Moving Borders and Dancing in Place Son Jarocho’S Speaking Bodies at the Fandango Fronterizo Jade Power-Sotomayor

Home , Bullring by the Sea, Fandango, Fandango (game show), Huapango, Son jarocho, White Mexicans

Moving Borders and Dancing in Place Son Jarocho’s Speaking Bodies at the Fandango Fronterizo Jade Power-Sotomayor

Figure 1. Fandanguerxs in Playas de Tijuana reach through the fence towards their comrades on the other side of the US-Mexican border wall at the 2019 Fandango Fronterizo. From the Centro de Memoria del Fandango Fronterizo. (Photo by Gustavo Vargas Ramírez; courtesy of the Centro de Memoria del Fandango Fronterizo)

The thick metal fence slices into the Pacific Ocean, rusted from the damp salty air. Layers of steel patterned in a tight grid have holes just large enough for a child’s finger to squeeze through, not quite penetrating the depth of the metal barrier. Light seeps through from the other side — el otro lado. Pressing your face against the cold gray fence on the US side of this San Ysidro/Tijuana border, you can make out bodies beyond the metal, pick out familiar faces,

Jade Power-Sotomayor is Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of California, San Diego. Some of her publications can be found in Latino Studies, Gestos, Latin American Theatre Review, and The Oxford Handbook of Theatre and Dance. She coedited a special issue for Centro Journal for Puerto Rican Studies on Afro–Puerto Rican bomba music and dance. As a scholar, educator, and performer, she researches and writes about the fluid reconstitution of Latinx identity through discourses of embodiment and the performing body. [email protected]

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1 Two to four dancers strike the to four dancers strike Two 2 (lighthouse) on the Playas side. (lighthouse) on the Playas side. (practitioner of the Afro-Puerto Rican music and and music Rican Afro-Puerto the of (practitioner have gathered here to penetrate and shroud have gathered here to penetrate and shroud of a transnational community. bombera bombera a small wooden platform lifted just inches above a small wooden platform — with repetitive anchoring towards the earth, while simulta- with repetitive anchoring towards the earth, to Catholic masses and yoga classes. yoga and masses Catholic to posadas roughly translates as “conviviality” in English, however conceptually conceptually however English, in as “conviviality” translates roughly Convivencia , with its carefully manicured open spaces, its outlet stores boasting stores boasting its outlet open spaces, carefully manicured with its El Norte, (with Nahuatl origins) to claim the local specificity of the son jarocho event. jarocho son the of specificity local the claim to origins) Nahuatl (with huapango rhythmically adding another sound to the interplay of voices and strumming that another sound to the interplay of voices rhythmically adding — (son jarocho dancer), having collaborated with the participants of the Fandango Fronterizo, especially especially Fronterizo, the participantswith collaborated having dancer), Fandango the of jarocho (son

, I follow the convention of using an “x” to interruptto binarythe the in implicit gendering “x” an using of fandanguerxsconvention the follow I ,

the annual Fandango Fronterizo of May, On the last Saturday This essay is based on my experiences attending the Fandango Fronterizo in 2011, 2014 2011, in Fronterizo Fandango the attending experiences my on based is essay This emerging an as research the to come I weekend. Day Memorial of Saturday the on place takes traditionally event bailadora Cali-Rican a as research and practice own my through (fandango participants) fandanguerxs Since 2008, dance tradition) and the many formal and informal overlaps of our respective communities. All translations from from translations All communities. respective our of overlaps informal and formal many the and tradition) dance otherwiseunless own. my are indicated, Spanish, word the in origins Bantu have to thought is word The event. community jarocho son a to refers Fandango which means “fiesta.” Popularized in Spanish, it has broadly circulated as a way to describe a diversity of popu- of diversity a describe to way a as circulated broadly has it Spanish, in Popularized “fiesta.” means which Veracruz in practitioners jarocho son some reason, this For world. Spanish-speaking the in events dance/music lar word the use word. the of reading Spanish Milagros Anthropologists being together. of coexisting, of act the to refers Convivencia significantly. differ they takes life social that way the to refers convivencia together” “living beyond that theorize Danta RicourtRuby and constructing actively thus commu- other, each know not may or may who people among spaces public in place - rela in of convivencia politics the about extensively written has Gonzalez (RicourtMartha nity 2003). Danta and 2014). Gonzalez M. (see jarocho son to tionship designated government federal the 1971 in that border the of edge western the at space a was Park Friendship added, walls were metal 1994, in Gatekeeper Operation Following together. come to sides both from families for Border renamed was it and spaces), carceral (replicating allowed longer no was contact in-person across-border Field Park/Border Friendship at events scheduled of dozens are There 2012:252). (Hernández Park State Field Christmas from ranging Park State 1. 4. For 3. For dancers, and community members to the US side of the site. Son jarocho, a danced musical tra- Son jarocho, members to the US side of the site. and community dancers, and Spanish instru- African, and performed through Indigenous, produced Veracruz dition from is the language of the gathering. mentation and embodiments, faro event at the faro still sizeable group of fandanguerxs join the crossing will join their those whose papers allow for state-sanctioned in the evening, Later, this pilgrimage Some years, coming together to celebrate until dawn. southern counterparts, Friendship Park is met with cooperation from the border patrol agents who con- Ysidro’s San driving access to the park on the US side. sent to opening the road that provides direct hats, and shoes, confusing the flutter of one skirt for the body of a friend only to realize it may friend only to realize for the body of a the flutter of one skirt confusing shoes, and hats, coastline the Pacific South, When looking only get a better look. If you could else. be someone infinite space of ocean dropping off into the from sight, disappearing to the East, veers inland from contrast, By invisibilized. is effectively bodies, teeming with vastness, Mexico’s and sky. Playas de Tijuana, in giant letters all-too familiar corporate names, lays before the southern gaze: an impossible gaze: an impossible before the southern lays corporate names, all-too familiar in giant letters flaunting excess and indifference. a deadly temptation, banquet, flats of their feet and heels onto the tarima flats of their feet and the ground due to and perhaps especially small space, A confined across the border. even surrounds them, calls for movements that fol- the tarima carried on this particular day, the distance it must be is not a containment however, Here, center. are kept close to the body’s low a vertical axis and as not claims to land and territory, tarima enacts the fixedness of the dancer’s Rather, limitation. and slide, Each stomp, to its history and its caretakers. property but in an embodied relationship shuffle pounds sonic nails in place, dance in place, Bodies rises and floats across space. neously the sharp sound of heels on wood Kumeyaay land the place is the On this day, place. and in doing so become active agents of that permeated by the border. and spliced, at Friendship Park framed, 2.

