesdecisive influence on the active development of a culture, and whichhave a variable and often oblique relation to formal institutions (1977:117).

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We already examined in detail Hispano ideology and have seen how

Anglo-American artists and intellectuals encouraged, promoted, and even

produced it as part of the process of developing a romantized ethnic heritage and

cultural image for purposes of promoting and developing commercial tourism and

other economic development in New Mexico. We have also reviewed the

intellectual leadership role within this process including professional scholars like

Aurelio Espinosa, Arthur Campa, Rowena Rivera, and Rubén Cobos. From these

case studies, it is safe to conclude that formal institutions, evidently, have a

profound influence on the active social process. William explains,

Any process of socialization of course includes things that all humanbeings have to learn, but any specific process ties this necessarylearning to a selected range of meanings, values, and practices which,in the very closeness of their association with necessary learning,constitute the real foundations of the hegemonic. In a family childrenare cared for and taught to care for themselves, but within thisnecessary process fundamental and selective attitudes to self, to others,to a social order, and to the material world are both consciously andunconsciously taught. Education transmits necessary knowledge andskills, but always by a particular selection from the whole availablerange, and with intrinsic attitudes, both to learning and social relations,which are in practice virtually inextricable (1977: 118).

Another important scholar worth mentioning is Rowena Rivera. I will use

one of her literary studies devoted to the New Mexican Spanish ballad tradition as

yet another case study now.

Rowena Rivera

According to Williams there are weaker senses of “tradition”, which are in

explicit contrast to “innovation” and “the contemporary” (1977: 116). He

explains,

These are often points of retreat for groups in the society which havebeen left stranded by some particular hegemonic development, all that

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is now left to them is the retrospective affirmation of “traditionalvalues”. Or, from the opposite position, “traditional habits” areisolated, by some current hegemonic development, as elements of thepast which have now to be discarded. Much of the overt argumentabout tradition is conducted between representatives of these twopositions. But at a deeper level the hegemonic sense of tradition isalways the most active: a deliberately selective and connecting processwhich offers a historical and cultural ratification of a contemporaryorder (1977: 116).

Based on a specific intellectual tradition unique to northern New Mexico

and southern Colorado, most literary scholarship may be regarded as

Hispanophile in orientation. One of the better New Mexican ballad studies

involving a sound archive that I’ve seen was completed by literary historian

Rowena Aurora Rivera (Rivera).1 Rivera's archival study of La aparición is a

Hispanophile analysis of a fifteenth-century Spanish romance from New Mexico.

La aparición was widely-diffused and sung in New Mexico even as late as 1946

by Prospero Baca and other trovadores. This is one of the oldest romances

originating from the Iberian Peninsula that was collected in the Southwest. The

New Mexican song is also known by other titles including: "En una playa

arenosa," "El caballerito," and "La esposa difunta" -all variants of the same

medieval ballad "Romance de la aparición de la amada difunta o Romance del

palmero." According to literary scholars, the archetypal Romance is the knightly

quest, against all adversity, for the Holy Grail (White 1973: 8-9). It is also one of

two types of generic styles of Tragedy and Comedy- Satire and Romance.

The origins of the song remain disputed among most ballad scholars.

According to Rivera, Constantino Nigra places the origins in southern France. 1 I am not certain when it was published but have seen it cited several times without a dateindicated. I regard Rivera as a Chicana scholar from New Mexico who produced important literarystudies of folk poetry during her tenure at the University of New Mexico.

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19th century French critic, Georges Doncieux believes it originated in French

Brittany, from where it was disseminated to other parts of southern Europe

eventually arriving in Cataluña and Portugal. Ramón Menéndez Pidal attributes

its origins to Castile because it is included in the Cancionero de Londres, a 15th-

century compilation of Spanish romances which were read and glossed by

Spanish writers of that period. Rivera finds much archaic Castillian and other

musical characteristics such as words such as atán for tan (so), conortarme for

conformarme (to comfort me). Obsolete verbal structures such as haber meaning

to possess and "a telltale attribute of the epic, the present subjunctive digasme tú

(tell me) used as an imperative" (Rivera p. 1).

For Rivera, "the word escudero (squire) is proof enough” dating the

antiquity of this song (p. 1). She explains that this Spanish title was originally

given to a young soldier awaiting knighthood. It was during the reign of Charles

V (1516-1556) when the nobility became less militaristic and more courtly, that

caballero replaced escudero. The use of this title also makes a strong case for the

song as a native Spanish form in the New World. The ballad is octosyllabic with

an assonance of final i, a poetic structure found almost exclusively in Spanish

medieval ballads. What I find missing from Rivera's analysis is any discussion of

the rise of national music styles in Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth

centuries and how ballad performance and singing varied according to regions.

Nor does she address the song’s significance as a native Spanish form indigenous

to New Mexico in later times, or what the antiquity of the ballad is suppose to

mean as an ancient form of Spanish Mexican music-culture. More importantly,

tradition is a very powerful process, since it is tied to many practical

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continuities—families, places, institutions, a language—which are indeed directly

experienced. Williams explains,

It is also, at any time, a vulnerable process, since it has in practice todiscard whole areas of significance, or reinterpret or dilute them, orconvert them into forms which support or at least do not contradict thereally important elements of current hegemony. It is significant thatmuch of the accessible and influential work of the counter-hegemonyis historical: the recovery of discarded areas, in turn has little effectunless the lines to the present, in the actual process of the selectivetradition, are clearly and actively traced. Otherwise any recovery canbe simply residual or marginal. It is at the vital points of connection,where a version of the past is used to ratify the present and to indicatedirections for the future, that a selective tradition is at once powerfuland vulnerable (Williams 1977: 116).

Keeping in mind that my ethnomusicology investigation is

transdisciplinary in design and not strictly a literary study of folk poetry, I wish to

show how historical musicology suggests where the literary and musicological

traditions converge and how they may reinforce one another hegemonically.

According to musicologist Donald Grout, little of the earliest polyphonic music of

Spain has been published. However, by the fifteenth century the works of the

Burgundian and Netherlands composers were known to be sung throughout Spain.

At the same time a national school of polyphonic composition was emerging

similar to the school in Germany incorporating popular elements and was

resisting cultural influence from foreign musical styles. The principle genre in

Spanish secular polyphony toward the end of the fifteenth century was the

villancico, which is regarded as the Spanish analogue of the Itallian frottola. It is a

short strophic song with a refrain, typically with the formal design aBccaB. It was

probably intended to be performed by a soloist with accompaniment of two or

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three instruments. Villancicos were collected in songbooks called cancioneros and

many were also published as vocal solos with lute accompaniment.

According to anthropologist Richard Flores, the octosyllabic line, already

a highly rhythmic sound structure, is further patterned into several varieties of

quatrains, known as coplas (1995: 82). He cites the Dicionario de la Lengua

Española’s description of the copla as a poetic composition itself composed of

various forms: a cuarteta de romance, an octosyllabic quatrain whose rhyme

scheme is ABCA, a seguidilla, a quatrain of alternating heptasyllabic and

pentasyllabic lines whose rhyme is ABBA; and other short classic folk and

literary forms which are used in Spanish, Mexican, and Chicano narratives.

The Texas-Mexican corrido which dates from the mid-1800s to the

1930s- is believed to be preceded by coplas and décimas (Paredes 1958a: 139 also

see 1958b, 1958c, 1966, and 1976). New Mexico villancicos collected during the

early twentieth century by Aurelio Espinosa were few and most were on

Christmas themes. Espinosa describes one dating to the seventeenth century by

Spanish composer Gómez Tejada de los Reyes in his Noche buena, autos al

nacimiento del Hijo de Dios.

Colonial Mexico

In his essay, "The Folklore of Groups of Mexican Origin in the United

States," (1977), Américo Paredes stressed the social and economic conditions of

Mexicans within the United States in his search for a purely and distinctive

Mexican-American folklore. These conditions were reflected in the poetry among

the Mexicanos living along the Rio Grande. I believe that the Mexican-American

corrido is one of several folkloric expressions that emerged as truly native

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musical and literary forms throughout Greater Mexico. Following the 1860s, the

corrido thrived amidst the ongoing and often turbulent culture clash between

Mexican and Anglo Americans along the lower Rio Grande Texas-Mexican

border area. At the same time, the romance, indita, cuando, and décima were still

viable being performed throughout northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.

Paredes (1979:3-4) distinguished Mexican from Mexican American

folklore in three ways. These approaches may be exemplified by representatives

of New Mexico's folklorists and other musical scholars whose writings we have

examined. Paredes labeled New Mexico's earliest native folklorists collectively as

Hispanophiles because most of them like Rowena Rivera were interested in the

vestigial Spanish musical life that survived on the margins of Mexican and

American society. Most were comparative scholars of literature and followed

current and past research practices of their time. As a concept, Williams defines

literature as “full, central, immediate human experience, usually with an

associated reference to minute particulars” (1977: 45).

Hispanophiles produced large collections which formed the contents of

several archives. The John D. Robb and Rubén Cobos collections as we have seen

include recordings, melodic transcriptions, and translations of the poetry. Vicente

T. Mendoza represented a diffusionist approach and orientation and disregarded

Mexican American folklore as in no way different, original, or more important

than Mexican folklore. Robb’s approach represents a more regionalist view,

regarding New Mexican folklore as an offshoot of Spanish or Mexican folklore.

What most of these musical folklorists share in common is "by the 1920s and

especially the 1930s, the myth of the Spanish Southwest had become so pervasive

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that often educators, scholars, and scholarly publications uncritically accepted the

myth as fact" (Chavez 1984: 96). According to John Chavez, the previous

generation of New Mexican folklorists were aware of the Anglo-American artists’

and writers’ role in the realization of the Spanish Southwest myth. They may have

not known how such mythmaking took the form of social struggle in the

development of a modern political economy based on cultural tourism.

According to myth, after its founding in the late sixteenth and early

seventeenth centuries, New Mexico was so isolated that it preserved the purity of

Old Spain, even as the mother country itself changed. Ameríco Paredes was first

to challenge the view that most scholars "overemphasized New Mexico's cultural

and physical isolation from Greater Mexico" (1993: 130). Paredes writes,

the New Mexican isolation from Greater Mexico and the rest ofSpanish America 'has been greatly exaggerated. . . as could be seenby the predominance of the décima and the romance in its balladry.That the emphasis on the "Spanish" character of New Mexico isrelatively recent and obviously a reaction against Anglo-Americanprejudice toward the word "Mexican" (1993: 93).

During its epic period, the Spanish romance was sung to a sixteen-syllable

line, all lines making the same assonance for long passages, in the manner of the

epic poem. Later the line was broken into octosyllables, and still later into rhymed

octosyllabic quatrains with a refrain taken from the dance lyric. The romance

without refrain continued to be sung, especially in Andalusía, where it was called

the romance corrido—that is, a romance sung straight through, rapidly and

simply. It was in its refrainless form that the romance seems to have come to

America in greatest numbers. Gradually corrido became a noun instead of an

adjective and the Spanish-American name for the romance.

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In New Spain the romance appears to have arrived with the first

Spaniards. It was carried up into New Mexico, and later was diffused to

California and throughout the Lower Rio Grande colony of Nuevo Santander.

Those best preserved romances were on universal or novelesque themes—about

unfaithful wives, incestuous fathers, stupid shepherds, and fabulous lands. There

is evidence that a few heroic romances were sung until recent times. Paredes

believes that these were sung “perhaps until the rise of the true corrido among

peoples of Mexican culture” (1993: 133). The romance corridos underwent

numerous changes in form as a result of changes in language and musical habits

in response to local conditions.

La Aparición: A Fifteenth-Century Romance-Corrido

"Romance de la aparición de la amada difunta" or "Romance del

Palmero" was collected by J.D. Robb, Aurelio Espinosa, Arthur Campa, and

Rubén Cobos. The Southwest texts are mixed with modern elements describing

the death of the first wife of Alfonso XII, María de las Mercedes. According to

Rivera, these are narrated in the first person by a young soldier describing two

dialogues: the first is with a pilgrim, a palmero, who has been a witness to the

death and funeral of the knight's beloved lady. The second dialogue is his

conversation with the ghost of his beloved, who comforts him and urges him to

make a new life for himself.

