Mexican Americans and Authenticity in Folklore

In a recent traditional arts proposal, the applicant is asked to describe their cultural lineage. I see this as an important question because there has long been bias around lineage in Mexican traditional arts. And I welcome the opportunity to address it with depth and nuance.  The recognition of Mexican tradition bearers in Mexican American communities is typically weighted towards the Mexican born and those with lineage recognized by institutions when, in fact, our deep traditions are often transmitted informally, beyond institutional reach. 

These biases also have deeply personal resonance for those of us who are US born and sometimes treated as outsiders to our own heritage by people and institutions tasked with designating authenticity.  In college, my Irish American ethnomusicology professor, and director of our student mariachi, told a friend that I was ashamed of being Mexican because I did not behave in a manner that he recognized. The greatest folk masters with whom I have worked invited me into the tradition as a practitioner based on my ability, not place of birth, primary language, nor cultural affinity. I could not imagine teaching traditional music to my American born or non-Latino students under the condition that they could never be fully part of it.

I began the Los Cenzontles youth group at a multicultural arts organization in the 1980’s. The project’s success made its director feel threatened by our increasing independence. In 1994, I was given an ultimatum to forfeit my contract to the children’s album Papa’s Dream that I was independently producing for Los Lobos and Lalo Guerrero under a claim of intellectual property. I declined. Before I was fired, a celebrated African drum master, the director’s mentor, was tasked with giving me ‘one last chance’ to submit. In that meeting he became outraged at my resistance and screamed, while assaulting me, “You are nothing! Not even a real Mexican! You owe everything to ---- (the director). He made you!” 

I then incorporated Los Cenzontles Mexican Arts Center; we celebrated cultural independence, and began growing our program and organization based on the idea that culture belongs to those who work it - to borrow from Emiliano Zapata. And I could not be more proud of the accomplishments and impact that Los Cenzontles has made on its thousands of students and traditional music on both sides of the border.  

In our globalized era we must adjust our attitudes about authenticity, cultural belonging and identity. The rural economies and lifestyles that gave birth to Mexico’s folk traditions are gone or disappearing rapidly. Many elder folk masters now live outside their ancestral lands, and people continue to migrate, creating fluid opportunities for the flourishing of traditional arts in new places.  Yet, antiquated colonial attitudes and control that persist in the US and in Mexico dampen the possibilities of the traditional arts which thrive best when provided unobstructed air and fertile ground, whether rural or urban, in Mexico or the US. 

It is past time that we recognize broadly that Mexican Americans are a vital part of the diaspora of Mexican culture. And that our masters are masters. There is no sustainable alternative.

Eugene Rodriguez

Linda and the Mockingbirds

 "Linda and the Mockingbirds" is a film that chronicles a voyage my students took last year with Linda Ronstadt to her grandfather's pueblo in Sonora, Mexico. We brought 22 members of Los Cenzontles, a cultural-arts academy in a working-class neighborhood of San Francisco's East Bay, to perform in the cradle of Linda's family culture.

I founded Los Cenzontles (the Mockingbirds) in 1989 to teach young people traditional Mexican music, dance and art with an emphasis on rigor, responsibility and social connection. We instill in them a sense of belonging to our Mexican heritage and to our country, the United States. At our Academy, they are hosts and stewards. They take pride in its upkeep and cultivate its productive, respectful internal culture. Most educational institutions treat minority students like invited guests, however politely. But a strong sense of belonging is what best benefits children and a democratic society.

From San Francisco to Tucson, and across the Sonoran Desert to the Rio Sonora Valley, we never left lands that Mexicans have called home for longer than the United States has existed. And yet, we Mexican Americans are treated like strangers in our own country.

"Linda and the Mockingbirds" is not overtly political. It focuses on music, culture, identity and belonging through personal stories and songs. But politics surrounded our production like storm clouds, feeding its underlying emotional tension.

The day our bus entered Mexico — Feb. 15, 2019 —  a national emergency was declared at the border. The declaration was not a response to any real threat, but political theater designed to stoke White fear about a 'foreign invasion' by Mexican and Central American migrants. As such, it did not target us American Latinos, but we know that our citizenship is a thin shield against its true purpose: racial intimidation.

In 1993, we found an advocate in Linda Ronstadt, whose mariachi recordings brought widespread visibility to and pride for our traditions. For many, like Fabiola Trujillo portrayed in our film, hearing Linda's music as a child growing up in our neglected neighborhood gave her a sense of hope. At that time, as marginal as we were, I didn't imagine we would meet a person as famous as Linda. Yet she saw us and heard us. For nearly 30 years, Linda has provided us encouragement, guidance and introductions that expanded our opportunities.

In the plazas of Banamichi and Arizpe, Sonora, our children performed alongside young local Mexicans during the afternoons. At night, we adults sang Mexican rancheras and American popular songs with fellow traveler Jackson Browne, Linda's longtime friend and Academy supporter. The experience underscored the enduring power of music in challenging times, and offered us respite from the political acrimony at home.

As a Mexican American, I know well the corrosive impact of being treated as the other. Historically enforced by land theft, terror, derision, and the denial of opportunity, exclusion has hindered our progress. But we progress nonetheless.