convivencia convivencia and the dance, the border with music, Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on 26 September 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on26 September 2021 the Centro de Memoria del Fandango Fronterizo) at the 2019 Fandango Fronterizo. (Photo by Gustavo Vargas Ramírez; of courtesy Figure 2. Dancershalf of El in the southern Parque de la Amistad on the 86 Jade Power-Sotomayor the Trump administration’s racistdogwhistling, rupts anotherwisesceniclandscape. As the “border crisis” hastakenonnewproportionsunder ing thearrivalatmilitarized “recreational area” allthemoredramaticasitsuddenlyinter years, they

indictment ofborders gendered logicofthetwonation-statesoccupyingKumeyaay land. As such, itisanembodied ied practicesatthesiteofUS-Mexicoborderthatinterrupts thediscursiveracializedand work) inviteandteaseacrossthedivide. leona, marimbol rhythmic scrapingofthequijada face eachotherthroughthefenceascallsandresponses;strummingofjaranas; birthplace ofsonjarocho, whichisknownforitsrich Afro-Mexican cultureandhistory. far asSeattle, Texas, New York, andfromsouthernMexico, mostespeciallyfrom Veracruz, the Ana, Los Angeles) andtheNorthernBajaregion(Tijuana, Mexicali, Tecate), butalsofromas unequivocal statedissuasion. They hailmostlyfromSouthern Alta California(SanDiego, Santa and choreographhumanrelationstolandthroughcolonially imposed hierarchiesofbelong- 7. 6. 5. The FandangoFronterizoisaperformative, politicalgestureof Afro-Indigenous embod- blanco Martha E. Gonzalez (2009, 2011, 2014); Navarro (2016); and the documentary For and practice of son jarocho more see Daniel Sheehy on the history (1979); Antonio García De León (2009); four feet away from the fence (Spagat 2020). reduce possible cover for smugglers. A couple of weeks later, they allowed for a replanting of the garden, this time on the US side. There was no prior announcement and only later didthey explain that they removed plants to created and cultivated by volunteers of Friendship since 2007 as part Park, demolishing over 200 mature plants In January 2020, the US Border Patrol used bulldozers to raze to the ground the binational native plants garden follow a decades-long pattern of border militarization and institutionalized xenophobia. to resist the urge to frame this as entirely unprecedented. Though more dehumanizing, currentovertly policies In noting the extreme xenophobia in the and cruelty Trump administration’s immigration policies it is important (Braojos 2006). have toparkandwalkforoveramilealongthebeachwiththeirinstruments, mak- and harpa; andthepatteringpoundingofzapateado(shoe-tappingfoot- — including Mexico’s ownsouthernborder (donkey jawbone);themelodicinterpretationsofrequinto , 5 massiveescalationofsurveillance, policiesof tarima

contested. and politicallycharged wall isevermoresymbolically westernmost pointinthefence/ policies —this international US indirectly causedbydecadesof and America —directly Central destitution andviolencein migrant movementdrivenby ters, allcoupledwithincreased of inhumanedetainmentcen- family separations, proliferation an actofdefianceintheface ferent peopleattend, theirarrival seems everyyearmoreanddif- signs alongtheway. Evenso, it edly announcedbyexclamatory dangerous toxicityisrepeat- dles ofstandingwaterwhose lands mustsidesteplargepud- route acrosstheestuarywet- — Those whowalktheinland and thewaystheyinterrupt Fandango, Buscando el mono 6 7 They - Son Jarocho 87 - -

9 - swishing, swishing, 11 inhabitants enact what in/at the bor interventionist assert an embodied sub- assert an embodied as the absolute ordering Through the togetherness Through 8 (“exiled,” but also evoking land- but also (“exiled,” of borders over bodies and land. of borders — bringing into question the un-geographic state bringing into question the un-geographic fandango and the act of what I call “dancing in call the act of what I fandango and the intentional and systematic erasure of knowledge the intentional and systematic erasure of — privilege the musical, not danced, aspects of the genre, I of the genre, aspects not danced, privilege the musical, Witness to over a decade of immigration policy, the Fandango policy, to over a decade of immigration Witness 10 border but all nation-state borders. Furthermore, as a tradition from tradition a as Furthermore, borders. nation-state all but border this and metaphoric writing the literal — desterrados permanently desterrados enact a refusal to be produced by the border and the logics that sustain it. Because most popular and Because most popular and sustain it. produced by the border and the logics that

—

“The Inviolability of Movement as a Right” is a statement released by the Dance Studies Association in January in Association Studies Dance the by released statement a is Right” as a Movement of Inviolability “The 2019 the at others) and Firmino-Castillo, Regina Cruz,la de María (Meiver members from calls following 2020 to globe the across taken being measures life-threatening extreme the on stand a take to conference national 2020). Association Studies (Dance borders across movement of freedom limit severely and punish, police, and occupation justify and produce to language of power violent the excavates (2017) Long Soldier Layli genocide. not are that actions discrete disrupting of urgency the about discussion complex a through colonialism settler For Fronterizo Fandango the that propose not do I While (2012). Yang and Tuck see raising” simply “consciousness specific- the regaining on insistence Yang’s and Tuck people, Indigenous by land stolen of repatriation a actualizes argument. my to central is land to relationships Indigenous restoring to refer to “decolonization” word the of ity artposter instrumentation. musical of signifiers visual privileges Fronterizo Fandango the of Much 8. 9. (open wound; see Anzaldúa 1987) Anzaldúa see (open wound; to the site of this herida abierta pilgrimage The fandanguerxs’ global neoliberal violence; decolonization that unfixes and destabilizes is an act of performative heteropatriarchy as contemporary and white supremacy, to colonialism, it draws our attention events. not historical structures,

10. 11. The Fandango Fronterizo, according to its organizers, was not originally imagined as politi- according to its organizers, The Fandango Fronterizo, It and dancing as a community. singing, playing, but as a means to an end: being together, cal, whose ability to share in the communal space of was conceived as a way to unite fandanguerxs immigration status and access to visas (see for exam- the fandango was circumscribed by their Arturo Only by default would it become what Chela Sandoval, ple Zamudio Serrano 2014). “designed or the performatic,” “decolonizing and Peter García call a Aldama, Nuestro Thanksgiving Nuestro Thanksgiving ing, ultimately claiming the “inviolability of movement as a right.” “inviolability of movement claiming the ultimately ing, shoulder-tilting, hand-strumming, lip-shaping, gaze-asserting actions effect an embodied sov- gaze-asserting actions effect lip-shaping, hand-strumming, shoulder-tilting, epistemic privileging of logos Western ereignty that interrupts the border, lessness) by the gendered violence of the disrupting the genocidal project against Indigenous of Blackness produced by enslavement and through the multiple significations produced by This is an embodied journey realized bodies. skirt- Their foot-stomping, and border-crossing. music-making, dancing, their moving, the fandanguerxs at the border Dancing in place, and structuring of knowledge. Fronterizo continues to respond, not just to anti-Mexican xenophobia, but also to the target- not just to anti-Mexican xenophobia, to respond, Fronterizo continues thereby fur of Mexican nationalism, through the similarly toxic logics Americans ing of Central scholarly treatments of son jarocho ther disrupting not just not disrupting ther mestizx Indigenous and of Mexico that together with the area’s the Caribbean coast son Africans, formerly enslaved in communities of escaped and was developed and maintained through Thus, racial narratives about Mexico. Blackness disrupts white/Indigenous jarocho’s Black and Indigenous histories of son jarocho’s “emplacement” the geographic fandanguerxs der, between relational ontology or earthbound, “telluric,” María Regina Firmino-Castillo calls a They set into relief and inter 2016:60). humans and their non-human others (Firmino-Castillo rupt the trajectory of the epistemicide systems and the work of the dancing bodies. approach this event through movement analysis produced by the mechanics of the son jarocho the mechanics of produced by fandanguerxs to place, and claims relation a dancing that creates place,” the and undermines belonging that resists practice of being and and an alternate altern identity colonial inscriptions Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on 26 September 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on26 September 2021