Rivera examines one example, which according to Germán Orduna, is one

of three oldest variants of this romance. This version was found in the Cancionero

de Londres. In Rivera's study the evolution of the romance included two basic

elements: the first-person narration by the knight, and the dialogue with the

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pilgrim and the ghost's words of consolation. All of these elements, though having

gone an evolutionary process, are retained in the New Mexican variants. The

romance was used as a theme by Guillén de Castro (1569-1630) in his play La

tragedia por los celos and later incorporated by Luis Vélez de Guevara (1579-

1644) in Reinar después de morir, a dramatization of the tragic love affair

between Doña Inés de Castro and Pedro of Portugal in the 14th century. These

two playwrights "by using Spanish romances in their writings suggest strong

evidence of the enormous popularity of the Spanish romancero between the 15th

and 17th centuries" (Rivera). The Golden Age writers followed, incorporating old

romances in their work. Rivera suggests that "the fact that they both selected La

aparición de la esposa difunta, might shed light on the popularity of this

particular ballad at that time in Spain" (Rivera p. 3).

According to Rivera, the ballad remained popular in Spain and in the 19th

century became associated with the death of María de Mercedes, the first wife of

Alfonso XII. In fact, versions of this ballad have been studied throughout Latin

America and among Sephardics, who frequently preserve the oldest elements of

the old Spanish romances. Rivera concludes that the first four lines, as well as

slight variations of Luis Vélez de Guevara's additional lines to the ballad, "Ya

murió la flor de mayo, ya murió la flor de abril," are missing from the modern

Iberian variants and have been retained in Sephardic variants from Tangiers

(ibid.). Different, also, is the protagonist, who in this variation, is a king, adhering

to the historical theme of the Inés-Pedro love affair, but applicable also with the

death of Queen Mercedes (ibid.).

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Twenty variants were recorded throughout New Mexico and one in

Colorado during the twentieth century. Rivera provides the collections and the

names by which the ballad is known, and the singers and other information as

follows:

Aurelio M. Espinosa: 11 variants"La aparición" Romancero de Nuevo Méjico

Rubén Cobos: 5 variants"La aparición" El Nuevo Mejicano (Jan. 12, 1950),

Amador Abeyta, Sabinal."la aparición" Ibid., Pablita Galindo, Las Colonias.

"En una arenosa playa" (Music) Estudio y clasificación de la música tradicional hispánica de Nuevo México by Vicente T. Mendoza. Louise Nevárez, Las Vegas, Aug. 1, 1945.

"En una arenosa playa" (Music) Ibid., Aug. 2, 1945"El caballerito" (Music) Ibid. , Prospero Baca, Bernalillo, Aug. 7,

1946.

Arthur León Campa: 2 variants Ibid. ,"El caballerito" (Music) and"En una playa arenosa" (Music). Spanish Folk Poetry in New Mexico

John D. Robb: 1 variant The J. D. Robb Collection of "La plalla arenosa"Folk Music, #2009. C. Chávez Notebook,C. Chávez Notebook, Galisteo, Feb. 10 1943.

Leonora Curtin: 1 variant Collection of Leonora Curtin"El caballerito"

Vicente T. Mendoza: 1 variant "La esposa defunta" (Music)

Mendoza, Maria A. Casillas AtencioMar. 3. 1946. Walsenburg, Colorado.

Rivera concludes that most of the above variants do not differ radically

from each other. Almost all are set on a sandy beach "en una arenosa playa," with

the deceased woman being the knight's wife, rather than his lady, and most

contain the line "ponle el nombre como a mí” (name him after me). These New

Mexican examples are faithful to the Sephardic version in their retention of Luis

Vélez de Guevara's phrase, "ya murió la flor de mayo " (May's blossom has died),

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although as in the Jewish ballad, this phrase undergoes minor changes.

According to Rivera, they differ also from the oldest Iberian variants in

that the pilgrim does not appear, although vestiges of his dialogue with the knight

can still be detected in New Mexican variants. The similarities to the original

models are striking. The metrical form is the same; phrases such as "donde vas,

caballerito" and "ya está muerta, yo la vi" are frequently sung in these 20th

century versions suggesting that the emotional core has survived almost intact

since the 15th century. Similar also is the vivid description of the funeral as well

as the wife's message of consolation, urging the knight to remarry. And the

reference to the sombra blanca or white shadow is a reference to "the Roman

notion of daimon or guide, halfway between human and divine, a messenger from

the holy world, a kind of guardian angel" (Rivera p. 4).

Rivera examines in detail one New Mexican variant found in the

romancero of Clemente Chávez from Galisteo which was also included in the J.

D. Robb collection. It contains most of the New Mexican verses; unfortunately

there is no musical transcription since the performance of the song was not tape

recorded. Rivera's analysis suggests an evolutionary process in which the style

and structure of the Iberian romance is still operative in many of the old

Southwestern Hispanic ballads. An obvious feature of the ballad is its

multidimensional aspect. The eight stanzas reveal 5 different narrative levels and

3 different narrators, the knight, an anonymous narrator and the deceased wife.

Rivera distinguishes these further as follows:

1st level: The first three stanzas are given by the narrator, theknight, who describes to the audience or to an unidentified listener,

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his encounter with a white shadow and his dialogue with thisghost.

2nd level: Stanzas 4 and 5 have a change of narrator, time andspace, for here an anonymous narrator, a direct witness to thewife's death and funeral, gives this information to the knight.These words are strongly reminiscent of the palmero'sconversation to the knight in the oldest Iberian models.

3rd level: Stanza 6 has words spoken, in a manner typical ofmedieval literature of death, by the wife, and judging by the line"Los abrazos que le daba," this stanza is spoken to the audience.

4th level: In stanza 7 the wife's words are spoken to the knight.This might be the anonymous narrator speaking, but this messageby the wife fits in with her implied wish that he remember her.Furthermore, if one is to take the original Iberian variant intoaccount, this stanza corresponds to the wife's message ofconsolation in the 15th century variant.

5th level: This last stanza, containing the familiar "Reventó la florde mayo" . . . is the narrator. These words might be spoken by theknight, but the line "en la suidad de Madrid" is a repetition of aline previously employed by the anonymous narrator. In addition,the narrator-minstrel, by removing himself from the framework ofthe ballad and speaking to the audience, more satisfactorily endsthe song and adheres to the basic structure of the ballad (Riveraibid.).

Rivera suggests that the ambiguity produced by leaps of narrators and of

space and time provide mystery and lyricism to this song. The structure and style

is a result of what Menendez Pidal calls fragmentismo -the process by which

fragments of ballads are torn from their context, leaving much unexplained and

producing, at times, abrupt beginnings and endings. It is a special art evolved

through the generations and is found perfectly agreeable and esthetically pleasing

to the many individuals who have sung and listened to the ballad. According to

Rivera, "fragmentation, a central feature of old Hispanic ballads, is a direct

consequence of the singer's recollection or deliberate selection of the most

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dramatic scenes and dialogues and is a positive virtue in creating a more

poetically inclusive work" (Rivera p. 12).

She believes that the medieval ballad is "concise and fast-moving; and it

states circumstances, never motives" (Rivera p. 12). Likewise, "there is no place

for spaciousness and variety of incidents. Repetitions serve the very important

function of highlighting a scene, intensifying a moment or sentiment and

concentrating the essential nucleus of the song's episode" (Rivera p. 12). I believe

that the fragmentation results in the distressing of the genre as the older forms are

in transition towards modernization. This is the result of the performer learning

newer songs but still being obliged to sing the older forms.

Rivera believes that the continued survival of some of the oldest Iberian

medieval ballads is due not only to the positive acceptance of stylistic elements of

the songs, but also to the ballads themes which have historically appealed to the

people who sing and listen to these songs. While this may be true, she really does

not explain the stylistic elements in musicological terms very well. For Rivera,

Romance de la aparición de la amada difunta, reveals one important point, "the

tragic sense of life." How this tragedy is expressed melodically or performatively

is better understood in terms of the modality, chromaticism (musica ficta),

rhythmic modulation, and overall harmonic design and their combined

performative effect on the listener.

Nevertheless, Rivera points out what distinguishes this ballad and what

probably has insured its survival is the logical explanation of death, tragedy and

grief. Explicit in the ballad is a sobering and humble attitude that life is tragic and

must be recreated all over again. The line "May's blossom has bloomed: April's

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blossom no longer breathes," suggests that the thematic concentration of the song

stands out as an eternal message of comfort and reconciliation. In this respect, the

New Mexican versions of "La aparición" contain the basic sentiments of wisdom,

naturalness and warm human sympathy found in some of the oldest Spanish

romances.

Of the several New Mexican variations that have been collected, Vicente

T. Mendoza provides the best musicological analysis and discussion of la

aparición. He explains that this romance illustrates seven musical variants with

characteristics unique to New Mexico and Colorado. A broader comparison of the

numerous variants could provide a more definite conclusion whether the melody

is indeed native New Mexican or perhaps a Greater Mexican import. One

example analyzed by Mendoza is taken from the Rubén Cobos collection.

Recorded on August 1, 1945 in Las Vegas, this version was sung by Mrs.

Louise Ulibarrí Nevárez then age 55 and is dated 1882. Mendoza describes the

harmony as simple tonic and dominant and the melody is a single phrase

comprised of two semiperiods of which the second is repeated. Each is divided

into two octosyllabic lines. The melody is mainly ascending in outline and in 2/4

simple duple meter. It is in the Major mode. The melodic range is a 12th and the

rhythm is the same for each phrase with an anacrucis of two eighth notes. A

dotted quarter followed by an eighth note make up the first and second complete

measures with four eighth notes in the third. Two quarter notes make up the fifth

and sixth measures and the last measure is a half note tied to the incomplete first

beat of the phrase. Rivera notes, the first four lines, as well as slight variations of

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Luis Vélez de Guevara's additional lines to the ballad, "Ya murió la flor de mayo,

ya murió la flor de abril," are missing from the modern Iberian variants.

By looking at the debates over the role of sound archives in

ethnomusicology and examining actual investigations, we see how archival

materials may also be subject to dominant ideologies and further reinforce a

dominant hegemony. Furthermore, Williams explains,

The selecive version of “a living tradition” is always tied, though oftenin complex and hidden ways, to explicit contemporary pressures andlimits. Its practical inclusions and exclusions are selectivelyencouraged and discouraged, often so effectively are the deliberateselection is made to verify itself in practice. Yet its selective privilegesand interests, material in substance but often ideal in form, includingcomplex elements of style and tone and of basic method, can still berecognized, demonstrated, and broken. This struggle for and againstselective traditions is understandably a major part of all contemporarycultural activity (1977: 117).

What we glean from this examination is that institutions such as schools,

churches, museums, and cultural centers are explicitly incorporative. Specific

communities and specific places of work, exert powerful and immediate pressures

on the conditions of living and of making a living. Institutions teach, confirm, and

in most cases describe the effect of all of these kinds. “In modern societies we

have to add the major communications systems. These materialize selected news

and opinion, and a wide range of selected perceptions and attitudes” (Williams

1977: 118). I now wish to look forward at very recent Mexican music in New

Mexico and Greater Mexico. I wish to reconsider Southwestern mythology in

relation to the development of tourism and how idenitity has changed as a result

of Mexicano intermarriage with Anglo Americans and other Mexicans.

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Chapter Five: Exoticism, Eroticism, andMexican Popular Music in the United States

New Mestizos and Criollos

Since the 1980s Latina subjectivity has been a reigning paradigm in

Chicano/a literature and cultural studies. In Borderlands/La Frontera: The New

Mestiza, Gloria Anzaldúa meditates on the experience of straddling cultural,

psychological, sexual, and spiritual boundaries. A Chicana poet and lesbian by

choice born on the Texas side of the Rio Grande, Anzaldúa explains,

that being a writer feels very much like being a Chicana or beingqueer--a lot of squirming, coming up against all sorts of walls. Orits opposite: nothing definite or defined, a boundless, floating stateof limbo . . . Living in a state of psychic unrest, in a Borderland, iswhat makes poets write and artists create. This personal strugglewith contradictions, this juggling of one's identities, like thecrossing of genetic streams, yields hybrid vigor. It also fosterstolerance for contradictions and ambiguity and an acceptance ofthe negative shadow in one's subconscious (1987: 77-91).