My grandparents walked north across the border a hundred years ago. They and their descendants cultivated this land, built its economy, contributed to its culture, and served to protect it. My parents taught me to take pride in my Mexican heritage and to defend my rights as an American. Our student Verenice Velazquez once told me, in response to anti Mexican discrimination, that she did not feel that this was her country. I admonished her to not let such thoughts get into her head, echoing the words of my father.

America's identity myth, framed by white supremacy, does not include us, and many others. Its selective exclusion infects our national consciousness like a virus, propagated by intransigent institutions, stagnant cultural icons, and opportunistic politicians. And its destructiveness is no longer confined to minority communities. It is destroying our nation.

In August 2019, when we filmed our students' families at their homes in Richmond and San Pablo, we grieved for those who, days earlier, were massacred at an El Paso Walmart by a domestic terrorist for being Mexican. It was a deep open wound that provoked unusually emotional, candid interviews by our reserved community members. But almost as quickly as news reports flooded the media, they receded. Even after this year's mass protests against racial discrimination, Latinos are still largely invisible in public discourse. And when we do appear, it is to discuss only those issues that define our otherness.

We Mexican Americans know that we must work harder and be smarter to get ahead in this environment. Even though I resent it, I work through it with the hope that my son Emiliano will not have to. I have believed in, and championed, America's arc of social justice.

But the unbridled bigotry of the last four years has shaken my faith, and my father is no longer alive to reassure me. Yet, I continue to teach and make music and media that brings joy, reflection and, most importantly, nurtures our children's resilience that will serve them throughout their lives.

I can only hope that white supremacy has finally been exposed for its corruption and incompetence.  And that white Americans are beginning to understand the sense of beleaguered exclusion we minorities have long suffered.  Clearly, a system that excludes more than it includes is unsustainable.  We must realign American identity to reflect its reality.

"Linda and the Mockingbirds" captured our stories and cultures in a moment in time, but its sentiments and traditions are ancient. I hope it allows more Americans to better know Mexican Americans. But more than that, I hope it inspires a greater sense of shared belonging that will help allow our country to heal, unify, and survive.

Danza - The Timely Power of Collective Culture

 

In the age of social media, culture can often be reduced to a glance or gesture to attract maximum, momentary impact. it is certainly not the optimal platform to share a Mexican danza, especially as practiced by young students. Danzas are reverential, lengthy rituals practiced traditionally throughout Mexico. They are aimed at honoring a greater power, not the ego of the individual. Their intention is humility, participation and reverence, not performance or competition. 

In 2002, master folk artist Julian Gonzalez Saldaña, from Jalisco, Mexico, taught our student dancers and musicians the many movements of Danza de los Copetones in its entirety. He oversaw the creation of the costumes for which each dancer decorated their own copete, or headpiece, for which he cut bamboo that he found at the entrances of local freeways. Our teachers Marie-Astrid Do-Rodriguez, Lucina Rodriguez, and Tregar Otton taught our students to express the meaning and nuances of the costumes, dance and music. And we presented the danza to initiate one of our annual festivals at the San Pablo Civic Center. 

This video is unlikely to be viewed in its entirety, given its length, repetition, and imperfections. And that is ok. This was not it’s intention. Rather, we hope that people might scan through the video and consider the deeper intention of this collective effort and the earnest, dedicated student attention required for its preparation, rehearsal and presentation. 

Our recreation of Danza de los Copetones was not about attracting attention to the individuals involved. It was about honoring our collective spirit with humility - something that many of us are trying to practice today in the era of Covid-19. For that reason, I decided to finally edit this footage in full and share it. 18 years later. To remind ourselves that the power of cultural art, like the power of nature itself, is much greater than any one of us. And that only our collective spirit can light our path forward. 

Poverty, Shame and the Power of Cultural Resilience

In our society, driven by raw power and the incessant shriek of marketers, the humble are largely invisible. But they live, contribute, and create in spite of bearing the brunt of our most cruel inequities.  In our working class neighborhood, the high price of housing forces our families to share small fragile homes, sleep in garages and living rooms, creating unhealthy conditions. Health care, if available, is inconsistent, exacerbating illness and cutting short lives. Neighborhood schools offer the minimum to students most in need of quality education. Our children grow up barraged by political messages that mock our heritage, brand them as carriers of infestation and their immigrant parents as 'enemy invaders'. These are realities faced daily, and directly, by many of the staff, children, families and artists at Los Cenzontles Cultural Arts Academy, in San Pablo, California. And this is nothing new. 

To understand the deepest impact of Los Cenzontles' cultural work requires an understanding of the corrosive and insidious impact of shame that is imposed upon people living in poverty and those from poor countries. Shame makes us deny, and be ignorant of, our family histories and cultures. Shame deprives us of recognizing the values, contributions and sacrifices of our parents and grandparents. Shame robs our children the guidance and nourishment of family support and connection. Shame infects and disables us from within. Shame renders us invisible and silent even to ourselves.  