88 Jade Power-Sotomayor From left: Hermelinda, Andrés, and Martha Vega. (Photo by Carolina Martínez) Mexico, on the US side of Friendship Park at the 2017 Fandango Fronterizo. Figure 3. La Familia Vega. Pillars in the son jarocho community of Veracruz, Los Angeles groupQuetzaland groupsin Veracruz suchasMonoBlancoandSondeMadera Fandango sinFronterasprojectbecameanextensionofthisearlier workwithmembersofthe ture thisvisionthroughvarioustransnationalcollaborativeprojects. Forinstance, in2003the other Mexicans, andChicanxsinspiredbythismovement havecontinuedtodevelopandnur cho designedbythestatetohelpcraftahomogenousnational identity. Jarochxs ing whathadbecomeprimarilyaconcertstage-basedandnationalist circulationofsonjaro- of communityeldersandbroughtrenewedattentiontoafandango-centric practice, contest- El NuevoMovimientoJaranero, agroupofculturalactivists in Veracruz, soughttheknowledge tional tothelearningprocessasdoing her andotherfandanguerxs, watching, absorbing, listening, andconnectingwereasfounda- edly presentatfandangos as aChicanafandanguera, for thetogethernessthatconstitutescommunity. Forinstance, inreflectingonherownjourney lenges thepoliticalimplicationsof “their” Thanksgiving. His emphasison “nuestro” (our)articulatesanalternativevisionoftogetherness, onethatchal- colonial holidayisnotwithoutmeaninghere, evenifCastillo’s statementwasmadeinpassing. titioners fromdifferentlocations: “¡es nuestro Thanksgiving!” (2015). The appropriationofthe and leadorganizer, exclaimedwhilerecountingthewaythatitdrawstogethersonjarocho ders butalsoofaglobalizedsociety’s atomizingimpulses. As JorgeCastillo, theevent’s founder remains anopportunityforcreatingphysicalcommunioninthefaceofnotonlymaterialbor other” (2014:69). ForevenastheFandangoFronterizohasgrowninscopeandvisibility, it rienced infandangosas “the deliberateactofbeingwitheachotherandpresentfor performance” (2012:6). actions 12. Son jarocho US see Navarro (2016). For more on how Chicanxs mobilize son jarocho in contesting anti-immigrant, racist, and sexist discourses in the that intercedeonbehalfofegalitarianismwithinanylarger(culturaloraesthetic) artivist andfeministscholarMarthaGonzalezdescribestheconvivenciaexpe- in Veracruz, intergenerationaleventsthatlastlateintothenight. For Gonzalez emphasizestheimportanceofbeingactivelyandrepeat - (M. Gonzalez2009). Onalargerscale, in the1970s essary topracticetheformand both fortheskill-buildingnec- ular contactthatisrequired rience therepeatedandreg- site. Here, fandanguerxsexpe- mance ofthegenre pedagogy, practice, andperfor the mostpartstructuredtheir Fandango Fronterizohavefor nizers andparticipantsofthe son jarochoand, assuch, orga- other stagedperformancesof to distinguishthefandangofrom tral organizingprincipleworks 2011). cal expression(seeM. Gonzalez identity formation, andpoliti- mode ofcommunitybuilding, that activatethefandango diverse Chicanxcommunities become avibrantpracticein In theUS, sonjarocho 12 Togetherness asacen- (Veracruzans), around this has as a prac- - - - Son Jarocho 89 -

Inquisición percussive embodied praxis of a word with phal- The Catholic Church, The Catholic Church, 14 — system, recognized the system, a uniquely — –20. works as the primary — of such bodies. This is especially apparent This is especially apparent of such bodies. — and played, danced, and sang nonstop for 45 min- danced, and played, 13 specifically, and the physical proximity and affective plea- and the physical proximity specifically, . Vol. 1065. Exp. 3. Fojas 14 Fojas 3. Exp. 1065. Vol. . Inquisición soldiers, sailors, and “social scum” (4). “social scum” and sailors, soldiers, called “Chuchumbé” because it was “scandalous, obscene and “scandalous, because it was “Chuchumbé” called — subversive not only because of satirical lyrics that sexualized local subversive not only because of satirical lyrics — and by extension the very existence —