Renato Rosaldo explains that Gloria Anzaldúa has further developed and

transformed the figure at the crossroads in a manner that celebrates the potential

of borders in opening new forms of human understanding (1993: 216). According

to Anzaldúa,

. . where the mestiza stands, is where phenomena tend to collide. Itis where the possibility of uniting all that is separate occurs. . . .[The result] is a new consciousness--a new mestiza --and though itis a source of intense pain, its energy comes from continualcreative motion that keeps breaking down the unitary aspect ofeach new paradigm . . . . Because the future depends on thestraddling of two or more cultures. . . . " To live in the Borderlandsmeans knowing that the india in you, betrayed for 500 years, is nolonger speaking to you, the mexicanas call you rajetas, thatdenying the Anglo inside you is as bad as having denied the Indianor Black;. . . . . rajetas --literally meaning 'split,' that is, havingbetrayed your words. For Anzaldúa the new mestiza epitomizes themodern struggle with opposites because of her mixed race andculture and her feminist confrontation with sexism (1987: 79-80).

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This new mestiza [a person of mixed ancestry], she says “copes by

developing a tolerance for contradictions and ambiguity. She learns to be Indian

in Mexican culture, to be Mexican from an Anglo point of view. She learns to

juggle cultures. She has a plural personality, she operates in a pluralistic

mode—nothing is thrust out, the good, the bad, and the ugly, nothing rejected,

nothing abandoned. Not only does she sustain contradictions, she turns the

ambivalence into something else” (quoted in Rosaldo 1993: 216). Rosaldo

concludes,

In making herself into a complex persona, Anzaldúa incorporatesMexican, Indian, and Anglo elements at the same time that shediscards the homophobia and patriarchy of Chicano culture. Inrejecting the classic “authenticity” of cultural purity, she seeks out themany-stranded possibilities of the borderlands. By sorting through andweaving together its overlapping strands, Anzaldúa’s identity becomesstronger, diffused. She argues that because Chicanos have so longpracticed the art of cultural blending, “we” now stand in a position tobecome leaders in developing new forms of polyglot culturalcreativity. In her view, the rear guard will become the vanguard (1993:216).

Theories of identity formation developed primarily by sociologists form

the framework for investigating the relationship of the new mestizaje, music, and

ethnicity. Ethnomusicologist Gerhard Kubik considers ethnicity a social response

of a particular population that has experienced “cultural conflict and aborted

transculturation.” His considers the notion of ethnicity and the rise of ethnic

consciousness as an ideological response to “outside aggression, deprivation,

discrimination, and holocaust. . . the traumatic collective experience of a group”

(Kubik 1994: 41). The social upheavals of the 1960s and 1980s briefly described

earlier are examples of New Mexican intercultural conflict that was transformed

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into symbolic, social, economic, and political action. Psychological trauma

continues to affect the ethnic consciousness and identity of the “new mesitzas/os,”

or what José Limón has called this postmodern mejicano.

New Directions in Hybridity Theory

Hans-Rudolf Wicker (in (Werbner and Modood 1997) suggests that the

prevailing tendency of a culture is too diffuse, and the term no longer refers to a

coherent and historically independent cultural grammar or pattern. The notion of

“cultural citizenship” is useful here. Ethnic groups today live within nation-states

where cultural interaction and conflict takes place (Werbner and Modood 1997:

36). Culture may be seen in this way as a byproduct of state strategies and public

policy and is involved with the state mechanisms of integration and assimilation

that we no longer understand without the essential concepts of identity, ethnicity,

culture, and history. Wicker describes this as "border-generating processes of

inter-ethnic dialectics" (ibid.). The social facts that generate a sense of belonging,

including residence, homeland, kinship, language, religion, customs, morals,

music, and history must no longer be taken for granted because they are perceived

as threatening to the state.

Another factor is the nature of cultural tourism which generates

interactions between people from fundamentally different backgrounds that bring

change at the expense of time-honoured loyalties and allegiances.

Transnationalism, deterritorialization, immigration, and the advanced flow of

information via mass media transform the semantic space or culture once

perceived to be timeless. Traditional essence, innocence, wholeness, and

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uniqueness seem lost or at least transformed in this postmodern moment and

globalizing context. These processes are better understood in the intellectual

context of the Enlightenment's colonial ideologies of universal reason and logic or

as a modern victory for the capitalist system.

Advances by analysts describe a process of creolization based on a cultural

model that signifies a distinctive mixture of linguistic, musical, and cultural

elements based on the unique historical development of any group of people.

Creole models of culture accent internal variation, diachronicity, and transitions

and hence present entirely new manifestations of cultural continuity. Wicker

suggests "the Creole model postulates that intersystems have no uniform rules and

invariant characteristics, and that their only system of classification consists of a

set of rules of possible transformations" (ibid.).

“Culture in this notion from being a complex whole in the form of identifiable

structures or significations--exists only in its variations and transitions. Culture in

itself, then is the result of past, present, and future processes of creolisation”

(Werbner and Modood 1997: 38). Like the anthropologist, the ethnomusicologist

also suffers an instability of status, which his/her rediscovery of both the human

art of performance and historia only underscores. From the late 1970s through the

1990s, the place of history in anthropology and ethnomosicology has been a

troublesome one. Today the historical process is no longer dismissed as

ethnomusicologically or anthropologically irrelevant, but it must be grappled in

ethnographic terms. The place of history in ethnomusicology and the

anthropology of historicization are still being negotiated. The current mode of

analysis remain uncertain because of the wider world circumstances and

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imaginary global society which we inhabit. Many ethnomusicologists still have

had little choice but to begin to believe in the historical process which is currently

at risk of becoming an ethnomusicological absolute.

We can see postmodernism in fragmentary debate between colonialism and

modernism and in the author's discussion about cultural politics and complex

identity formation. Cultural hybridity as a theoretical model for the study of music

is pretty useful especially in ethnomusicology and musical folklore investigations.

And now “hybridity” as an autonomous, modern discourse and view of culture is

helpful in understanding complex multicultural identities and ethnic

consciousness.

Returning to ethnomusicology and what some analysts calls North

Americans or Euro-Americans, a problematic term for reasons I will not discuss

here. Slobin has already done an admirable job of reviewing the literature devoted

to modern group formations and the problem of the interplay of “isolated

individuals,” “group affiliations,” and the larger society. More to the point is what

Mark Slobin calls micromusics or “small units within big music cultures” (1993:

11). He explains that in the past, “culture” was seen as the sum of “the lived

experience and stored knowledge of a discrete population that differed from

neighboring groups. Now it seems that there is no one experience and knowledge

that unifies everyone within a defined “cultural” boundary, or if there is, not the

total content of their lives” (Slobin 1993: 11).

This dissertation has examined the musical experience of Nuevo Mexicanos

in what the Spanish colonial historian Herbert Bolton called the Spanish-Mexican

borderlands. Today the borderlands model continues to offer a way by which to

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understand how people live at and through the intersections of not only

subculture, superculture, and interculture but ethnicity, class, gender, and

sexuality. The New Mestizo or Criollo supports this thesis in no uncertain terms,

yet the matter remains complicated when we turn to music or language and what

Charles Seeger called years ago the lingocentric predicament. The vexing

problem of language and its relation with music in human expression remains.

Likewise the expressive interaction between music, dance, poetry, and other

cultural forms needs further study. In the borderlands the ongoing war over the

politics of language in general and bilingual education in particular continues with

many states attempting to cut programs altogether from public school curricula as

the Spanish speaking population in the borderlands continues to increase despite

the lame and inhumane efforts of the American government to curb Mexican

immigration.

1960s Echoes: Chicano Poetics, Cultural Loss and Longing Over the Politicsof Language

An important Mexicano writer is Richard Rodriguez. In his book, Days of

Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father (1992: 48-79), he describes

the sixties as years of romance for the American middle class:

Mexican Americans of the generation of the sixties had no myth ofthemselves as Americans. So that when Mexican Americans wonnational notoriety, we could only refer the public gaze to the past.We are people of the land, we told ourselves. Chicanismo blendednostalgia with grievance to reinvent the mythic northern kingdomof Atzlán as corresponding to the Southwestern American desert.Chicanos declared to America that they would never give up theirculture. However, Chicanos wanted more and less than theyactually said. On the one hand, Chicanos sought pride, arestoration of face in America. And America might provide thesymbolic solution to a Mexican dilemma: if one could learn public

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English while yet retaining family Spanish, . . . , the future mightbe reconciled with the past (ibid.).

Rodriguez believes that few Chicanos ever expected Spanish to become a

public language coequal with English. He continues,

But by demanding Spanish in the two most symbolic places ofAmerican citizenship--the classroom and voting booth--Chicanoswere consoling themselves that they need not give up the past toparticipate in the American city. They were not less American forspeaking Spanish; they were not less Mexican for succeeding inAmerica (ibid.).

While some analysts are comfortable lumping white American music

styles in English with other ethnic expressive forms to form a larger category.

Anzaldúa disagrees: “I grew up feeling ambivalent about our music. Country-

western and rock-and-roll had more status” (1990: 209). According to Mark

Slobin, (Anzaldúa) “does confirm Peña’s analysis of an internal sense of class”

(1993: 44). According to Peña, “In the 50s and 60s, for the slightly educated and

agringado Chicanos, there existed a sense of shame at being caught listening to

our music.” (1985).

Returning to Rodriguez’s argument, I believe he overlooks two essential

facts in his conclusion. The first being that it was not just Anglos who were

listening to Country-western and rock-and roll, agringado and educated Chicanos

were too. Likewise the children of Chicanos also grew up listening to Anglo and

other ethnic American music and dance styles like rap, techno, and disco at the

same time they were hearing their parent’s poetics of language loss and cultural

longing. They tried to make sense of the contradictions despite the fact that many

Chicano parents had intermarried with Anglos at the same time they blamed

gringos for the problems of the Chicano community. What I believe is important

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about the impact of these sixties postcolonial discourses and contradictions is how

it has shaped the ethnic consciousness for the next generation of mexicanos.

Although spoken Spanish had waned across the Southwest, the language

thrived in song and a cultural renaissance ensued. By the late 1980s conjunto

music had declined, however according to Slobin, (conjunto) became available

from unrecognized and neighborhood bands in San Antonio, as well as from Los

Lobos, originally a local Los Angeles band that has moved into the superculture

stratosphere (see Lipsitz 1990 for an analysis of this band’s strategies) and Linda

Ronstadt, an established half German-American, half Mexican-American singer

who is usually identified as middle-class” (Slobin 1991993:48). Today, in music a

so-called “Latin invasion” is taking place, bringing much attention to the

changing social demographics and cultural politics in the United States. No longer

are Latino or Hispanic Americans a “silent minority.” (see Time Magazine June

11, 2001).

Working with and among Polynesian Americans, ethnomusicologst

George Lewis points out "the fact that [Hawaiian songs] are sung (. . .) takes on

the larger and more general symbolic significance of a protest against the

destruction of the language and its replacement with English. In this way, the very

act of singing or listening to songs sung in a vernacular language becomes an act

of social protest at the same time that it is a reaffirmation of cultural

identity"(1984: 48). However, does singing in Spanish enhance or problematize

further the already fragmented postmodern Mexicano identity through a valiant

reclamation of language?

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Here we consider Spanish as language and song in the context of popular

music and culture. It is only in its relation to popular culture and ethnicity that

Spanish as language or song can be considered an expression of identity. It would

seem that any language expresses identity when it speaks or sings culturally, thus

serving as a signifier of ethnicity between speaker, singer, and listener.