Over the past thirty years, Los Cenzontles has set our authentic cultural traditions into the hands, voices, and homes of children; onto historically inaccessible stages; and into films, videos and albums. Typically, the stories and songs of the working class are told in third person and passed through filters intended to soften their rough edges and conceal the stigma of poverty. But it is precisely the direct strength of our stories and songs that embody the perseverance that we must reveal, celebrate and encourage. Our intention is not to romanticize poverty, but to recognize the fortitude required to lift oneself, and one’s loved ones, above the miseries of poverty. And to appreciate the powerful nuances and resourceful art strategies of people in struggle. This is what our children must connect to, and build upon.  Because it is cultivating our inherited resiliency that will console us, fortify us, and bring us joy throughout our lives. 

Neighborhoods such as ours are, by design, built upon instability. There exists a constant buzz of insecurity threatening one’s sense of well-being and safety, not only because of crime, but also because of political, institutional and societal neglect. Los Cenzontles Cultural Arts Academy is a carefully cultivated space, a transformed strip mall storefront, designed to allow children and artists feel secure enough to take the kinds of risks that are necessary for deep learning, reflection and expression.  We thoughtfully created our unique pedagogy for today’s urban children from years of intensive learning with master artists, laborers by trade, who learned music and dance in family settings. 

At our Academy, rigor and connection are essential to releasing the power of art. We challenge children, beginning at four years old, to dance complex rhythms of Mexicanson. They loudly, and accurately, stomp percussive zapateado dance which develops balance, coordination, listening and confidence. Their teacher, also raised in our neighborhood program, understands, from experience, that demanding excellence from her students is an act of respect and empowerment. She requires them to listen carefully to the accompanying music and engage in improvised rhythmic conversation. 

And for us, the cultural arts are most transformational when connected to social context and personal expression. Timid teen girls, who speak in cautious hushed tones to strangers, belt out popular ranchera songs in full chest voice with surprising power. Parents reveal that their children, who previously wanted little to do with their ancestral culture or language, proudly sing with their grandparents at home. Young men who listen to rap with their friends grab ancient Mexican instruments and play with the intensity of hard rock – as practiced for centuries by Mexico’s hardest workers. Children quietly reflect on deceased loved ones with their peers as they create ofrendasfor our Dia de los Muertos altars. Students of mixed heritage, and those who don’t speak Spanish, discover and nurture the languages of art to connect to that part of their themselves. 

Los Cenzontles does not impose identity upon youth. Nor do we wish to join the noise of relentless marketing. We provide choices, awareness and discipline. In our fast moving, complex world of multiple, ever connecting, cultures, empowerment is not about confining oneself to, or reacting to, narrow stereotypes, but to use all of who we are to inform our voices. Amidst the din of social and political intimidation, one of the most difficult, bravest, and empowering things we can do is to be ourselves. In all its fullness, and without shame. 

Folk, vernacular and popular arts were not originally intended to be practiced with delicate, arms-length, reverence, but with directness, focus and energy. Their power is tied to their relevance and connection to social context. And these are the qualities that forged our country’s cultural identity. This is why working-class culture has contributed disproportionately to America’s national heritage - a contribution that is almost always unreciprocated. 

So, when the members of Los Cenzontles teach, perform and document our authentic traditions from within our community – and connect them to others - we do so with purpose and humility.  We work to activate our living heritage as our way to contribute the best of ourselves to our children and to our society - in honor, and with gratitude, to all those who did the same for us. 

Surviving a Myth

Why is there such stubborn, irrational defense of Donald trump’s corruption, ineptitude and betrayal? Because an ancient myth that has guided the western world for centuries is being threatened by changed demographics and culture. It is the myth of the omnipotent white man taming the natural world and its colored inhabitants. He is branded an entrepreneur rather than a predator; an investor rather than a plunderer. A romancer, rather than a rapist. And his counterpart, the enlightened liberal, is the guardian of our natural world; the arbiter of justice; the protector of us, the white man’s burden. Two sides of the same coin. White men move history and roam the world. To the Right he brings development, culture and enlightenment. To the Left he wrecks exploitation and destruction.  Either way he moves history. We, colored people, may only react. 

Why was Barack Obama’s presidency such a profound threat to this myth? Because he was nuanced, thoughtful, humorous, and cultured.  He did not confine himself to one of the two prescribed stereotypes that male leaders of color are allowed – the deified martyr or the revolutionary menace. He dared to be fully human. Worse of all, the daughters and wives of old white men voted for him and admired him – the same dynamic that got countless men lynched throughout history. 

And is true that plenty of women and people of color protect this myth as well to maintain whatever advantage they have found by its well-worn rules. 

There is a pivotal scene in the 1967 film In The Heat of the Night when black big city homicide detective Virgil Tibbs, played by Sydney Poitier, returns a slap to the face by a Southern plantation owner – who, horrified by this unimaginable act of defiance, sends his men to kill Tibbs. Reportedly, Donald Trump decided to run for president when he felt publically humiliated by Barack Obama’s roast at a Washington Press Corp dinner. This was the spark that inspired a movement of old white men to ‘fight back’ and regain the world order they feared they were losing. 

But what of our new world where leaders of all levels of business, education and civil society are increasingly women and people of color? The old myth is crumbling by necessity due to the reality of demographics and time. Even we were to fully adopt an Apartheid system, these old men, the mass of trump supporters, are dying. So, clearly we must adjust our consciousness and evolve our myths to reflect our changed world. 