Both the physical togetherness of the moving bodies at the Fandango Fronterizo as well as Both the physical togetherness of the moving Vol. 1052. Exp. 20. Fojas 292–295. Fojas 20. Exp. Vol. 1052. “La Bamba” is a traditional song made popular first in Mexico City by Andrés Huesca in the 1940s and ’50s and and ’50s and 1940s the in Huesca Andrés by City Mexico in popular first made song traditional is a Bamba” “La main- any for responsible largely is song this such, As it. reinterpreted who Valens, Ritchie by US the in later name. same the of genre the to credited popularity stream Deanda see edict this producing in central was rapist” male black the of “myth the how of discussion a For (México), on Naci la de General Archivo the from are Deanda from taken quotes Edict (2010). The particular way in which son jarocho dancing, or zapateado The particular way in which son jarocho dancing, As with other community rituals, the togetherness created in the fandango extends across created in the fandango the togetherness community rituals, As with other when we consider the oft-cited 1766 edict issued in Veracruz by the Spanish Inquisition pro- Veracruz issued in when we consider the oft-cited 1766 edict hibiting the highly popular son Authorities deemed the Chuchumbé (in Deanda 2010:4). provocative” lic/umbilical implications gesturing, danced: “people of broken color” and religious figures but also for the way mulatos Concerned with the types of (4). of all honesty” “belly to belly [...] opposites moving shaking, of the the edict also anxiously disapproved races, physical contact between bodies of different proximity of the lower classes utes. Realizing their mistake in attempting to quantify song units in a fandango, the next year units in a fandango, mistake in attempting to quantify song Realizing their utes. see here how We (Castillo 2015). not a song limit a time limit, the agents gave the fandanguerxs the sonic framework producing unquantifiable expressive creates or a particular rhythm, a song, whole. acts offered by individuals to the greater power structures meant to control and eliminate the the specific dance acts themselves threaten movement here acting in concert with the heterosexist logic of the colonial casta here acting in concert with the heterosexist The production classes together in a shared space. subversive potential of nonwhites and lower bodies moving for an extended time contested colo- of song/music/dance by a large number of and afromestizx bodies. Indigenous, and direct Black, separate, nial authorities trying to corral, re-emphasizing new edicts in subsequent years, This anxiety persisted as the Inquisition issued along with other popular sones (Sheehy 1979:23–28). the deleterious effects of the Chuchumbé The singing and dancing of this son and Méndez was (unsuccessfully) banned from 1766 to at least 1802 (Baudot sure it induced, be it a rural gather subaltern bodies in a shared space, fandangos continue to Today, 1987:165). militarized international border fence. or the a public urban area, community, instantiates a feminista voice and provides entrance and opportunity to women, instrumentation upon which the overall musicality relies 13. 14. space and time in ways that exceed the event itself. The exchange of verses through call and through call and The exchange of verses the event itself. time in ways that exceed space and - through rhythmi musical phrases dancing feet punctuating with instruments and response, ingested. and the food the gossip shared, kissed, as the cheeks are as fleeting breaks, cally paired lived experience of convivencia to carrying the traces of this marked, the body remains Yet, - the organiza the fandango, way, Seen in this place (see Schneider 2011). some future time and relying on the togetherness of bodies in unfixed, malleable, is portable, tional unit of gathering, to geogra- to history, to each other, enacting human relationships its value, dynamic motion for difficult to pin that is mobile, at the Fandango Fronterizo produce a rootedness The bodies phy. by the wall and the control enacted the regulatory and disciplinary effectively challenging down, bor as one of the at the border, at one of the early fandangos For instance, military presence. the fandanguerxs commenced “last song,” the event called for the der patrol agents monitoring fast-paced song) (a particularly “La Bamba” - building communi centers in the diaspora, and study to urban dialogue bringing transnational centered on the fandango. son jarocho practice ties through Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on 26 September 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on26 September 2021

90 Jade Power-Sotomayor years fandanguerxsinothercities togetherness withnobeginningandenddespitethepresenceofborderwall. Inrecent ment andvirtuosityoverpedestrianknowledge. The FandangoFronterizo reorganizes bodiesagainstmasculinisthierarchiesthatprivilegeinstrumentationoverembodi- ing therhythmicstrummingofjaranas taking onthemusicalresponsibilityofmaintainingdownbeatcadencenecessaryforpull- syncopated “danced versing,” creatingauralspacefortheirpartnerswhilealso, aswithadrum, pull attentionfromtheversing. Likewise, thedancersontarima (refrain) whenmusicalimprovisationistakingplaceandversesarenotbeingsungsoasto whoever wishestohaveaturn. Protocolmandatesthatthisonlyhappenfollowingthe dancers onthetarima, whichisneverleftempty someone gentlytapsthemontheshouldertotaketheirplace. There areusuallytwotofour munity’s protocol. Forexample, inorderforadancertoleavethetarima, The fandangodoesn’t workunlessthegroupparticipates, withindividualsupholdingthe com- “This isnotmusicthatyoucanknowalone, youhavetoknowittogether” (inPacheco2013). ing onhistoriesofsharedculturalunderstanding. As thejarocho Arcadio Baxincommented, taking inaprocessofmeaning-makingthatrespondstothespecificslocationwhiledraw- agency. The nonlinearityinvitesindividualsto “throw down” musicallyandcorporeally, par practices, thefandango’s circleisantihierarchical atthesametimethatitactivatesindividual the hiphopcyphergeneratedfromamalgamationofavariety African diasporiccultural ual expressivityandcollaborativecommunality(see Thompson 1996;Gottschild1996). Like enactment ofcommunityprotocol. As suchitmaintainsaproductivetensionbetweenindivid- toitsrelianceonan is due Africanist aestheticsofimprovisation, callandresponse, andthe more dancers. While uniqueinform, however, thefandangoisnotwithoutprecedent. border isnecessarilysmall, in Veracruz sometarimasarelargerpiecesofplywoodthatallowfor nas ity whilecreatingapotentialupendingofgenderedhierarchiesmusicality. Dozensofjara- that allowsforparticipationbypeoplewithdifferentskilllevelsandstyles, broadeninginclusiv- the musicalspace. The mechanicsofthemusic/dancegenredistinguishfandango responsibility thatprovidesagencytoagreatnumberofparticipantswhomoveinandout to dancingmusic, dancingtocreate musicrequirestheundertakingofanauralaswellvisual the genderdynamicsassociatedwithdancingversusplayingamusicalinstrument. As opposed horizontal relationality(M. Gonzalez2011, 2014). This isespeciallythecasewhenweconsider the area, defininga “securityzone” overwhichUSauthorities exercisecompletecontrol. erxs ontheUSsidemustfirst cross throughasecondaryfencethatsince2009 “doublysecures” before approachingthefenceon theothersideofwhichstandbodiesinPlayas, fandangu - throughout theweekend. Whether arrivingviacaronthedirtroad, orwalkingalong thebeach, ity totheeventatborder, theywillparticipatein thebinationalworkshopstakingplace revered sonjarocho ments forcontraband. Fandanguerxsraisemoneyfortheairfare andtravelvisasofartists the morningofevent, demandlegalidentification from thoseattending, andsearchinstru- comes. Authorities mayatanypointrevokethelaboriously acquiredpermissions, closeroadson nizers haveinvestedmonthsoflaborandlogisticalplanning, anticipatingdifferentpossibleout- attention toeachotherdespitemany impediments. and togetherness, arealsoproductive, markingthe laborneededtolisten, tohear, tosee, topay other, toplayinsync. Yet perhapsthesemomentsofsyncopation, ofslippingonandoffrhythm year bringsanaddedlayerofsteel, thefandanguerxsdo struggletokeepthetime, toheareach place theircircledirectlyontheborderenactingwholeness, oneness, healing. Still, asevery ers oneithersideoftheSan Ysidro/Tijuana border donotholdparallelfandangos;ratherthey the sametimeasFandangoFronterizo The functionofthefandangoasaneventthatstructuresrelationality, time, andspace, Before arrivingattheSan Ysidro borderonthemorning oftheFandangoFronterizo, orga- can beplayedsimultaneously, anddancerparticipationislimitless. While thetarimaat elders from Veracruz. Notonlydotheseexperts lendauthenticityandgrav- — as distantSwitzerland in ashowofsolidarity(Castillo2015). Butthedanc- into unison. Inthisway, thefandangorealignsand — and dancersmustalwayscedethespaceto — have organizedfandangos take turnswiththemore they mustwaituntil enacts thiscircleof as aspace estribillo at - Son Jarocho 91 - - Figure 4. Facing El Norte at the US-Mexican border wall for the 2019 Fandango Fandango 2019 the for wall border US-Mexican the at Norte El Facing 4. Figure Memoria de courtesy Centro the of Ramírez; Vargas Gustavo by (Photo Fronterizo. Fronterizo) Fandango del activates the collective kinetic power of bodies position- - A locus of gather