We can use a bit of sociolinguistic theory here, in order to posit a

distinction between "language" (lengua, idioma), "speech" (hablar) and "singing"

(cantar). Language is generally considered a system of signs and laws regulating

grammar and syntax based on structure, and is usually fixed. The activation of

this system of signs is the task of "speech," which is normally referred to as the

"event" of language. In the context of popular music, language would be Spanish

or Castillian per se, and singing would be the function of the Spanish language

embedded within performance and interpreted as song, but also it may be thought

of as musically performed speech or even speech-song because of the lyrical

messages it conveys. Like speech, the act of singing circumscribes the meaning in

language and melody and there are three factors that impart meaning in the act of

singing. These are: the sender who sings a melody using words in a lyrical

performance; the message or content of the song; and receiver who listens to the

singing is able to decipher the meaning of the lyrics and the emotional core of the

melody.

However, there exists also the context or horizon of understanding

common to sender and receiver. Since language is polysemous, it is the act of

speech that gives closure to this potential polysemy so there can be some sort of

communication. However, melody is also polysemous and I believe this means

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that singing in the context of a specific language gives closure because it gives

particular meaning within the symbolic and emotional ambience of the

performance itself. The singer, listener, and performance context interact

musically with one another in order to give this cultural meaning to this social

situation within the broader historical context of this performance or concert.

Mark Slobin remains surprized that ethnomusicology has not had more interaction

with sociolinquistics, which he regards as “a sister discipline” (1993: 85). In this

discussion, I’ve tried to illustrate the terms, concepts, and methods from

sociolinguistics that frame the next discussion.

The notion of codes and code switching is useful, “since small groups

both generate their own distinctive styles and interact with the styles of the

superculture (Slobin 1993: 83). Labov (1972: 134-135 quoted in Slobin 1993: 85)

defines code-switching as “moving from one consistent set of co-occurring rules

to another”. A better definition is (Gal 1988: 247 quoted in Slobin 1993: 83)

“codeswitching (as) a conversational strategy used to establish, cross, or destroy

group boundaries; to create, evoke or change interpersonal relations.” Another

important point offered by Slobin is that a group’s language practices “are part of

the group’s actively constructed and often oppositional response” to the

subculture” (ibid.). Analysis is multidimensional, not situated in just one sphere of

culture contact (ibid.). Slobin uses Heller’s (1988: 269) approach that is

“historical, ethnographic, and multi-level” in terms of varieties of interaction, of

individual style, and of community practice. According to Slobin,

As Heller’s useful anthropological reader on codeswitching shows,many issues remain highly ambiguous and unexplored in thisnearly thirty-year-old field of research. But the anthology also

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illustrates abundantly how well developed and ingenous theavailable methodologies are, and how much light the results canshed on the interaction between superculture and subculture. It isworth trying to imagine a musical analogue of the notioncodeswitching. To begin with, however, there is the knottyquestion of what a musical “code” might be. “Style” is anadmittedly slippery concept but is intuitively clear, at least in termsof being a set of consistent rules (Slobin 1993: 86).

He continues,

For present purposes, “style” can stand for the commonplacecategories of everyday music, as in the particular mix of repertoireand mode of presentation that we anticipate when we buy an albumor go to a concert, or that dance-band musicians offer as their set ofmusics for hire. A future, more sophisticated sense of musical codemight want to evolve more precise terms that would take accountof “languages,” “dialects,” “levels,” and “registers”—all of whichcount as “codes for sociolinguists. Local understanding mustpredominate; the term “modern” as a style category makes senseonly as the opposite of “polka” for a Connecticut band. . . (Slobin1993: 86).

The problems of the so-called "free world" may be seen as a dialectical

struggle in many impoverished regions of the Southwest. It is the border where

two economic blocs of poverty and wealth are fused culturally and linguistically.

In a similar fashion, this is where culture and history become a political catharsis

through several aesthetic and economic processes. As a result of “progress”,

poverty, crime, and world hunger have not disappeared. Several disenfranchised

groups, including Native Americans, African-Americans, and Hispanics remain

on the border of democracy. Various forms of cultural resistance may be seen as a

political struggle which is best understood as counterhegemony.

Some philosophers argue that societies are defined by their orientation

towards humanly imagined time. Others believe that the United States, because of

its origin and its intellectual and political history (both artistic and scientific),

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makes that society more oriented toward the future. The United States has been

described as a nation on the move, progressing forward in its technological

development and its own political self interests. According to Octavio Paz,

In the realm of beliefs and mental attitudes, mobility in timecorresponds to physical and geographical displacement. The Americanlives on the very edge of the now, always ready to leap toward thefuture. The country's foundations are in the future, not in the past. Or,rather, its past, the act of its founding, was a promise of the future, andeach time the United States returns to its source, to its past, itrediscovers the future (1985: 370).

Since the eighteenth century, intellectuals have continued to question the

impact of modernization, especially on indigenous peoples. Mexico during the

nineteenth century believed that to adopt the new democratic and liberal

principles was a gesture towards modernization. By the middle of the twentieth

century, the question was no longer so simple. "After almost two centuries of

setbacks, we realize that countries change very slowly, and that if such changes

are fruitful they must be in harmony with the past and the traditions of each

nation" (Paz 1985: 372). And so Greater Mexico, which includes the

Southwestern states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, has to find

its own road to and beyond postmodernity. In this sense the past is not the

obstacle, but rather the starting point on the journey back to our true human

origins.

Mariachi Music in the Southwest: Linda Ronstadt

In 1987, Elektra/Asylum Records, a division of Warner Communications

inc., released Canciones de Mi Padre. This was later followed by the sequel Más

Canciones in 1991. These two albums were produced by American pop singer

Linda Ronstadt with the collaboration of several Mexican, Mexican-American,

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and American musicians. Canciones de Mi Padre consists of typical traditional

and popular Mariachi repertoire of the "golden age" of Mexican popular music, a

period that lasted from the twenties through the forties in postrevolutionary

Mexico. The production of these Mariachi recordings was not without

controversy. Ronstadt was almost immediately attacked by journalists and music

critics for her lack of "authenticity," the idea that performers have to stick to their

background. Until that time, Ronstadt was best known as an American rock

singer. In fact, hardly anyone even knew she was part Mexican or that she could

even sing in Spanish.

Linda Ronstadt, now in her fifties, was born and raised in Tucson about

fifty miles north of the Arizona/Sonora border between Mexico and the United

States. Her father is a Mexican-German and her mother is of Dutch ancestry. She

is a coyote in the postcolonial sense or she may be regarded as a Nueva Mestiza.

Her family is well regarded within the local Tucson community. Her brother Peter

is the official Chief of Police. Linda's Mexican born grandfather was himself a

musician and conductor of the 1896 Tucson Club Filharmónico. Although better

known for her seventies rock hits like "You’re No Good", "Heatwave", and

"When Will I Be Loved," Ronstadt was the lead singer for the Stone Ponies

before they became the "Eagles."

Ronstadt admits that the most influential figure in her musical

development was her aunt, Luisa Ronstadt, a singer, dancer, and actress who

called herself Espinel. Canciones de Mi Padre was the title of Luisa's own book

of Mexican songs and is a Ronstadt family heirloom.

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Exoticism

Ronstadt recalls her aunt's legacy during the opening remarks of the PBS

"Great Performances" broadcast of her San Francisco Concert:

Those long summer evenings of my childhood, when the moonmade strange patterns on father's guitar as he sang enchantingsongs to me, are no more. But the imagination hears the romanceand wistfulness of their melodies, hears them with a sweetness assubtle as the fragrance of wildflowers dried in herbs." (LuisaRonstadt 1947 quoted on the back cover of Canciones de mi PadreElektra Video 1992).

Ronstadt explains that "her Father's sister Luisa wrote these words the year Linda

was born. They are the introduction to a book of collected songs from my

grandfather's homeland in Sonora, Mexico" (ibid.). She explains,

Many of the songs on this record were passed on through my fatherto me, and others I have learned through my continuing interest inthe great vocal traditions of Mexico. These songs comprise atradition both of my family and of a country which has madeprofound contributions to the world of music. They are a livingmemory of heartfelt experience of a romantic evening in OldMexico (ibid.).

Ronstadt's notion of a romantic evening of Mexican exoticism may be

seen on both album covers and the set designs of the promotional concert album

tours. Her exotic and perhaps contrived idea is not only intended to make a

conscious effort at making Anglo Americans receptive to Mexican culture, but it

also raises some important issues regarding the aesthetics of the recordings, the

concert, the television performance and the packaging of these. According to

ethnomusicologist Veit Erlman, "Exoticism" is not necessarily a product of

Western modernity or postcolonialism" (1997). It certainly appealed to nineteenth

century Romantic artists. By the early twentieth century, exoticism had raised its

head in the early intellectual lives or in such Modern artistic and intellectual

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movements as "Primitivism," "Orientalism," and "Impressionism" -- all of which

share the common principle of emphasizing the differences among humanity.

A renewed interest in the "exotic" during the present Postmodern

moment, as seen in these Mariachi recordings is largely based on what Erlmann

describes as, "the politics and the aesthetics of difference," which he believes is

inherent in the logic of capitalism itself (1997: 7). He explains that the western

popular consumer music industry presumes that world music remains a common

universal link between ourselves as consumer public and the rest of the world

population. Following the logic of recent postmodernists like Frederic Jamison

and Veit Erlmann, "difference then, lies at the heart of the artistic process" (and)

"what better terrain than world music can be imagined through which to chart the

new global culture?" (ibid.).

Erlman disputes what he describes as the disturbing notion that some

forms of world music, under certain circumstances, are to be seen as the antidote,

as it were, to the venom of Western consumer culture and cultural imperialism,

and that as Iain Chambers claims, the world's musics offer a space for musical and

cultural differences to emerge in such a manner that any obvious identification

with the hegemonic order, or assumed monolithic market logic is weakened

(ibid.:3). In order to understand this process better, I wish to provide a few brief

musicological comments of Mariachi music. The cast of European instruments

include the violin, guitar, and modern trumpet. The two indigenous ones are the

guitarrón and the vihuela -stringed instruments that provide a rhythmic core or

armonía. The trumpet was introduced to the ensemble during the 1930s, when

Mariachi was first broadcast over Mexican radio.

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When the delicate violin sound could not penetrate the airwaves, the

trumpet initially reinforced the melody lines, adding another timbral layer to the

overall texture. The vihuela has been the principle rhythmic instrument since the

1840s and has a percussive harmonic sound that quickly disappears. Early

Mariachis were originally quartets with a couple violins, a Mexican folk harp

playing the bass line, and a vihuela. The guitarrón eventually replaced the harp as

the principal bass around 1880 when Mariachis were performing al talón. They

began to play on the spot for individual commissions, playing at serenades,

weddings, and private parties. However, traveling with the harp was cumbersome

and the tuning took too much time due to the numerous strings. Hence, it was

dropped from most groups in the nineteenth century.

Later, during Mexico's golden age of cinema, the Mariachis, like the

American Singing Cowboys, played prominently in the leading roles. The traje de

charro or Mexican cowboy suit became the standard uniform for the big screen

Mariachis. Most of these Mariachis were professionally trained singers and

taught Western classical aesthetics, emphasizing instrumental virtuosity and bel

canto operatic singing style. The singing style is modeled on European opera and

Mariachis often perform arias, lieder, and art song as part of their standard

repertoire.

For Linda Ronstadt mariachi music was a way of reconnecting with her

disappearing Mexican roots and musical longings. Ronstadt discovered "mariachi

music as a way of living" and as a way of coming to terms with the Mexican side

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of herself even if it was a highly romanticized memory of an imaginary ancestral

past. According to Daniel Sheehy,

Mariachi music’s popularity has clearly been on the rise in theUnited States. An important spinoff of the mariachi festivalmovement-the Tucson International Mariachi Festival inparticular—that added great impetus to this trend was popular-music singer Linda Ronstadt’s two recordings, Canciones de miPadre (Songs of my Father) and Más Canciones (More Songs),and her national tour of mariachi music. Ronstadt made therecordings following her performance at the Tucson festival, inwhich she recalled her Mexican American musical heritage duringher years growing up in Tucson. The boost in esteem andpopularity the music enjoyed both among Mexican Americans andnon-Mexicans alike as a result of Ronstadt’s efforts werewidespread and profound (Sheehy 1997: 150).