During my thirty plus years of working with Mexican American youth I have always encouraged them to see themselves as complete individuals, leading their own narratives. I have worked for them to see that their family cultures are not mere reactions to white oppression, but complex and connected as they have always been. Tragically, we have often contorted ourselves to fit within the great white myth.  But the myth was always a lie. And now, in its death throes, we see the lie on a massive, absurd, and dangerous scale. It is our urgent duty to bury it. 

Why I Love Old Traditions

Give Me Love

 

 

We have criminalized poverty, migration, work, and hope.

Only the most vulnerable element of our corrupt and exploitative system of underground labor, the workers, are disproportionately punished and branded as villains and illegals, while businesses, homeowners, consumers benefit.

This new video features powerful images taken of migrants in Mexico and the US Mexico border by photo journalist Ken Light over the past four decades. They are painful to watch. but important to see, as they reveal a reality for many today, and the family history of many living among us. The music is our Mexican son version of George Harrison's classic song Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth) that we recorded with David Hidalgo.

Thoughts About Walls

Of all the walls designed to keep Mexicans and Mexican Americans in our place, trump’s is the least clever and would be the least effective. It’s symbolism, though, reinforces the barriers that actually keep us invisible, unheard, under represented, under resourced, maligned, stereotyped, dismissed and segregated. The actual walls are so complex and entrenched in American culture and politics that they are barely discussed or challenged. They protect the myth of an America within which we are illegitimate, where we are are strangers in our own land, and where our work and contributions are diminished as opportunistic and negligible. Those walls are protected by rigged rules and systems, biased language, and dominant political ideologies within which we are treated as marginal and token. 

So, trump’s wall, like trump himself, is a brutish, ugly manifestation of what has always existed in America. It is both a distraction and an opportunity to identify and address the real barriers that we should be discussing and dismantling. But we aren’t.

A Message About Dreamers

False and distorted notions about immigrants in the United States, and about American identity itself, have set the stage for the current tumult surrounding immigration and the young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers. 

I am a third-generation Mexican American. I believe in law and order. Only through the just application of law can we thrive as a free nation of justice and opportunity. And only through clear and honest analysis of our problems can we forge lasting and sustainable solutions. 

But our conversation about immigration in America is anything but clear and honest.

Undocumented immigrants are just one part of a broadly accepted system that has long benefited the American economy, provided consumers with affordable products and services and offered immigrants a chance at economic advancement. If work were not available, people would not risk their lives to come here. Those jobs are everywhere, offered by big, medium and small business as well as individuals.

To punish only the most vulnerable in this economic arrangement is an unjust application of law. If we were to punish wrongdoers equally, we would condemn as “illegal” the businesses that hire “illegal” workers to grow, pick, butcher, cook and serve our food. We would punish these businesses as harshly as the workers they hire. And we would drastically disrupt the lives of “illegal” homeowners who hire “illegal” workers who care for their homes and children, and the sick and elderly.

But we don’t. We brand only the workers as illegal.

It’s one thing to hold people accountable for their legal transgressions. It’s quite another to dehumanize people with terms like “illegal” that invite division, bigotry and persecution. Clearly there is something going on here besides law and order.

I have directed a non-profit Mexican American cultural center in the East Bay area of San Francisco for nearly 30 years. During this time our community, like many others, has been fundamentally transformed by immigration from Mexico. The change was so dramatic that our programming became largely focused on the challenges and opportunities created by this demographic shift. As traumatic as culture clash and acculturation can be, they also create enormous social energy and possibility.  But in order to focus and cultivate that energy, we must make social investments in the people most directly impacted - the workers, both native and immigrant, and their children. Of course, as a nation, we have neglected to do so.

Our organization, Los Cenzontles (The Mockingbirds), provides rigorous cultural arts education to young people. We connect them to the heritage that has provided resilience to Mexicans and Mexican Americans for generations. Our performing group is dedicated to exploring, expressing and sharing these cultural roots and connections. And our media productions tell stories of people in our community who built and fought for our country, but have long lived in history’s shadows.

While certain media outlets focus exclusively on negative stories about immigrants, dwelling on crimes and violence, all of the undocumented immigrants I know are just trying to live their lives. Many embody what it is to be a model American – hard-working people who take enormous risks to care for their families.

While some insist that the targeting of “illegals” is not about bigotry, many U.S.-born Mexican Americans and legal immigrants will tell you that we are also often treated as the unwelcomed “other,” even though we are as American as anyone. Many of our families have been here longer than those who demean us.

Three of my grandparents arrived from Mexico almost one hundred years ago. The fourth was born in Arizona before it was even granted statehood. I grew up in a Mexican American family with a strong work ethic, commitment to community and faith in the American dream.

Yet, recently, a drunken neighbor assaulted me in front of my own home when I came to the aid of a woman he was abusing on the sidewalk. Before he hit me, he called me an “illegal,” almost as if that gave him permission to attack. Raised to take responsibility for my community, I made sure that the man was arrested and charged. Too many Americans quietly accept the false myth that this is a white country and those who are not white are secondary. That has never been true. The best of America's legacy and promise is built not on race or ethnicity, but on the unifying values of hard work, sacrifice, vision and faith in one another.