For more on the politics of the tarima see Viveros Avendaño (2017) and Guzman-Lopez (2012). Guzman-Lopez and (2017) Avendaño Viveros see tarima the of politics the on more For Dancing in place on the tarima ing and communing, it is also a ing and communing, means to an end: sonic ampli- fication of rhythmic danc- Martha Gonzalez refers to ing. a “rhythmic intention,” this as but not neces- leaning toward, sound in rela- sarily claiming of, As a dance tion to rhythm (66). form whose downwardly driven footwork is evocative of many 15. ining space sonically and temporally rather than through notions of territory and ownership. ownership. ining space sonically and temporally rather than through notions of territory and elsewhere, Later in the evening the tarima from the US side will be moved across the border, to enact the same dancing in place. tiality on the tarima, son jarocho dancing uses its physicalized sound to activate a relation to son jarocho dancing uses its physicalized sound to activate tiality on the tarima, necessarily be traced to any collective kinesthetic while this cannot Furthermore, that place. two-dimensional by the containment of the tarima’s the vertical movement required memory, This the forced shackled dances of the enslaved. footage cites another history of containment: dance not nameable the visual but the emplaced, close-to-the-earth dancing emphasizes not the Thus, and sound as it crafts a body in space. steps but the temporal relationship of silence imag bodies dancing on the tarima placed at the border create a relationship to that place, Indigenous forms of percussive foot stomping used to connect body to land, the zapateado’s zapateado’s the used to connect body to land, Indigenous forms of percussive foot stomping mark its which often rely on a 6/8 time signature, complex and interlocking rhythmic patterns, in claiming both sonicity and spa Thus, African-derived sonic traditions. place in a family of Dancing in Place the tarima, The site of dancing, simul- center, is the fandango’s a frame, taneously a place, and an instrument. a stage, it as the Fandanguerxs describe a sacred center of the event, danc- womb-like space where “dejar el alma” ers come to Gonzalez soul) (M. (leave one’s 2011:65). Closely watched by several border patrol agents, fandanguerxs pass through an open gate in this an open gate fandanguerxs pass through patrol agents, by several border Closely watched At built in the 1990s. “primary fence” of the area in front fence into an open cement secondary feet announce the rhythm sound of dancing the first notes and the the jaranas strike 11:00 a.m. asking for permission fandango with stanzas opens any song that traditionally “Siquisirí” of the has precarity the event’s By this point for what will follow. and setting an intention to proceed jump- work out even after that things will There is no assurance multiple times. been evidenced that prevent participants from hoops of policing and intimidation ing through the proverbial feeling at home in their fandango. from being at ease, ing themselves as the rooted, obstinately immovable survivors of colonialism, genocide, and genocide, immovable survivors of colonialism, obstinately ing themselves as the rooted, “aural-kinesthetics,” what Imani Kai Johnson refers to as Dancing in place invokes enslavement. and in or the simultaneity of music and movement where one seamlessly produces the other, a place that does not exist prior to the dance itself. both cocreate the place of dancing, doing so, Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on 26 September 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on26 September 2021

92 Jade Power-Sotomayor ing producedinanaversiontothatsameflesh. orize relationalcollectivity, andtoprotestthecategorizingimperativesofEnlightenmentthink- than anactofconfrontationalprotestto/atthewall, theFandangoFronterizousesfleshto- Crawley writes: gular andinisolation, butasporous, collective, andproducedinrelationtootherformsoflife. shout circleoronthefandango’s tarima, recuperateanunderstandingofknowledge, notassin- ities, otherwiseecologies” (89). These “otherwise” worlds, suchasthoseinstantiatedinthe steeping intheirmutuallyconstitutiveperformancesof “moving flesh,” enables “otherwisereal- shout traditionsasacasestudy, Crawleyinsiststhatpullingchoreographicsandsonicstogether, as a “thinking” outsideandawayfromitsobjectness(2017:92–138). UsingBlackPentecostal tion ledtothehistoricalproductionofBlacknessitselfasan “aversion,” andknowledge-making ically distinguishedknowledge-makingfromsensual, materialformsoflife. This sameabstrac- spatial andtemporalcoherence, Crawleyargues, createdthephilosophicallogicsthatcategor necessity ofthinkingthemtogether(Crawley2017). The Enlightenmentattempttoabstract a portmanteaudescribingtheinextricabilityofchoreographyandsonicity, andultimatelythe put itanotherway, “dancing inplace” invokeswhat Ashon T. Crawleycallsthe “choreosonic,” Johnson2012). Or,the music, whichinthecaseofsonjarocho, to thenalsoproducesmusic( The “sound’s omni-directionality, comingatyoufromalldirections” weavesmovingbodiesinto 17. 16. pace picksup, thedancerappearstofloat, sustainedin theairjustmillimetersabovetarima knee, andhips, leavingthetorsounmoved. As thespacebetweennotesnarrowsand in askippingmotionmid-air;themechanicsofliftingand fallingtakeplacebetweenfoot, tempo ofthesong. As such, thedancer’s verticalpositiondoesnotchange, evenassheiscaught the balloffoot, theheel, ortheentireflatfootto land intimewithoutaffectingtheoverall sustained bythefeetaseachnoteissoundedonwoodenbox, creatinganextrachallengefor tener. Unlikewithstrumming fingersorpoundinghands, herethebody’s entireweightmustbe sive crescendo, creatingtexturedcadencias from sidetoside. Somestepsareaccentuatedwhileothers areusedasthemeanstoanexplo- weighted pelvis, yetcreatingasenseofbuoyancy;thedancer’s feetshiftweightbackandforth flesh, aspartofaliberatorypraxisrecalibratingfocusbeyondtheindividual(2017). tarima as “decolonial listening,” asonicandchoreographicattunementtootherbodies, other identified dancer)andscholarIrisC. Viveros Avendaño referstothissensorialpracticeonthe uniquely abletoproduceplace, toembodyarelationspecificspace. Bailadora music thatismeanttobedanced, andasadancethatdirectsshapessound, sonjarochois sound-movement/aural-kinesthetic/choreosonic practicebothenactsandrefusesplacement. As lenges the Western spectacleofdancing, foregroundinginsteadthewaythatdancingasa making realan “otherwise” spatiotemporalrelationship. As aconcept, dancinginplacechal- sound, betweentheselfandotherascontainableexpressiveunits, betweenlandandbody, is grasped. [...]Otherwisenamesthesubjectivityincommons, ana ongoingness ofpossibility, ofthingsexistingotherthanwhatisgiven, whatisknown, what Otherwise isawordthatnamespluralityasitscoreoperation, otherwisebespeaksthe Anzaldúa [1981] 1983:23). another reminder of the radical potentialities of the flesh as site of knowledge and world-making (in Moraga and or concrete we grew upon,oursexuallongings Cherríe Moraga’s call for a “theory in the flesh” where “the physical realities of our lives ing through one’s shared experience of difference (2000:61–63). Furthermore, Chela Sandoval writes of a “differential praxis,” a feminist of color practice of oppositionally engag- With thebodyrelaxed, kneesslightlybent, thetorsoisshiftedtowardsfrontwitha The choreosonicsofsonjarochodestroytheassumeddistinctionbetweenmovementand not abouttheenclosedselfbutopen, vulnerable, available, enfleshedorganism. (24 — (cadences) distinguishableonlybytheexperiencedlis- all fusetocreate apoliticout ofnecessity” alsoresonates here as 17 subjectivity — our skin color, the land (woman- that is that is 16 –25) More - Son Jarocho 93 - hov- looking back looking — the sequence of quieter (border patrol). migra migra as opposed to the sones de montón (songs for many) ebbs and flows as they engage other ways of mov- ebbs and flows as they history and lived experience of surviving and being in picks up. While women across the diaspora increasingly While women picks up. actions that collectively comprise the power of dancing in place. comprise the power of dancing in place. actions that collectively a flat foot slide firmly halted by a resonant heel: movement and rooted- a flat foot slide firmly halted by a resonant — . Even as one verse of “La Bamba” Even as one verse of “La Bamba” . create sensual pleasure and political doing —