The biggest challenge for Ronstadt was the reconstruction of herself as a

performing artist and in presenting two album tours by memorizing songs in a

language she did not speak with confidence. Mexican Americans are supposed to

be bilingual in English and Spanish, although many of us who are educated in

monolingual public schools in the United States never learned how to read and

write in Spanish. David Gates, writing for Newsweek magazine in 1988, reported

that[Linda Ronstadt’s mariachi album] “Canciones de MiPadre”—Songs of My Father—has gone gold and is at 55 onBillboard’s Top Pop album chart: hardly unusual for a LindaRonstadt LP, but pretty impressive for a record whose words mostnorteamericanos can’t understand. (Gates 1988: 66 quoted inSheehy 1997: 150).

This social contradiction especially marks the children of Chicanos in the

United States. It is a feature that points to a generational difference. Many

analysts regard the "Hispanic" generation of Mexicans in the United States as

being plagued with a cultural drift or suffering from an ancestral language loss --a

dehispanization. Nevertheless, another characteristic of this Postmodern mexicano

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is also a romanticized and sentimental nostalgia with a past Mexico. Linda

Ronstadt relied heavily on the wonderful benefits of modern technologies in the

form of video prompters in order to get through the live concert performances;

although, when one listens carefully, her pocho accent is heard.

This untidy detail was mended by the next round of Mexican popular

female singers in United States. Many children grew up listening to Canciones de

Mi Padre and learned mariachi songs. According to Daniel Sheehy,

Several years later, the late Mexican American superstar vocalist fromCorpus Christi, Texas, Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, recorded similararrangements of several of the “classic” melodies selected fromRonstadt’s Canciones de mi Padre album, taking mariachi music tostill greater audiences and inspiring adoring imitators nationwide(Sheehy 1997: 150).

During the late eighties and early nineties, late Tejano singer Selena

Quintanilla became popular. In Selena's performances, the pronunciation,

confidence, singing style, and language ability was much improved as was her

stage presence. What was not so good in her mariachi recordings was the vocal

quality or bel canto style. Selena might have eventually become a diva or Prima

Dona Mariachi singer, had her promising musical career not been cut short

prematurely by the bullet of a lone assassin, ironically the manager of her fan club

in Corpus Christi, Texas. Selena's claim to fame was not as a mariachi singer but

rather as a Tejano artist.

Tex-Mex or Tejano music developed as a result of a synthesis of working

class border music called conjunto with middle class Big Band. Conjunto is also

called chicken scratch and waila among the Papago and Pima Indians along the

Arizona/Sonora border. The style is heavily influenced by Czech and German

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dance bands featuring the push button accordion. The polca is a popular dance

which is the hallmark of the style. Big band or orquesta tipica was popular among

Mexican Americans across the Southwest following World War II. They played a

similar repertoire including boleros, mambos, chachachas, and rancheras.

According to Manuel Peña’s research associates Tony Guerrero and Rene

Sandoval, by the 1990s, "contemporary tejano groups have in large part lost their

musical "honesty". They rely too much on the synthesizer, and on "lights and

smoke" or what popular music critics describe as the "MTV effect" (1994).

Lights that dazzle, smoke that blurs the senses, and synthesizers that

require little musical training have replaced real musicianship among many

Tejano musicians, as it has for so much of North American and Latin American

pop music (ibid.). To traditionalists, MTV with its visual extramusical effects

such as the emphasis on fashion, sex appeal, and physical beauty. This new mass-

mediated and high-tech musical experience "changed it all" - as people started

listening with their eyes (Peña ibid.).

Peña believes that "until she was murdered in March of 1995, the sultry

Selena was on her way to becoming another Gloria Estefan or even the Madonna

of Latin America" (ibid.). Endowed with a charismatic stage presence and a good

voice, Selena was indeed on the verge of international stardom. However, "had

she realized her ambitions, and become a pop goddess--it would have been in

terms dictated by the late capitalist market and its circulation of international

commodities such as world beat and other ethnic musics" (ibid.).

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MTV Internacional

Global music production and the popularity of MTV programming since

1993 has been beamed daily to 210 million households in 71 countries. Their

range extends beyond the United States borders into Canada and Mexico. With

the development of cable and satelite television, MTV has gone global. One of the

most interesting musical expressions today of this new wave of cultural difference

is found perhaps in a genre variously called "world music," "world beat," or

"ethno-pop". As a category, world music emerged in the mid-1980s - initially as

little more than a handy term for musics as vastly heterogeneous as lambada, Paul

Simon's Graceland, and Linda Ronstadt's Canciones de Mi Padre. Veit Erlmann

explains (. . . ) irrespective of all the chiliastic premonitions, and despite the

unruly cross-over and disrespectful blurring of conventional boundaries, world

music appears to be unified by a fairly strict aesthetic canon which not only ties

the phenomenon back to earlier regimes of musical acculturation, syncretism (. .

.), (or) synthesis. . . . But this synthesis, he adds is also a synthesis of a new type,

for which the earlier notion of an organic totality now seems hopelessly

inadequate. We are dealing with a kind of transversality born from the random

play of unrelated differences (1993). In the Southwest, fusion was recognized

when conjunto and orquesta. Peña explains,

The early 1960s was a period of instability for orquestas. A sizableportion of the population that had traditionally provided its supportsimply began to assimilate popular American music. Cognizant ofthis assimilation (because they themselves were caught up in itssweep), younger tejano bands at this time began to adopt namesand styles inspired by American pop music. Throughout Texas,tejano groups with names like the Royal Jesters, Spider and thePlayboys, Manny and the C.O’s, Little Joe and the Latinaires, andSunny and the Sunglows attempted to keep pace with the

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American music that the younger, more assimilated tejanos wereirrestibly drawn to (1985: 103).

Manuel Peña believes new Tejano groups share minimal stylistic markers

with the older Mexican American orquestas and dance bands they replaced. He

explains,

Some orquestas (. . . ) chose to encroach on conjunto’s domainwith some positive results, especially among those borderlineworkers who were ambivalent about the merits of conjunto music.By becoming more “rancheroized” these orquestas were able tocapitalize on this ambivalence. Ultimately, of course, most of theyounger groups—notably Little Joe and the Latinaires and therenamed Sunny and the Sunliners—turned to the more traditionalorquesta tejana style, because they were simply unable (orunwilling) to compete in the field of American pop music. Forginga new, and more ranchero phase within the old orquesta traditionthat dated back to Beto Villa, the new groups establishedthemselves within a less Americanized constituency, a move thatplaced them in more direct competition with the more progressiveconjuntos (1985: 103).

Today in an effort to expand their marketability-- and at the prodding of

the major labels—he believes “these new ensembles are concentrating more and

more not only on visual effects but on a synthesized sound universal to Latin

America and they are also concentrating on its predominant genre, the cumbia "

(ibid.). In going international, Tejano and other Mejicano performers have moved

outside the parameters of earlier styles of popular music and wandered into the

international Latino market. Peña believes, "Tejano music has been transformed

from a musical symbol of Texas Mexican identity into a commodity with pan-

Latino appeal" (1994).

Eroticism and the Racialization of Musical Forms

In his autobiography devoted to the slain Tejano superstar Selena

Quintanilla Perez (1996), Joe Nick Patoski writes about her biethnic and

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racialized identities as a Mejicana singer. He discusses her fame and rise to

stardom, her celebrity image and musical career, and her wide audience appeal

throughout Greater Mexico including the United States. He discusses her

popularity among Anglo Americans following her tragic death and the release of

her final crossover English hit songs. Within the aesthetic parameters of American

ethnic popular musical success, it seems that general audience popularity is not

the only criteria in the rise to fame or rags to riches story. Moreover, the ability of

a performer to successfully blur musical and visual lines of perception is another

important factor. MTV's success relies on its own musical categories, i.e. Black

music, Latino music, Pop Country and along these lines, the human body itself

becomes a site for constructing the ethnic "other."

Erlmann believes that the ambiguities along racial, gender, and sexuality

lines expressed through popular musical forms such as MTV support this type of

identity construction. Discussing Selena’s crossover English hits, Potaski suggests

that it is the use of Spanish as a type of eroticism that blurs the racial, gendered,

and sensual element (1996: 243). In Selena's "Dreaming of You," there is a

spoken verse here, a whispered word there, hinting at a seductive, nonthreatening,

and feminine Otherness. The range of the human singing voice indicates gender

but the vocal timbre may also express an ethnic signifier through a regional

dialect or other accent. The spoken Spanish passages in both songs express a

Latina passion and sensual feminine sound quality. With both crossover songs,

Dreaming of You and I Could Fall in Love what we hear is a blurring of racial

lines occurring at the linguistic level. The song is mostly sung in English with

certain Spanish, sexy, and erotic images hinted at and presented in a rather

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seductively and suggestive fashion. Gendered musical spaces are constructed in

this juxtaposition of sexualized and racialized sounds and musical images, as men

and women are symbolically integrated into the musical performance. Likewise,

ethnic and/or nationalist identities are not understood apart from class, race,

gender, and sexuality but rather at the intersections (Balinger 1998).

I interpret this as a stylistic encrypting of musical forms working at an

interpretive psychological level, and addressing deep seated apprehension over

the bitter political debates over English as the official language of the United

States and the changing role of women in American political and social life and in

public culture. Spanish is presented in song and video in a non-threatening

context where the listener does not have to directly confront Mexicanness in a

face to face interaction. Here, the Other is constructed through the creative efforts

of artfully combining musical sounds and eroticized images with everyday spoken

Spanish conversation directly. The implied ending of the colonial order has as

much to do with the sexualized racialization of popular musical forms as it does

the feminization of American public life.

These two case studies examine female artists who came to term with their

new Mestiza consciousness and coyote ethnicity. For rock star, Linda Ronstadt,

mariachi music became a way of reconnecting with her Mexican roots. Selena, on

the other hand, reclaimed language as a form of symbolic capitol and then

assumed her place on the international musical stage with her crossover "English"

tunes. Within the Selena hits, the use of language as "eroticism" is used to remind

Americans that Mejicanos have not completely assimilated.

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I view this generation of Postmodern Mejicano musicians as organic

intellectuals in a Gramscian sense, meaning a general reference to anyone whose

social function is to serve as a transmitter of ideas in civil society and between

government and civil society. Tim Patterson describes folk musicians as organic

intellectuals, because, while these musicians do not constitute any sort of

"vanguard" or for that matter "avant-gard," "they are “one important segment of

the industrial proletariat" (1975: 282). While some may reject the notion of

musicians as being "the vanguards of a revolutionary class," Manuel Peña notes

that "they do express the conditions and resentments of a class by projecting and

defending a music that encapsulates a tacit awareness on the part of proletariats of

their class position, and an explicit awareness of their ethnic subordination"

(1975: 282).

Musical Innovation and Musical Synthesis

Manuel Peña points out that "in the stylistic realm of Tejano music,

innovation is the result of such diverse musical combinations as African

American rap with the popular cumbia" (1994). The result of this combination has

been cumbia rap. This hybrid style has become popular amongst many Mexicano

artists across the Southwest. It is important to note that such innovations are not

unique to the Southwest. Mexican musicians are attempting similar innovations

blending such diverse popular styles as mariachi with banda and even Country

Western.

El Grupo Sparx

El Grupo Sparx have overwhelmed audiences in the United States,

Mexico, and South America with their sassy, tropical flavor of New Mexican

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music and neatly choreographed dance. Their tours and concert circuit has taken

them to Argentina and Paraguay and they perform regularly throughout the

United States. They have performed in Atlanta, Miami, New England, and the

Midwest. In 1982, during their junior high school years, they performed in

seventy different locations in Greater Mexico after the release of their first album.