The Dreamers that I know are regular young people doing their best to study and work. And they are all around us.  Most people would not even be able to distinguish them from other Americans. This is the predicament that the demise of DACA — the Obama administration’s program to protect Dreamers from deportation — forces America to confront: Who are we?

For nearly 30 years, Los Cenzontles Academy has demonstrated that our children are as capable as any others given training, support, opportunities and raised expectations. And I know of no other youth more committed to their futures, and appreciative of their opportunities, than the children of immigrants and the Dreamers.

Because of its economic benefits, politicians on both sides of the aisle have long protected our malfunctioning system of underground immigrant labor and broken laws. Reasonable people have long called on Congress and the President to overhaul the laws to conform to reality and decency. But they have failed to do so, prolonging a situation that provides political opportunity, invites scapegoating, exacerbates social tension and prolongs uncertainty for millions of hard working people, while jeopardizing social order and public safety.

This stalemate has also unearthed historic undercurrents of bigotry, distorted notions of who contribute legitimately to American society. These notions represent the worst of America’s legacy and provide no path forward.

We have delayed honest conversations about economics, immigration and identity for much too long. Dealing justly with the Dreamers and the issue around undocumented labor provides us an opportunity to address many of our big and pressing issues.  These include fair wages, class disparity, bigotry, and the unique value that an inclusive American identity provides.

And we must refocus our commitment to invest meaningfully in our most valuable resource: our youth. And they include the Dreamers. They are us.

The Dreamer - Jackson Browne feat. Los Cenzontles 

Being Visible - Huapango

Culture is what has provided working class Mexicans the resilience to sustain themselves through centuries of neglect and abuse. The fortunate immigrant communities in the U.S. are able to maintain and continue traditions from their specific ancestral regions. Traditional culture involves active participation from all ages and connect generations as families negotiate dramatic changes to their lives and navigate their future. 

This brief video provides an intimate glimpse of a traditional huapango (musical dance) held at the Marin City Recreational Center hosted by members of the community from a region of Guanajuato, Mexico, with a rich tradition of huapango arribeño and son huasteco. Thousands of people from this region have settled in the Bay Area since the 1970’s and began producing regular community dances in the past seven years. 

This song features Bay Area based group Tradición de la Sierra with elder troubadour Pedro Sauceda Diaz visiting from San Luís Potosí. These events often raise funds for causes related to their pueblo of Xichú, Guanajuato, or to support community members in need. This event raised funds for Los Cenzontles Academy at which many of their San Pablo, Richmond and San Rafael Canal District based children have attended for many years. 

The musical form presented here, almost unknown to people from outside the region, is called huapango arribeño (highlands huapango) that are played in three parts and can easily last 15 to 20 minutes depending on the poet and the dancers. The instrumentation is two violin with two folk guitars - the jarana huasteca and the huapanguera. 

This video, created by our production team, features Don Pedro reciting three decimas (ten line poems) out of the five that form the first part of the song – in other words, just a small part of the entire piece. But we wanted to share this glimpse into this community gathering to demonstrate the power of living cultural traditions that unify and fortify our diverse, and often invisible, Mexican communities. 

Why my Mexican grandparents were more "American" than Donald Trump (and his ilk).

Why my Mexican grandparents were more "American" than Donald Trump (and his ilk).

1) My grandparents lived and built their American dream. Unlike Trump, who inherited wealth and privilege, they knew the value of work beyond a line item. In a new land, they moved themselves from fieldworkers and seamstresses to business people and homeowners. They were pioneers who adapted to their new country with humility and optimism. 

2) My grandparents invested in people. They ensured that their children received a quality education and supported their extended family, community and church. When Trump talks about investment he refers only to a financial world of winners and losers. Bankruptcy and job loss are simply costs of doing business.  America fails to properly invest in its people at its great peril. 

3) My grandmothers were grateful for the opportunities this country provided them. Both became U.S. citizens at an advanced age. After they blessed us with “Dios Lo Bendiga”, they would add “God Bless America”. The staggering sense of entitlement and shortsightedness that pollutes our society is disgraceful and dangerous. Without a sense of our history of progress, gratitude for our good fortune, and sense of collective responsibility our society will slide into increasing fear and hopelessness. A powerful country overrun by fear is a recipe for tragedy of global proportions. 

Work hard, invest in people and be grateful. 

Tradition and Independence

Mexico has a long tragic history of its folk culture being manipulated and its folk artists controlled by people who benefit from division.

These people and institutions create hierarchies of purity and wave banners and arguments about patriotism or revolution, religion or anti-religion, etc.

These cynical and destructive campaigns to control artists and culture play out here among Mexican Americans as well. Arguments about birthright, appropriation, colonialism and purity are flung around. 

But these efforts are power grabs disguised as causes to promote a select few. They are based on a false understanding of folk music and do a great disservice because they inhibit creativity and open collaboration by instilling fear and division.

We must not allow human expression to be controlled. Expression is an essential human right. We all carry cultural traditions within and they are ours to cultivate. And even if we cultivate them chueco - then so be it. Diversity of expression strengthens us. And our traditions are strong enough to survive and thrive regardless.