These “La Bamba” verses are part of a popular repertoire. Jorge Castillo believes they have been around since at at since around been have they believes Castillo Jorge repertoire. part popular of a are verses Bamba” “La These of some which in Rebelde” Bamba song “La the of version a wrote Cafeteras Las group The (2015). 2007 least otherwiseunless translations All (2012). appear own. my here quoted phrases the are noted Dancing in place is not limited to a human/land relationship. Across the repertoire of son Dancing in place is not limited to a human/land relationship. Para cruzar la frontera / para cruzar la frontera se necesita una escalera grande / una escalera / una escalera grande se necesita una escalera cruzar la frontera / para cruzar la frontera Para / no soy de la migra yo arriba y arriba y arriba iré, y arriba / ay arriba ay chiquita y otra grande ni lo seré! ni lo seré ni lo seré no soy de la migra yo a big ladder / a big ladder and also a cross the border / to cross the border we need (To I am not from the Border and up I will go, small ladder Oh up and up / Oh up and up nor will nor will I ever be, / Nor will I ever be, Patrol / I am not from the Border Patrol I ever be!) The intensity of the dancers’ zapateado The intensity of the sones de pareja (songs for couples), In the sones de pareja relationship to land and environment. As such, some of the dance steps themselves call upon As such, relationship to land and environment. where a colorful macaw, , such as with la guacamaya gestures that embody these natural elements, jarocho, references to the natural world abound, the flora and fauna of Veracruz serving as both Veracruz serving the flora and fauna of references to the natural world abound, jarocho, description of and metaphor for jarocho The rising-up/uprising they sing of will come from enacting their relationship to place, from place, The rising-up/uprising they sing of will come from enacting their relationship to from la nor will ever be, the fact they are not, 18. and more space-taking steps used to mark time during the versing, one foot drags in a back one foot drags time during the versing, and more space-taking steps used to mark lated “courtship” through smiles and eyes, and creating and breaking dynamic tension as they and creating and breaking dynamic through smiles and eyes, “courtship” lated During one mudanza, circle each other and then change directions. the dancer Here, resting into a back step that marks the beat. wards motion behind the other, motion that relies on the foot behind to propel embodies the simultaneity of a constant forward rhythm and motion ness. Contemporary bodies and traditional ways of knowing and ways of relating of ways and knowing of ways traditional and bodies Contemporary ness. offers images of ladders and scaling walls, bodies dancing in place take root, refusing to be forc- bodies dancing in place take root, offers images of ladders and scaling walls, “the border”: even to cross ibly moved, ers over the dirt, the grass, or the cement laid on top of the dirt, lifted barely enough to create barely enough to lifted top of the dirt, the cement laid on or the grass, dirt, ers over the that here stands relationship to the platform exists in vibrational the dancer box, a resonating of the sound that being in the service entirety of her physical placing the the Earth, in place of announcing her presence. her, unfurls beneath to move forward waiting to drop the next note. Muscle-memory calibrates the exact distance necessary to create necessary to create the exact distance Muscle-memory calibrates drop the next note. waiting to Just as the tarima to arrive in time. enough to the ground still remaining close sound while ing and relating on the tarima, ing and relating on the women wear long skirts as traditionally in casual workshop settings, wear pants on the tarima to keep them connected to the earth. part of a sartorial protocol that is thought Men hold their arms behind their backs in the “cool aesthetic” that Robert Farris Thompson that Robert Farris “cool aesthetic” behind their backs in the Men hold their arms ever so the edges of their skirts, African cultural value while women hold identifies as a central importantly adjusting their to assure the clear path of the feet but more slightly lifting them as they move across the tarima and dynamically accentuating their posture arms to create space The skirt, exchanged. as smiles and looks are bodies, past the other dancer’s They brush (1996). marking shifts in the direction swings across the body and returns, low, aided by arms hanging tilt off a central axis that will then playing with creating angles that moves, in which the dancer as the zapateado realign in the center most often played and danced by groups of two or four women, dancing is reserved for the het- dancing is reserved of two or four women, most often played and danced by groups simu- messaging engage in coquettish head angling, erosexual pairing of men and women who Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on 26 September 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on26 September 2021