One of their biggest hits, "El Corrido de Juanito," was composed by their father

Tiny Morrie.

Tiny Morrie is married to another New Mexican popular female singer

from the Chicano era, Gloria Pohl. Their four daughters are the quartet El Grupo

Sparx. Their brother is also a famous singer, Lorenzo Antonio. El Corrido de

Juanito was recorded previously by Al Hurricane but was not really a hit until El

Grupo Sparx released it on their first recording with Lorenzo Antonio. El Corrido

de Juanito is on El Grupo Sparx y Lorenzo Antonio Cantan Corridos. From 1983

to 1989, El Grupo Sparx put their musical careers on hold in order to finish their

formal schooling. In 1991, they produced a new album and returned to the concert

scene in a series of antidrug performances aimed at Hispanic youth. The text and

translation of El Corrido de Juanito is presented here.

El Corrido de JuanitoAhí les va el corrido de Juanito Here goes Juanito's CorridoEs un hombre de triste corazón He is a man of sad heartEl mató a la mujer que más quería He killed the woman he most lovedY ahóra mismo se encuentra en la prisión Right now he finds himself in prison

Una noche a mediados de diciembre One night in the middle of DecemberEn el baile que Juan se presentó At a dance where he presentedSe encontraba Anita muy hermosa himself beautiful Anita wasEsperando con ancias a su amor waiting anxiously for her love

Al llegar a ese baile celebrado Arriving at that celebrated danceEn la puerta Juanito se paró At the door Juanito stoodDesde ahí vió a Anita que bailaba From there he could see that Anita dancedCon un joven quien el desconoció with a youth whom he did not recognize

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Que enorme el coraje que sentilla How enormous was his rageFue tan fuerte que loco le volvió that it's intensity drove him madQue mirando la piesa que bailaba Just watching the steps that they dancedFrente a Anita Juanito se paró In front of Anita, Juanito went and stood

Mira Anita, ya vi lo que me has hecho Look Anita, I have seen what you have doneMe traicionas y tienes que pagar You are betraying me, so you must payYa te vi en los brazos de ese hombre I have seen you in the arms of that manPor lo tanto se que te va a pesar Right now, I know that you are going to regret it

Decidido y con pistola en mano Once decided and with his pistol in his handMuy furioso Juanito le apuntó Very furious, Juanito pointed his gun.Yo soy hombre y tu me has traicionado I am a man and you have betrayed meNuestro amor ya con esto terminó Our love, with this, has ended

"No me mates", Anita le decía "Don't kill me," Anita said."Dame tiempo a una explicación" "Give me time for an explanation"Al instante oyeron dos desparos At that moment, two shots soundedY uno dellos rompió su corazón And one wounded her heart

Quando Anita estaba agonizando While Anita was in agonyHa su lado Juanito se acercó Juanito approached her side"por tus celos mira lo que me has hecho" "Because of your jealousy, look

what you have done to me""Me has herido sin tener culpa yo" You have hurt me when I wasn't at fault

"Ese joven con el que yo bailaba" That young man whom I was dancing with"Ese joven es mi hermano mayor" That young guy is my older brother"He pagado por algo que no hice" "I paid for something I didn't do""Te perdono" era su última expresión "I forgive you" was her final word

(translation mine)

This corrido may be interpreted in many ways. The first thing that stands

out is the line con pistola en mano/with his pistol in his hand. The best corrido

analysis has been completed on Texas Mexican balladry from the border region

along the lower Rio Grande. These narrative folk ballads of Mexican origin

typically have regular metrical features such as rhyming quatrains (abcb) and use

traditional imagery. Those of "epic themes" typically refer to conflict --sometimes

personal, more often social—between men. The protagonist of El Corrido de

Juanito of course is Juanito. Unlike Gregorio Cortez who was a heroic man

defending his political and civil human rights, and by extension those of his

community, against social tyranny and oppression, Juanito is reacting to an

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assault on his own masculinity and dignity. Anita, from his vantage is viewed as

his possession or object of his wrath and affection. The innocent Anita is mistaken

as la traidora (traitor) or a malinchista (infidel).

The ballad speaks to the oppression of women in traditional New Mexican

society although the date is not specified. The listener's imagination is left open to

speculation. The baile might have occurred in the present or in the past and hence

leaves the listener with a deliberate ambivalence and distortion of factual

information. Nevertheless, this corrido does record a male encounter between

Mejicanos, and at the heart of the corrido is what Jose Limón describes as "an

aestheticized and erotized figure of strong, attractive masculinity confronting

other men with the phallic power of his pistol in his hand" (1998). However,

Juanito as a jealous but passionate "Latin Lover" is attractive to whom? Certainly

feminist Chicanas are more inclined to point out the male violence directed

towards Anita and the unsavory form of machismo that Juanito evokes.

The corrido supports Paredes' earlier explanation that the Rio Grande

ballads had as their immediate models the ballad forms brought over from Spain,

which tell of the Spaniards' victory over the Moors (1976). Likewise, Jose Limón

explains that "the image of a young heroic fighting man, but sometimes also a

woman, shot to death in the prime of his (her) youth has great resonance with the

people of Greater Mexico; it is, of course, a central subject for corridos." (1998:

174). The violent response of the male subject to his object is dependent on

whether his feelings of love and affections are rejected or accepted by his love.

What I find more interesting is the way in which the corridista constructs

his imagery relying greatly on the emotional core of previous ballads inherited

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from Western European literary sources such as the décima and romance which

remained popular in the upper Rio Grande until recently. Furthermore, what

strikes me is the interesting use of metaphors in Greater Mexican balladry. The

gender implications such as flowers and females and pistols and phalluses.

Certainly the study of ballad texts provide an excellent locus for the study of

emotions and folk poetry. However, a more musicological study of these ballad

melodies remains to be seen.

Post-Chicano corridos have indicated a paradigmatic shift away from the

heroic themes of older ballads to victim subjects (Peña 1982b). The John F.

Kennedy corridos (Dickey 1978) illustrate that hero formation within Greater

Mexico is not specific to ethnic figures but includes non-Mexican political

leaders. What Límon finds most lacking is a larger study of Rio Grande folk

poetry that truly addresses what Américo Paredes referred to as a Greater

Mexican balladry in and outside of the United States (1963). Paredes, by

recognizing the folk poetry as a musical form, paved the way for a more

ethnomusicological reading of texts, styles, aesthetics, and performances of this

tradition.

The melodies of many of these ballads are available in archival recordings.

Americo Paredes' Texas-Mexican Cancionero (1976) is a music geography of the

folksongs of the lower border. The study of corrido performance practice and the

living bearers of this tradition need further study. I find it peculiar that the

tendency among performers who record ballads is to record them on specific

corrido compilations. El Grupo Sparx has recorded two commercial corrido

collections.

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Jose Limón suggests that a definitive study also remains to be done on the

full range of twentieth century popular working-class female singers of Greater

Mexico from both sides of the border (1998: 180). Most of the discussion in this

chapter has addressed the musical careers of El Grupo Sparx, Linda and Luisa

Ronstadt, Angel Espinoza, La Chicanita, and Gloria Pohl. I realize this

investigation is far from comprehensive or as exhaustive as a genre based study

but it wasn’t intended as such. I believe that I need to complete further

investigatation of male singers like Lorenzo Antonio and various others. In this

preliminary examination of Postmodern Mexicano musicians from New Mexico,

Texas, and Arizona, this dissertation is merely a first step towards further

research.

Certainly the female ranchera singing lineage includes Lola Beltran and

Lucha Villa from Mexico, Luisa Ronstadt and her niece Linda Ronstadt of

Arizona and Lydia Mendoza of Texas. Jose Limón traces the "sultry siren

nightclub singers of the pre-and post-World War II period, a la Marlene Dietrich

in Europe and Julie London in the United States, but also to be found in Mexico

and along the border" (1998: 180). He explains,

Often outfitted in tight, low-cut evening dresses, these women sangequally sexy and sultry songs, principally boleros, to audiences inclubs ranging from the very upscale to the very proletarian. In theUnited States (and very much a part of Selena's particular lineage),the incomparable Chelo Silva, from Selena's hometown of CorpusChristi, Texas, is surely the preeminent example. As an aspiringmusician growing up in this city in the 1950s, Selena's fatherwould have been wholly aware of Chelo Silva's musical presence(ibid.).

Limón believes "this particular tradition in Mexican female singers

reaches back to the nineteenth century in the American Southwest, when women

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sang and danced in the cantinas and at the notorious fandango" (ibid.). He

suggests that "when these women danced before the Anglo-American men who

frequented these establishments another distinct precursory tradition was born"

(ibid.). According to Limón, "When Selena or any other identifiably Mexican

woman performs such popular music and dance in the United States, she does so

within the semantic context of these traditions" (ibid.). In 1994, El Grupo Sparx

paid their dues to the Mariachi and produced a recording called El Grupo Sparx

con Mariachi. Their 1995 recording hit the national billboard charts and they

received their first Gold and Platinum records from Fonovisa for selling their first

100,000 copies. They have produced two successful corrido recordings with their

brother Lorenzo Antonio. In 1995, they produced yet another recording which

includes a traditional Mexican nursery song or relacíon called La Rana reflecting

more intemately the old New Mexico Hispano song tradition. They have appeared

on Spanish language television (i.e. Univision, and Telemundo) in various

interviews and performances.

There remains a serious gap in New Mexican scholarship that illuminate’s

women’s historical experiences by Chicanas and Mexicanas. A much needed and

long overdue first study is by Deena J. González whose investigation examines

the Spanish-Mexican women of Santa Fe from 1820-1880. Where her work

intersects with mine is not only her insight into gender but also her own reflexive

views on her cultural identity. She explains,

My understanding and sense of doing history has been formulatednot only in an era of postdisciplinary movements, but also when asa child I knew intimately—without words or a vocabulary—theprocess of colonization and conquest. I shared, with other 1950sbaby boomers of New Mexico, some well-documented “truths.” I

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was suppose to “know” that I was Spanish, but not Mexican; wasof Spanish-speaking descent, but not Native. I “knew” that church,family, and community organized life for me and my generation ofcousins, as it had for our aunts, uncles, and grandparents. I “knew”that education was important and that the more of it we “received,”the better off we would be. I also “knew” that Mexicans werepeople from “the other side” and that we did not speak the samelanguage, eat the same foods, or approach life in the same way,despite the fact that at home, grandparents and great-aunts andgreat-uncles insisted that we speak “Mexicano”; they meant“Spanish,” the language, but they did not refer to themselves as“Spanish,” in the way my parents’ generation had begun doingsometime after World War II (González 1999: ix).

This dissertation has stressed throughout that self-designations were part of a

constructed and folklorized history that was culturally specific and unique to a

historical reality “built on a highly slective memory that immortalized the Spanish

(Hispanos) at the expense of Native inheritance and preferred institutional life

over all forms of autonomous action or reaction, Spain over México” (ibid.x).

González explains,

Before long, however, before México could determine its ownpolitical future, it went to war with the United States. Invaded in1846, nearly bankrupt, and forced to give up nearly one-half of itslands in 1848, México bent under pressure from the giant to thenorth. These facts were rarely discussed in our history books andwould have gone a long way toward explaining the culturaldynamics embedded in our decisions about what to nameourselves. More to the point, omissions overlooked the fact thatmigration and immigration from the Mexican interior provinceswas steady and constant; in other words, not even New Mexicans,according to every available census, were isolated from otherSpanish-speakers, or from México proper (1999: x).

The folkloric versions of history taught to myself and my fellow New

Mexican friends and extended family taught both at home and in school detailed

through books and stories detailing a fabled and romantic heritage termed “Anglo,

Spanish, and Indian”—“and always in that order—contained knowledge

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constructed to suit any number of political agendas” (González 1999: x).

González concludes,

To ignore it here would be to diminish history’s power and undermineits effects. My intention is to use old and new facts, to understand andconvey the multiple possibilities embedded in multi-layered histories,and yes, to position women I have come to know through thedocuments, women who intimately understood their oppression andsought reconciliation and survival. With responses ranging fromdefiance toward authority to deference in the face of survival, SpanishMexican women crafted lives of beauty and significance, power andrevival; I watched this within my extended family (1999: x).