For those who claim to protect the integrity or purity of our traditions I say that in the end it is the pueblo that decides what thrives and what does not. That is the way it has always been.

Mexico’s campesinos have suffered 500 years at the hands of people and institutions who have tried to control their voices. It is time for us, the children and grandchildren of Mexico’s working people, to set ourselves free and fight for our independence of expression.

Tradition is a doorway, not a wall.

Taco Day at the Museum

In an era when Mexican Americans are embarrassingly underrepresented in the field of arts and culture, Los Cenzontles has thrived for twenty five years – doing quality, groundbreaking pedagogical work, roots reviving, cross cultural collaborations, media creation etc - all planned and executed by our homegrown young artists, educators, producers and administrators. 

The young people who do the work at Los Cenzontles are from a neighborhood like many others in California and around the country – working class communities that are subjected to substandard education and plagued by low expectations. But in spite of the disadvantages, our young leaders are doing nationally recognized work because of the rigorous training and support they receive at Los Cenzontles made possible by a different kind of vision - a vision of shared ownership and responsibility - with the support of enlightened supporters who help us survive a piecemeal, fickle funding environment. 

When I was a kid in the 1960’s and 70’s there was barely any Mexican American representation on television or in films. When society became a bit more aware of the need for more cultural representation, many schools, businesses, government offices and organizations responded by instituting cultural awareness days that consisted of the cafeteria featuring ethnic food. Taco day. The later rise of multi-culturalism allowed us to make some headway toward visibility but almost always we were relegated to narrow and prescribed roles – stereotypical bit parts in someone else’s narrative.

Meaningful representation requires that we include people who actually represent American demographics in all levels of decision making and execution. But what we see in the arts, culture and entertainment (including news) sectors is a thin veneer.

Too little meaningful investment is made into working class communities - the same communities who have contributed so much to American cultural heritage in the first place. And often, when working class culture is integrated into educational curriculum the pedagogy is radically changed to accommodate ‘mainstream’ (read middle class) audiences. This usually changes the aesthetic and meaning of the art forms, rendering them unrecognizable to the communities that created them.

Every day at our cultural arts academy, the members of our  team professionally engage in intensive cultural work: cultivating a vibrant learning environment; teaching community children; training teens; rehearsing; composing and choreographing; researching and adapting traditional pedagogy and practice; producing, shooting and editing CDs and videos; performing; touring; organizing events and much, much more. It is at this sustained level of detail that cultural arts work bears fruit. Cultural arts engagement develops skills of critical thinking, expression, resilience, problem solving, teamwork and leadership in our children that prepare them to engage with and contribute to a vibrant democratic society.

But somehow our society has decided that these skills are to be cultivated mainly in privileged communities.  Arts education in working class communities is, at best, inconsistent, remedial and considered an unnecessary luxury. This in spite of the fact that America's cultural heritage has come largely from working class and immigrant communities - contributions that are sometimes acknowledged in words but barely reciprocated through proportionate resource investment.

So, why is the Los Cenzontles example more than a inspiring but aberrant success story in a beleaguered community? Because these young people belong to one of the fastest growing demographics in the nation that already comprises the majorities in many American cities. These first and second generation working class Americans are our future consumers, tax payers and voters. Los Cenzontles has proven, time and time again, that these young people are capable of, and hungry for, creative excellence and rise to the challenge of sharing their values and vision with our larger society. This is what a democracy is, after all. We neglect to properly education such a huge segment of our population at society's peril. 

So, what will it take to activate the untapped talent of our working class communities? It will take real representation, not tokenism; real conversations, not slogans; and real partners who actively address the opportunities and challenges from a position of mutual benefit. It requires that we as a society recognize that all American young people require a complete education, including arts and culture, to fully inform and renew America's ever-evolving identity and innovative spirit.

Taco day at the museum will not suffice.

The Dreamer

I wrote this song with Jackson Browne about the Dreamers, the young people whose futures are stuck in limbo because of their immigration status. Many in America see immigration as a simple issue of law and order. They say these young people must face the consequences of their parents’ choices, and must not be allowed to live and dream here, in what is often the only land they know. 

But “law and order” is far from simple.

People migrate in response to economic and political conditions far bigger than themselves. Global economic trends, government corruption, political intransigence and misplaced ideology are all at play. And there is a great amount of money at stake.

Yet the immigrants, the most vulnerable pieces of this enormous puzzle, are condemned as the transgressors – the “illegals.” No one brands corporations, politicians, small businesses and homeowners as “illegal” for perpetuating and profiting from undocumented labor.  The immigrants themselves are the scapegoats in an unjust system with no shortage of the complicit. 

This is because they are perceived, wrongly, as “the other.”

At Los Cenzontles Cultural Academy in San Pablo, Calif., we have witnessed beautiful, motivated American children, our students, forced to return to Mexico because a hard-working mother or father was deported.  We know talented, committed, culturally American young adults whose vast potential is cut short because as small children they arrived to the United States without papers.  In any other time, these young people would be deemed ideal American youth.

They are not the other. They are us. 