94 Jade Power-Sotomayor Fronterizo) Gustavo Vargas Ramírez; of the Centro courtesy de Memoria del Fandango from the iconic Plaza Monumental de Toros (Bullring by the Sea). (Photo by Figure 5. In Playas de Tijuana at the 2019 Fandango Fronterizo, a few meters the afromestizxfandanguerxs ence andsovereigntyinsitesof “capital accumulation” (2015:129– tial glyphs” producenewgeographiesofresistance, challengingtheerasureofIndigenouspres- element inthe2012IdleNoMoreenvironmentalprotests, Recolletsuggeststhatthese “spa- translocation ofonceruralnativerounddancestotheurbanflashmobsthatbecameacentral petroglyphing usedtorecordcollectivememoryonrocksurfaces(2015:130). Writing aboutthe ing,” aural, visual(andIwouldaddkinesthetic)symbolsthatextendIndigenouspracticesof These inscriptionshereinvokewhatKarynRecolletdescribesas “spatial tags” or “urban glyph- on andacrossthetarima, weave inandouttochangeplaceonthetarima. Tracing pathwaysofcurvingfigure-eightlines arms imitatetherisingandfallingmotionofwingslowclosetobody, asthedancers 19. the tarima. geographies, repletewithplantandanimalcohabitants, intothesandstonecliffsthatlaybelow patterns ofbodilyknowledgesthatcarryIndigenous, African, andmestizxstories, desires, and rized border, challengingnormativegenderedandsexualdynamics. Collectivelytheyinscribe lar powerandbeautyofsonjarocho. As individualspeel awayandreturntotheircommunities, on news, sharesongs, andadmirethosewhosetalent experienceunderscorestheparticu- darkness ofthenightwhiledancerscyclethroughrotationson andoffthetarima, catchup and policing. Stillframedbytheborderfence, the ritualofthefandangospillsoverinto last untildawn. Heretheyaremore, thoughnotcompletely, freefromtheconstraintsoftime this comesfromagreatervisibilityandexposuretothepowerofsonjarocho est andparticipationinsonjarochotheborderregiongeneral(Castillo2015). Partof ment and big business to violate environmental restrictions. constrain Indigenous sovereignty by overturning prior protective legislation making it much easier for govern- Idle No More was founded in 2012 by First Nations women to protest a government bill that would severely The growthoftheFandangoFronterizosince2008hasresultedinaparallelincreasedinter the movingbodiesetchinvisiblebutpalpablepatternsintowood. mobilize sonjarocho to “tag” theKumeyaaylandofmilita- drink, andafandangothatwill nized discussion), foodand border foraconversatorio ning onthePlayas reconvene laterthatsameeve- midday fandango, sojourners son jarochoforthefirsttime. join thecrowd, perhapshearing at theborder, curiouspassersby a beachboardwalkculminates action. OnthePlayas out cellphonestorecordthe the trance-likerhythmandpull Latinx men white, AfricanAmerican,and event —mostly three-hour the der patrolagentsmonitoring especially fruitful. Evenbor as ability tocreatecommunion cal protest. Indeed, sonjarocho’s munal expressionandaspoliti- a politicalprotesthasbeen 42). Following thebinational 19 Fromthisperspective, — both asacom- tap theirfeetto side ofthe side, where (orga- - - Son Jarocho 95 more a subject- —

that “arrange[s] and propel[s] bodies in recognizable that Figure 6. Evening fandango in Playas de Tijuana at the 2019 2019 the at Tijuana de Playas in fandango Evening 6. Figure courtesy Ramírez; Vargas Gustavo by (Photo Fronterizo. Fandango Fronterizo) Fandango del Memoria de Centro the of —

- - - enact an alternate

and Racial Geographies and Racial Geographies of the Border object relationship than an object She argues that scrip- (2009:70). and choreographs behavior” structures “prompts, as it ways,” Importantly, interpellating bodies into ideology and thus into subjecthood. “hail,” tive things bodies’ movements is not fixed but can either rein- the trajectory of these Bernstein notes, Normative and transgressive actions are thus force or challenge a given power relationship. Any form of reversal or upset to a given dynamic of power ultimately both scriptive possibilities. formulation suggests Bernstein’s results in a Bakhtinian reinforcement of the status quo (41). and thus how transgression is among the possible outcomes scripted by the border-as-thing, poses important questions about the political effectiveness of the dancing and music-making This becomes more evident when we consider the fact that Friendship Park was at the border. fractured inaugurated in 1971 by First Lady Pat Nixon as a gesture to assuage the horrors of “hails” the border space of Friendship Park other words, In kinships enacted by the then-fence. actively inviting events like bodies to transgress the physical separation imposed by the border, Friendship Park was built to bring together bodies even as the fence pushes those same its pres- However, bodies apart. ence also invites embodied protest at the border itself (see Indeed, Zamudio Serrano 2014). and “borders are brought to life, and trespassed” transgressed, they are traversed, acquire their performative power only when directing behavior. “scriptive thing” the border can be seen as a As such, (Chambers 2012:xi). “thing” Robin Bernstein develops her concept of a Things,” “Dances with In Dancing Afro-Indigeneity der is etched has existed anew der is etched to bodies dancing in in relation to to song, moving feet, to place, - and syncopa harmony, melody, to fandanguerxs return The tion. subal- their lives as immigrant surviv- Mexican nationals terns, violence, ing neoliberalism and cultural workers in ghettoized chal- and artivists urban spaces, inequal- lenging institutional border wall The ity from within. more feder awaiting remains, the land upon which the bor the land upon ally funded girth and reinforce- ally funded girth and it seems, The status quo, ment. by Yet, remains uninterrupted. activating an Afro-Indigenous repertoire of aural-kinesthetic the even just for a day, signifiers, fandanguerxs decolonial relation to the bor derlands and to each other. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on 26 September 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on26 September 2021