Changing Demographics, Musical Tastes, and Social Geography

Recalling my first years in graduate school at the University of Texas

when I struggled to explain my own cultural identity and historical experience in

much the same way as González did in her work, it seems safe to conclude that it

is an extraordinary and exciting time for many Mexicano/a entertainers and

musical celebrities living in the United States. According to recently analyzed

Federal Census Data, social geographers predicted that the population of the state

of Texas will be over 50 percent Mexican-American/Hispanic/Latino by 2000.

Meanwhile, southern California already boasts the largest populations of

Americans of Mexican descent in the United States. The attention given to New

Mexican women by González and other Chicana/os including myself is only a

first step to retrieving a more honest cultural and musical history. Striving for a

truly balanced account of the current “onda” or music scene in New Mexico, I

now wish to examine briefly a few of the male musicians contributing to musical

culture.

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Afro-Caribbean Music in New Mexico

According to journalist Antonio Lopez, "it wasn't until Panamanian Frank

Pretto first came to New Mexico in 1966 that the Afro-Caribbean rhythms of

cumbia, salsa, and merengue became part of the regional dialect (1999: 44).

Father Pretto is a Catholic priest who plays keyboards and sings with his band

Parranda in Santa Fe. Pretto strikes a balance between the local "Anglo" and

Spanish-speaking audiences and those more comprised of Latin immigrants in

Santa Fe. He performs on Friday night's at Santa Fe's posh Club Alegría. He plays

a mix of salsa, cumbia, and merengue. Pretto believes everybody relates to the

cumbia beat and he remarks that he has noticed local New Mexican groups are

starting to play more cumbia and some of the old, old mambos of Perez Prado.

Likewise, Latin Jazz has come into its own.

In Albuquerque, since the 1970s KUNM public radio station has presented

a Latin music program called Raíces that addresses public affairs. It aims at

countering the homogenizing effect of the collective attributes to commerical

Spanish language radio, dominated by Mexican programmers. Lucio Urbana is a

Raíces member and current owner of Mic Line, a New Mexico entertainment

trade magazine. He helped to create a list of more than a dozen Latin music

subcategories played on Raíces shows. Urbano investigated published play lists

and concluded that there existed a distinct bias in commercial radio towards music

produced in countries like Mexico, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Cuba

and a total disregard for Chicano and Mexicano music made in the Southwest.

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According to Charles Baca Jr., a DJ who specializes in regional Mejicano

music for Raíces, "the weighted influence of music by Latin groups from outside

the region is an unwelcome influence" (Lopez 1999: 44). Baca decries what he

considers is a deterioration of traditional culture and music. "We don't have

enough venues that play our music," Baca says, “the canciones de Nuevo Mexico

are not being played as much; the culture is now under siege, not only by the

Anglo culture, but because the Hispanic culture of other countries is changing it"

(ibid.). The inferior public school system that has cut music from its curricula is to

blame. Likewise the mediocre university music programs that continue to model

themselves after European art music conservatories contribute to the problem.

Albuquerque’s four day Mariachi Spectacular workshop held annually in July has

helped promote mariachi throughout the state and in the schools, however, New

Mexico was late in getting it going. The mariachi movement that is currently

underway is virtually the same across the Southwest. New Mexican regional

styles and popular artists still have a local following but find it difficult to

compete with more prestigious imported groups from throughout Greater Mexico.

The growing popularity of commercial Latino radio produced in Greater

Mexico and the influx of Latin American immigrants are also influencing

traditional New Mexico identity and popular music. In defining the New Nuevo

Mejicano sound, Baca has identified a number of distinctive traits that guide what

he plays. Most dramatically is the language. Baca prioritizes songs containing the

regional dialect as an important criteria. Most of the music is norteño. Baca also

points out important differences between being Chicano and South American.

Baca wouldn't object to the outside influences if the cross-cultural currents flowed

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more reciprocally. He states, "You can't deny that South American music has had

an influence. The problem is that we would also like to influence their music and

we can't" (Lopez 1999: 45).

Regional musics are difficult to define cogently and perhaps local is not as

precise because it denotes a community bounded by a village or valley. According

to Slobin, region is a somewhat larger zone of contiguous territory (1993: 18). He

describes a more flexible sense of region, partly as a result of broadcasting and

recordings. Regions are also linked among diasporic communites such as

Hispanic groups in the United States. Within regional music genres, there are

traditional local styles that coexist alongside transregional musics that cross ethnic

boundaries, even becoming continental or even global. Slobin finds “this category

of musics is increasing rapidly due to the mediascape, which at any moment can

push a music forward so that a large number of audiences can make the choice of

domesticating it’ (1993: 19).

Mickey Cruz

Another New Nuevo Mejicano musician is Nicaraguan Micky Cruz.

Orphaned at age 2, Cruz immigrated to New York where he attended high school.

After high school, Cruz moved to Albuquerque, but discovered that his repertoire

of Latin American music was virtually unknown in New Mexico. He plays

Caribbean music and when he tried to perform at local restaurants they wanted

traditional songs and regional music. He began performing New Mexican songs in

order to work. He eventually formed his own group playing Caribbean music,

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which led to an offer by Bo Diddley, who recorded Cruz at his house studio in

Albuquerque. Cruz launched his own record label, Cruzin Records.

Cruz manages to support himself making music in New Mexico. His mix

of styles includes cumbia, Caribbean, reggae, pop, polka, oldies and traditional

Spanish love ballads, although he admits he still feels like an outsider. He

acknowledges that there is a greater acceptance of tropical styles, but admits that

getting the general public to accept his music has been a challenge. Cruz explains,

"I don't fit in the salsa or reggae area. . . It's more like a variety show. We are not

able to play clubs, because we don't play New Mexican music. We don't strictly

play salsa and we don't play New Mexican music, so we play private parties and

conventions" (Lopez 1999: 45).

According to Lopez, "Mexican music has traditionally had a strong impact

on New Mexican musicians" (1999: 45). With annual mariachi conferences held

in Albuquerque and Las Cruces, it also plays an important role during community

fiestas. Likewise, "in some cases, Mexican music filtered through California's

Mexican-American population has also affected New Mexican music. For

example, Chicano activists in the '70s brought with them not only protest

corridos- a simple folk music with complex tales of social injustice and current

events- but also songs from the Nueva Canción movement of South America, a

revolutionary style of music made popular by Chilean songwriter Victor Jara"

(ibid.). I consider Micky Cruz here because he offers a perspective that illustrates

how complex and meaningful the interplay of personal choice and group activity

can be both to individuals and to society. Slobin explains,

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From the point of view of music studies, it is easy to blur the linesbetween single activists and whole traditions, between ensembles andinstitutions, and that blurring is understandable, given the kind of dataour methods turn up. We interview musicians as star culturalperformers, look at bands as small groups carrying styles, and tend tojump from these microworlds to the “group” as a whole (1993: 37).

Nueva Cancíon: Chuy Martinez

One of these popular protest singers in New Mexico is Chuy Martinez,

who currently heads a community outreach program at the Albuquerque Museum.

Born in Mexico, Martinez came to the U.S. as a migrant farm worker, eventually

becoming an organizer for Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers. He arrived in

New Mexico during the '70s as an activist using music to spread the UFW

message. As a Mexicano steeped in Chicano activism, he doesn't see a distinct,

outside Latin American influence on New Mexican music. By default, he feels the

New Mexican and greater Latin American traditions share a lot of the same

characteristics and history, most notably in the form of the corrido. Martinez

believes one of the main connections between Latin folk tradition and New

Mexican music derives from Spanish music of the 1600s and 1700s (Lopez 1999:

46). His performance of El Corrido de Manny Aragon illustrates Martinez’s point

best; however, Slobin explains,

The spread of the protest song, from its roots in Americanunion/left-wing/civil rights soil through its flowering in LatinAmerican nueva cancion, implies a third type of interculture, aglobal political, highly musical network that has not beencomprehensively studied. It is somewhat allied with thepostpeasant “folk” music movement, which drew inspiration fromthe American “folk revival” and grew to dominate a certainsegment of youth music across Europe (1993: 68).

He continues,

294

Bands from many lands learn from each other’s records, but moreprofoundly from direct contact at the many festivals that sprang upto service a transnational performer-audience interest group. Suchsituations seem to ask for a third type of cross-cutting system,which I tentatively title the affinity interculture. Musics seem tocall out to audiences across nation-state lines even when they arenot part of a heratige or a mission is of the old-fashionedvariety—face to face, mouth to ear (1993: 68).

Martinez lists other influences on older New Mexican folk and traditional

music including trios (romantic music), German music with the accordion and

polka beat, and mandolin from the Canary Islands. The difference with

contemporary New Mexican music, he notes, is that with greater immigration,

Internet and mass media, regional Hispanics have more access to international

culture, most notably through Spanish-language radio and television (Lopez

ibid.). Returning to another point raised by Slobin, he writes,

Another complication arises from the fact that people-particularlypeople in a subculture-may try to wish themselves out of theirclass, and music is a good way to imagine they are somewhereelse. Class analysts tend to think of attempts at upward mobilitythrough music as part of hegemony’s endless attempt to wipe outtraces of opposition through co-opting the subordinate class. Theproblem is how to paste a class label on the all-American music towhich people respond when they turn their backs on theirmicromusics (1993: 46).

Nuevo Flamenco: Rubén Romero

Finally, Rubén Romero is the owner of a Latin and Flamenco music store

on Santa Fe's Plaza. He has recorded several albums and he remembers listening

to mariachi during Fiesta in the '50s. In the '60s his family brought flamenco and

Spanish guitar to Santa Fe. According to Romero,

There's definitely a Mexican mariachi guitar influence ever since Ican remember. You hear it at every fiesta and every celebration.You also heard trios. . . A lot of these songs are very traditionaland have ties to Spain, Mexico and the Old World. We also have

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other influences from young people and jazz, which creates ajuxtaposition not only to tradition, but exploration, because that'swhat I think Santa Fe is (Lopez 1999: 46).

According to Lopez, unlike Raíces' Baca, Romero believes a distinctly

New Mexican style of Latin music influenced by outsiders is having a positive

effect, represented by Nuevo Flamenco. He notes, "Santa Fe has been a kind of

Shangri-la, it's been like an oasis for music. In its own way, Santa Fe is a cradle to

the Spanish guitar right now, like Seville is to flamenco. . . There are a lot of

people influencing, creating this big pot of sounds that I think you could call New

Mexican in its identity” (Lopez 1999: 46). Most recently, Albuquerque musician

Lorenzo Dominguez won a national following with his Nouveau Flamenco

recording Alma Gitano, Spanish for "Gypsy soul." Dominguez performed on a

recent installment of the CNN television show, World Beat, and discussed his

gravitation toward flamenco after starting out as a blues musician and fronting the

retro-'60s rock band, The Strawberry Zots.

Lopez concludes that to some observers, the Latin music scene in New

Mexico has bifurcated. On the one hand, you have a circuit of touring norteño

groups that play cantinas in the rural villages throughout the state. Likewise, local

mariachis and conjuntos continue performing at fiestas. Mariachi is also offered

in many of the public high school and university music programs. On the other

hand, you have salsa groups in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, whose Afro-Caribbean

rhythms tend to appeal to a non-Hispanic audience that doesn't speak Spanish.

While New Mexico's Spanish descendants still toil with identity labels and ethnic

terms like Hispanic, Chicano, and Latino, Lopez believes "signs of an identity

crisis within the Latin music scene diminish as dance steps became the great

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equalizer and music a common language transcending borders" (Lopez 1999: 47).

Perhaps this is true, but nevertheless, as this dissertation demonstrates, the

political debates over ethnic idenity and music-culture continue as New Mexico

changes its social demography and aesthetic horizons. Slobin provides an

excellent review of the problems of analysis but offers no blueprint for the

micromusical home. What is more useful than his critique of approaches is his

suggestion that we attempt to work on defining three overlapping spheres of

cultural activity: “choice,” “affinity,” and “belonging.”