The Dreamer

Just a child when she crossed the border
To reunite with her father
Who traveled north to support her
So many years before

Left half her family behind her
A crucifix to remind her
She pledged allegiance to this land
And does the best that she can do

A donde van los sueños (Where do the dreams go)
Nacidos de la fe y la ilusión (Born of faith and hope)
Donde no hay camino ni huella (Where there is no road nor footprint)
Solo deseos en el corazón (Only desires of the heart)

Eagles fly up on columns of the wind
Fish swim currents of the sea
So people's lives glide through rivers of their dreams
In their desire to be free

Today she just got the order
They're taking steps to deport her
Her heart is trembling with the fear

That she can't make it anymore

We dam the waters around us
Pollute the air that surrounds us
But the walls we build between us
Cement the walls within our hearts

A donde van los sueños (Where do the dreams go)
Nacidos de la fe y la ilusión (Born of faith and hope)
Donde no hay camino ni huella (Where there is no road nor footprint)
Solo deseos en el corazón (Only desires of the heart)

Vivir - Celebrating Dia del Niño

We celebrate el Dia del Niño, the Day of the Child, with a new video of a song composed by Lucina Rodriguez. Lucina is a core staff member at our cultural center and has been a part of our performing group since the age of 15, a few years after she immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico. Her song Vivir (“To Live”) speaks of life’s difficult moments and our need to superarse, to rise above, and not merely to survive.

Why post such a serious song for Dia del Niño? Children are not immune to hardship. Balloons, candy and happy songs can momentarily brighten a child’s mood,  but they need more. Building our children’s resilience is what will give them the best shot at lifelong health and happiness.

Growing up can be tough anywhere, but the shock of emigration and acculturation can amplify these challenges exponentially. Relationships within a family and support systems around it are disrupted. The language, environment, food and most everything else are different. As young people struggle to cope at the most basic levels in their new lives,  they must also create new paths to resiliency. They must rise above survival.
Ideally, they will fuse the best of the world they left behind with the best of their adopted home. They will develop cultural fluency. Their identities  will add new depths and dimensions,  as they continue to rely on their families  for support while realizing an expanded future for themselves.

At Los Cenzontles Academy, we work with first- and second-generation families to prepare our children to thrive as fully formed individuals with a fluid yet anchored sense of self.  Tradition and culture arts are not taught as burdens that weigh us down, but as foundations that remind us of our stories, of the strengths that have brought us to where we are today.

We teach art   as a discipline that introduces and reinforces a strong work ethic, leadership and teamwork. Within a safe social environment, our students are encouraged and challenged to cultivate their creativity. To envision who they wish to be, and to express this vision as they navigate a difficult, ever-changing world.

Not many educational institutions raise expectations very high for immigrant and working-class students.  Those that do often fail to recognize  that their children are already well-equipped with familial cultural assets that can support growth. These children are typically asked to choose between two irreconcilable models, not to create their own. This is a grave missed opportunity that can easily result in the wasted human potential and lost dreams.

This not only occurs in immigrant communities. Most American children do not receive consistent creative-arts education throughout their school lives. They are our most valuable national asset, but the investment we make in their creative potential -- in their ability to sing and dance, to make music and art, to express beauty, to dream -- is minimal. It is precisely this investment that ensures an invested citizenry and a brighter collective future.

Survival is not enough. We must live -- as individuals and as a nation.

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO

Regeneration - Freedom from Fear

I love the liner notes that writer Sam Quinones wrote for our CD Regeneration. Here they are:

I met a guy the other day, a Oaxacan Indian, who came to L.A. 25 years ago and got a job washing dishes in a high-end restaurant.

He learned as the owner expanded.

In the end, this Zapotec Indian, a cowherd who’d never fixed himself dinner, became a master French and German chef, seasoning his cuisine with the spices from his Oaxacan youth.

Then he opened not a Oaxacan restaurant, but Casa Chocolate, because he felt a mall-like high-end chocolate shop, featuring apples he dips in chocolate and pico de gallo powder, is what his enclosed working-class L.A. barrio of Oaxacans and Central Americans could use – i.e., something other than what its residents were used to.

I remembered his story while listening to Los Cenzontles’ new recording, Regeneration.

Los Cenzontles grew from an after-school program in San Pablo & Richmond, California – born of a late 1980s California Arts Council grant to a music grad named Eugene Rodriguez, who took it more seriously than he was supposed to.

In the late-1980s Bay Area music scene, Rodriguez said, “Everyone seemed kind of confined to their one box. I was looking for something different. Teaching kids was kind of the long way around to getting there. These kids were up for the journey.”

The first were Chicano kids, followed by a slew of Mexican immigrant kids who hit Richmond in the 1990s with accordions and clarinets, and “all trying to start their own garage banda,” Rodriguez said.

A band named Los Cenzontles (the Mockingbirds), from a place near Berkeley, might naturally be assumed to play Mexican “folkloric” music of the tad-too-noble variety. But Los Cenzontles, bless their hearts, have been pile-driving that idea into the lucha libre mat for a few CDs now.

The band has grown into a rich, living thing, expanding on Mexican roots that have grafted to Bay Area 1960s hippie rock, alongside Taj Mahal, Ry Cooder and, most productively, Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo.

Which is a good thing.

Because traditional Mexican music has been too long locked in a cultural display case. In Mexico, a musician takes career in hand any time she reworks a classic mariachi or ranchera. In the U.S., traditional Mexican music seems often owned by folk musicians who ache for purity in sound and intent.

But Los Cenzontles scale the walls of musical dogma and cross the PC deserts, remaining rooted somewhere in Mexico yet unafraid to jump in a truck with the blues or the Grateful Dead.

Los Cenzontles have toured Mexico, playing the isolated ranchos “where the music’s pretty psychedelic, with people drinking that aguardiente until three in the morning, and roosters crowing. It gives you a whole other sense of Mexican music; it gives you the essence of it. We’re trying to tap into the psychedelic edge of Mexican music.”

In A Tu Lado, I hear that psychedelia and Las Jilguerillas, too, adding layers to what is, really, a pop song. A surf-guitar line saunters through the norteño - y Un Día Feliz. Burt Bacharach’s Only Love Can Break a Heart could have been sung by Freddie Fender, or Petula Clark.

And Adios California feels to me like the mating of norteño and speed metal, followed by that Jilguerillas groove once again. The band recorded it with a 12-string through a Fender Deluxe Reverb amp, added some backwards feedback, some tarolas and drum, and Hidalgo on accordion. Now that’s some garage banda Mexican folk music, folks!

It helps that Cenzontles have been aided by Hidalgo, who’s always seemed interested in sound more than in where the sound has traditionally fit. His vocal, with Jackson Browne, on The Silence is achingly sweet.

Speaking of which, one last thing about that Zapotec cowherd and his sweet chocolate shop -- he had to overcome fear to start it up; above all, fear that no one in the barrio was ready for his new-fangled confections.

Which is another reason I thought of him while listening to the tracks on Regeneration. Wouldn’t some purists fear for the music, for the culture, from all those borders Cenzontles insist on breaching?

“My hope for this record,” Rodriguez told me, “is to say that it’s time to liberate ourselves from so much of what keeps us fearful.”

Sam Quinones

Author/journalist

www.samquinones.com

The Silence

It is estimated that more than 47,000 have been killed in Mexico to control the drug supply to the United States. For a situation of such magnitude, so close to us, and with so much culpability to spread around, it astounds me how little we hear or talk about it.

I have wanted to write about this ghastly subject for a long time but could not find a way in.
Last Fall my wife, son and I met and lunched with the great Mexican American writer Richard Rodriguez. When I presented my dilemma he referred me to the poetry of Emily Dickinson.
In a collection I found a poem that she wrote about a shipwreck that begins 'Glee! the great storm is over!' In that poem I found my template and tone. I wrote the verses and later the melody that suited the solemn subject. Later in the studio we attempted to create a stark sonic landscape that framed the song.

David Hidalgo sings the lead in his inimitable, compassionate voice. Linda Ronstadt, our friend and mentor, introduced us to Jackson Browne with the idea of having him sing in duet with David, a brilliant idea. He graciously agreed.

I hope that The Silence provokes at least some degree of reflection on the agony and fear that Mexico has suffered. And for what?

The Silence

Dance when the storm is over
Sing when torment's passed
Sigh when fists of tortured death
Release this arid land
Mourn the tens of thousands
Pray for the grieving shell
Bless the cursed noble womb
That bore a muted hell
How will we spin this tale
Tongues free from fear at last
Answers to our children
When they ask us what has passed
When silence breaks from telling
And finally we can cry
What will we reveal then
When they ask us why
They ask us why

A Snapshot in Time and A Celebration of Our Future

Los Cenzontles has recorded 20 albums since 1994. Each is a snapshot of a moment in time. Some revive rare traditions like the traditional mariachi and pirekuas of Michoacán. Others celebrate thriving traditions like rancheras.  Yet others mix styles such as our Son Jarocho collaboration with Cuban masters El Goyo Hernandez and Lazaro Ros of Cuba.

Our newest album, Regeneration, is rooted in the Mexican-American experience. I wanted to create songs that fuse Mexican folk forms and rhythms with American and Latin pop and rock sensibilities to match the times we live in. The past twenty years have seen some of the biggest demographic shifts in America in modern times. Los Cenzontles Mexican Arts Center is growing right along with these changes. . Culture is always in flux and if you want to keep relevant you have to morph with it. That is the fun of it. Change is part of our DNA.

We find that our younger fans have eclectic tastes, but they are also steeped in Mexican music like Vicente Fernandez and Banda Recodo. Most say they do not want to listen to the music of their parents, but they know it anyway. It is inside them somehow. The trick is to give the music back to them with an open window. One of our teen   students remarked that Los Cenzontles's music is not traditional -- it's  fun!  So this new CD is an homage to the new generation, seeking fun and escape and meaning.

But many in our country today do not celebrate our Latino-infused future. They fear it. So I look back to the last major generational shift when the baby boomers came of age in the late 60's and early 70's. There was plenty of difficulty in those days, but the economy was buzzing and the generational shift was largely White. This new one is much less so, with Latino youth being the fastest-growing group in the country. And there lies the conflict. Limited resources and an aging white population wary of the upcoming young brown one.

Regeneration is a celebration of hopes and unified visions.  It may yet happen, at least in song.

Click here to Kickstart Regeneration