The first category “is crucial for isolated individuals” and is in direct

opposition to the model of cultural pluralism” (Slobin 1993: 55). Affinity on the

hand, is essential to understanding choice and necessary for affiliation. Slobin

explains that choices are not random and “all that is clear at this point is that

strong attractions exist, and they fall into the type of affiliation web Simmel

describes” (Slobin 1993: 56). Finally, Slobin explains that a choice to follow up

an affinity leads to belonging and is itself a complex act (ibid.).

Conclusion: Methodological Anxieties over Testing the Limits ofEthnography

Cultures exist through human interaction and music is an excellent way to

investigate the nature of music-culture. Among anthropologists and

ethnomusicologists, the move toward multi-sited ethnography gives rise to three

sets of methodological anxieties. These are according to Marcus: a concern about

testing the limits of ethnography, a concern about attenuating the power of

fieldwork, and a concern about the subaltern. Marcus argues that ethnography is

predicated upon attention to the everyday, an intimate knowledge of face-to-face

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communities and groups. “The idea that ethnography might expand from its

committed localism to represent a system much better apprehended by abstract

models and aggregate statistics seems antithetical to its very nature and thus

beyond its limits (Marcus 1995: 99). He explains,

Although multi-sited ethnography is an exercise in mapping terrain, itsgoal is not holistic representation, an ethnographic portrayal of theworld system as a totality. Rather, it claims that any ethnography of acultural formation in the world system is also an ethnography of thesystem, and therefore cannot be understood only in terms of theconventional single-site mise-en-scene of ethnographic research,assuming indeed it is the cultural formation, produced in severaldifferent locales, rather than the conditions of a particular set ofsubjects that is the object of study (Marcus 1995: 99).

This investigation attempts to show how the global is an emergent

dimension of arguing about the connection among and between historical, ritual,

and other aesthetic and expressive sites in a multi-sited music ethnography. As a

multi-sited ethnography, this dissertation stipulates some sort of a total world

system; however incomplete my effort is at this point. According to Marcus, “as

long as the terms of any particular macro-construct of that system are not allowed

to stand for the context of ethnographic work, it becomes opportunistically

constituted by the path or trajectory it takes in its design of sites” (ibid.).

Marcus also points out that the issue that arises here is “whether multi-

sited ethnography is possible without attenuating the kinds of knowledges and

competencies that are expected from fieldwork?” (ibid.) In other words, is multi-

sited fieldwork practical? Marcus argues,

One response is that the field broadly conceived and encompassed inthe fieldwork experience of most standard ethnographic projectsindeed already crosses many potentially related sites of work, but asresearch evolves, principles of selection operate to bound the effectivefield in line with long-standing disciplinary perceptions about what the

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object of study should be. Thus, fieldwork as traditionally perceivedand practised is already itself potentially multi-sited (1995: 100).

New Mexican music-cultural history may only be understood in

ethnographic terms; however unlike in anthropology, this feature of music-culture

research is unproblematic. This has something to do with the fragmentary,

reconstructive nature of modern music historical methods, in which the

composition and probing of the relationships of dispersed materials are basic. It is

the ethnomusicologists’ appreciation of the difficulty of doing more intensive

ethnography at suitable sites for music making that renders a more comprehensive

understandiung of the people under study. The challenges that come from archival

work completed in the historical past and the integration of recorded materials and

fieldnotes in the ethnographic present renders an alternative perspective to

conventional ethnomusicology fieldwork.

Marcus points out that, “something of the mystique and reality of

conventional fieldwork is lost in the move toward multi-sited ethnography,

although not all sites are treated by a uniform set of fieldwork practices of the

same intensity” (ibid.). Mark Slobin (1993) shows how shifting the focus of

various “units” and “levels” of analysis in ethnomusicology research results in a

paradigmatic shift towards alternative discursive spaces. Marcus explains,

Multi-sited ethnographies inevitably are the product of knowledgebases of varying intensities and qualities. To do ethnographic research,for example, on the social grounds that produce a particular discourseof policy requires different practices and opportunities than doesfieldwork among the situated communities such policy affects. Tobring these sites into the frame of study and to posit their relationshipson the basis of first-hand ethnographic research in both is theimportant contribution of this kind of ethnography, regardless of thevariability of the quality and accessibility of that research at differentsites (1995: 100).

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He continues,

Many factors thus control the quality of fieldwork in multi-sitedresearch. The point is that in such research a certain valorizedconception of fieldwork and what it offers wherever it is conductedthreatens to be qualified, displaced, or decentered in the conduct ofmulti-sited ethnography. Still, what is not lost but remains essential tomulti-sited research is the function of translation from one culturalidiom or language to another. This function is enhanced since it is nolonger practiced in the primary, dualistic “them-us” frame ofconventional ethnography but requires considerably more nuancingand shading as the practice of translation connects the several sites thatthe research explores along unexpected and even dissonant fractures ofsocial location. Indeed, the persuasiveness of the broader field that anysuch ethnography maps and constructs is in its capacity to makeconnections through translations and tracings among distinctivediscourses from site to site (Marcus 1995: 101).

Marcus argues that the enhanced challenge of translation, literal language

learning remains as important as it has been in preparing for traditional fieldwork

(ibid.). Simply “knowing the language” does not guarantee the integrity of

traditional fieldwork anymore than being a native of a particular research site

allows for priveledged entrée into local knowledges and sub-altern cultural logics.

However, knowing the cultural grammar and ethnoaesthetic codes renders the

bounded field—e.g. the people, the nation, the ethnic group, the community and

its most important coherence as a complex music-culture. I am convinced that

these skills are as important to multi-sited fieldwork as is the emic perspective or

“insider” knowledge. Marcus points out,

…if such ethnography is to flourish in arenas that anthropology hasdefined as emblematic interests, it will soon have to become asmultilingual as it is multi-sited. In this sense, it conforms to (and oftenexceeds) the most exacting and substantive demands of traditionalfieldwork (Marcus 1995: 101).

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One last theoretical issue that must be readdressed here is what Mark

Slobin calls “four important lessons” from Raymond William’s commentary on

the writings of Antonio Gramsci. These are,

1. Societies (nation-state bounded regions) have no overarching,dominating—if not domineering mainstream that is internalized in theconsciousness of governments, industry, subcultures, and individualsas ideology. Let us call it hegemony.

2. Hegemony is not monolithic. There is no Board of Directors thatmonitors hegemony daily, adjusting and fine-tuning it. It can be formaland informal, explicit and implicit, conscious and unconscious,bureaucratic and industrial, central and local, historical andcontemporary.

3. Hegemony is not uniform; it does not speak with one voice. It iscomplex, often contradictory, and perhaps paradoxical.

4. Hegemony is contrapuntal: there are alternative and oppositionalvoices in this cultural figure that affect and shape the “themes.” Points3 and 4 mean that hegemony may be dissonant as often as harmonious,since no one knows the score (Slobin 1993: 27).

In conclusion, this historical investigation of New Mexican popular

traditional musics offers an alternative perspective on music-culture, and attempts

to provide a more comprehensive multi-sited analysis. I’ve examined more

critically the aesthetic, political, religious, and cultural meanings behind various

contemporary Mexicano popular musical styles, artists, and other cultural

symbols. I’ve located these units and levels of analysis within broader ritual,

intellectual, and historical performance contexts. Keeping in mind that multi-sited

ethnography is often lacking in depth or thick description. This investigation

presents alternative discursive spaces open for further investigation on various

topics only hinted at here.

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Hegemony raises more questions than it really answers. Slobin asks “it is

difficult to know hegemony when you see or hear it. Furthermore, once you think

you find it, how do we use it for the investigation of music-culture?” (1993: 27-

28). He warns of the dangers here. He writes: “an easy response to the first

question might lead you to assume that almost anything is an example of

hegemony, since there is no picture of it on the post office wall to compare with

the suspect you’ve rounded up. Quick applications that avoid the second question

can lead you to make facile generalizations (often seen in rock criticism) about

the relationship of unexamined “dominant classes” or assumed ideologies to

music-makers or consumers” (Slobin 1993: 27-28). I offer no clear cut answers

only more questions, speculations, and my own insights. If errors of omission (or

commission) are to be found in this work, they are entirely of my own doing and

should not reflect on the men and women who willingly shared with me their

most intimate knowledge and sentiments about New Mexican people and their

music. I can only assure them and my readers that I did my best in earnest to

reconcile my own research interests, born at least out of academic commitments

to excellence, with their own music-cultural lives. Lastly, I want to express my

heartfelt gratitude to all those people who collaborated with me, and I especially

thank them for their patience in the face of my own questions and those asked by

others. It is my sincerest hope that this work contributes toward a better

understanding of and an advocacy for my people and Greater Mexican musical

culture.

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Appendix

Musical Transcriptions

316

El Corrido de San MacialRecorded @1970by Freddie Brown

El día veinte de agosto, The twentieth day of August,no me quisiera acordar, I do not want to remember,ue se llevo el Río Grande On that day the Río GrandeEl pueblo de San Marcial. The town of San Marcial.

Era una tarde muy triste, It was a very sad afternoon,fecha la tengo presente. The date I remember well.Trenes llegaron de El Paso Trains arrived from El Pasopara auxiliar a la gente. To help the people.

Pues no rea tan poca el agua, The water was pretty high,casas andaban nadando, Houses were floating around,y por arriba de las lomas And the people went weepingla gente andaba llorando. To the hilltops.

Probecita mi gente My poor peoplePresente lo tengo yo, I have to present this,Todos sus casas perdiron They lost their houses,Mala suerte les tocó! They were fated with bad luck!

Ah, qué lástima de pueblo Oh, how sad that the towncomo quedó destrozado! Remains so destroyed!Por en medio de la calle In the middle of the streetlomos de arena quedaron. Mounds of sand remained.

El corrido fre compuesto This ballad was composedA san Marcial y su gente To San Marcial and its peoplepara que el mundo acuerde. So the world will rememberY el mundo lo tengo presente. And the world I have present.

Yo canto este corrido I sing this balladAy que tristesa me da. What sadness it evokes.Es la historia de este pueblo It is the history of the town.a mi me cantó mi papa. My father sang it to me.

Ya me voy a despedir Now I bid farewellLas gracias les quiero dar My gratitude I wish to expressAquí se acaba el corrido The ballad ends hereAl fin de San Marcial. Then end of San Macial.

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Mexico.

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342

VITA

Peter J. Garcia was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico on January

14, 1964, the son of Peter C. Garcia and Rose L. Garcia. After completing

his work at Valley High School, Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1982, he

entered the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. He received the

degree of Bachelor of Music Education with distinction in December ,

1986. He received the Master of Music degree in performance from the

University of Arizona, Tucson in May 1989. During the remainder of

1989, he was employed as a music teacher at Sydney Church of England

Grammar School in Sydney, Australia.

From September 1990 until August 1992, he was employed as an

Assistant Instructor of Music at the University of Arizona. In January,

1993, he entered The Graduate School at the University of Texas and

completed another Master's degree in Music in 1996. He completed

dissertation research while working as a student intern for the New

Mexico National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque throughout

1998. He also was also a Lecturer at the University of New Mexico in the

Department of Music. During 1998-1999, he was a Consortium of Liberal

Arts College's Minority Scholar in Residence at Bowdoin College in

Brunswick, Maine where he taught in the Department of Music. In 1999

Mr. Garcia was a Riley Minority Scholar in Residence at the Colorado

College where he taught in the Department of Music and where he

founded and debuted Mariachi Tigre de Colorado College. He remained at

Colorado College for another year teaching several courses and

presenting various mariachi and Latin American music performances

as an Instructor of Music. He has accepted a posit ion as

Ethnomusicologist in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at

Arizona State University in Tempe.

Permanent Address: 10909 4th Street NWAlameda, New Mexico 87114

This dissertation was typed by the author.

garcia, peter - la onda nuevo mexicana- multi-sited ethnography, ritual contexts, and popular...

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