96 Jade Power-Sotomayor mestizaje contravenes thestatecraftofMexicanmestizonationalism” (2015:562). So, whilethediscourse of US statecraftandracialnationalism, astatecraftandnationalism thatdirectlycontradictsand biology, “for whataremestizosifnotthedescendants ofIndigenouspeoples identity theyhavebeendenied(2015). They have beendeniedtheirIndigeneitynotbecauseof melancholic mannerinwhichMexican American mestizxsin theUSmournanIndigenous a UScontext. MaríaE. CoteraandMaríaJ. Saldaña-Portillocallthis “mestizo mourning,” the the whitesupremacistlogicthathashistoricallyforeclosedtheirclaimstoIndigeneitywithin challenge borderlands —also the of Fandango Fronterizo, butChicanxsandfronterizxs —people affiliation, thoughtheymaybeabletonametheirtriballineage. Nonetheless, theyareenact evidence) ofIndigenousheritage, thevastmajorityofthesefandanguerxscannotclaimtribal may haveknowledgeoffamilyancestrythatincludesoralnarratives(andincreasinglygenetic participants wouldnotreadilybeidentifiedas Afro-Mexican. Likewise, whilemostofthem afromestizx, withthepossibleexceptionofthosewhovisitdirectlyfrom Veracruz, mostofthe self-evident. While manyofthoseattendingtheeventself-identifyasmestizxandsome skinned privilegeandembodiedidentificationwithIndigeneityBlacknessisnotalways participants oftheFandangoFronterizopresentaraciallyheterogeneousgroupwhoselight- tive sensuality. the fence, andorificesopentoimbibeeachother’s breath, clearingchannelstoasharedaffec- the FandangoFronterizoandcountlessother “border meetups” wherebodiespressupagainst 23. 22. 21. 20. tence iscontingentuponthecompletionofsuchanerasureanddisappearance. ing arefusaloferasure, activatingaconversationaboutafromestizajeinsitewhoseveryexis Blackness inMexico, equallyforeclosedbycolonialpowersacrosstheborder. test bothSpanishandUScolonialismbychallengingthehistoricalerasureofIndigeneity course ofracialmixingbetweenEuropeansandIndigenous Americans. The fandanguerxscon Afro-Mexicanness Performing sonjarocho the extractionofBlacklaboranddehumanizationliferely(seeMcKittrick2006). the performingbodyheredisruptsdeterritorializationuponwhichsettlergenocideand white supremaciststate’s erasurenotjustofbodiesbutembodiedepistemologies. Ultimately, means ofindexing Afro-Indigenous historyandculturetherebycontestingthecolonial, The fandanguerxs’decolonialperformaticexistslessasanattempttoerasetheborderthana that islessscriptedthoughperhapsnoinevitable(Sandoval, Aldama, andGarcía2012:6). the borderas “thing,” enactinganothersetoftricksthatengageadifferenttransgression, one event, theFandangoFronterizoproducesother “perform-antics” thatslipoffandawayfrom ies inthe Americas. ducing anembodiedreworkingthatcitesandsituatesIndigenous/African/Chicanx/Latinxbod- effectively erasingBlackMexicans. Fandanguerxs of celebratingracialhybriditywhilesimultaneouslyshoringupawhitesupremaciststateand Yet, despitethematerialityofcolonialrelationshipremaininginplaceatclose For more on feminista reappropriations of “mestizaje” see Anzaldúa (1987) and Arrizón (2006). from nonwhite others. Indigenous/Black enough” in the long-standing discursive participates practice of the erasure of and distancing of mestizaje itself.tion of a mixed-race heritage, or the history Conversely, however, dismissing a group as “not- we consider how discussion of Latinx whiteness and white privilege is often evaded through recourse to the citations within the practice of traditions rooted in histories of racially subaltern groups. This is especially so when It to name and attend to the politics of appropriation and the various is necessary ways that colorism func- For son jarocho see Navarro a discussion of postnationalist politics in contemporary (2016). include workshops but also beach cleanups and developing the garden at the park. Now known as “border encuentros,” the gatherings have been a series of organized events at the border that Lettered elitesinMexico, andlaterthegovernment, scripted “mestizaje” in Mexicowascentraltonationalbelonging, thiswasnot thecasewithMexicansliv- 20 — 23 Notonlyisan Afro-Indigenous Mexicantraditionatthecenterof on theborderinvokesandradicalizesconceptofmestizaje, — a traditionfromtheCaribbeancoastofMexicoandsignifier reappropriate theidentifier “mestizaje,” pro- — with theintention 21 but [because of] but [becauseof] That said, the 22 the dis - - - - Son Jarocho 97 - - - persistence of an that would disappear Blackness is seen as one of the most evi and Native American existence. American existence. and Native in Mexico (A. González 2004, 2010; in Mexico (A. González 2004, — is an opportunity to examine the colli- to examine the is an opportunity in whiteness: Native Americans seen by in whiteness: Native — performances have also been important sites for performances have also been important sites creates through its geographical translocation from creates through its geographical and thus belies a mestizaje

24 or been forced to invest and to a lesser extent people - of what for many Chicanx and fron produces embodied citations — — including intra and intertribal recognition across borders. For instance, instance, For recognition across borders. including intra and intertribal

25 —

“Blanqueamiento” refers to the social, political, and economic logic of “whitening” in order to “improve the race” race” the “improve to order in “whitening” of logic economic and political, social, the to refers “Blanqueamiento” 2004). Miller example for (see Americas the across applied Americas. the in people Indigenous about and by variously used terminology is Indian/indio In recent decades, contemporary son jarocho In recent decades, while son jarocho Yet, Mexicans as too white, Mexicans seen by Native Americans as having aligned themselves with Mexicans seen by Native Mexicans as too white, grammar of So not only is the Fandango Fronterizo an important privileging of the the state. The racial of Indigeneity and Indigenous people. Indigenous performance but also the politics an understanding that the politics of Indigenous peo- geography of the borderlands necessitates Americas and indeed of all borders across the border, ple precludes nationalist framings of this the globe. García de León 2009; Pérez Fernández 2003). Likewise, among Chicanx in the US, son jaro among Chicanx in the US, Likewise, García de León 2009; Pérez Fernández 2003). by flattening racial difference into an Indigenous/white binary that permanently relegates indios by flattening racial difference into an Indigenous/white binary that permanently relegates to the historical past. 24. 25. dently Black extant cultural practices and as such has become an emblem of the dently Black extant cultural practices and thereby destabilizing hegemonic Afrolatinidad, cho has served as a way to performatively claim and constructions of both Latinidad and contentious US Black/Brown politics (Díaz-Sánchez The Mexicanness performed at the Fandango Fronterizo is one that disrupts Hernández 2013). discursive histories of blanqueamiento African diasporic culture sion, intersection, and overlapping of two State’s racial geographies produced through colonial produced through racial geographies of two State’s and overlapping intersection, sion, with Indigeneity. encounters this geography that of local tribal relationships to is concurrent with enactments Veracruz “lost” have not been to map and mark not only the occupied by two colonial nation-states; der as Indigenous land but San Diego/Tijuanadeterritorialized Indigenous people in the bloody massacres of region, Such foreground- reservations. habitants who today live on and off also the many Indigenous erasure that continues to frame conversations about ing is critical because of a long history of see this in the domi- We reproducing the logic of genocide. ultimately the US–Mexico border, to large Indigenous even though it is home as a non-Indigenous city, Tijuana nant discourse of such as the well as from the Baja California region, populations from other parts of Mexico as Popular 2012). and Kiliwa (Yépez Cochimí, Cucapá, Kumeai (Spanish for Kumeyaay), Paipai, a hybrid city of transience and as the exemplary postmodern metropolis, Tijuana imaginings of recu- history, Given this (Montezemolo 2012). all further contribute to this erasure futurity, across Mexico and the US have long been perative acts of identifying and enacting Indigeneity extremely high because of the colonial logic of dis- The stakes remain fraught with this tension. Mexican appearance that continues to threaten Indigenous these groups distrust abounds in both directions because of the various ways that Furthermore, have historically invested ing in the Southwest. In order to reap the shallow promise of US citizenship, they disidentified they disidentified of US citizenship, to reap the shallow promise In order Southwest. ing in the opens a space for Fandango Fronterizo the Thus, by law.” “white to become with Indigeneity by denied them knowledges to lay claims to Indigenous-based Americans Mexican Chicanxs and The Fandango Fronterizo history and law. US colonial terizxs is a “lost” history, this clearly takes place in relation to local Indigenous histories and this clearly takes place in relation history, “lost” terizxs is a son jarocho The empowerment politics. a federal lawsuit seeking Posta band of the Kumeyaay Nation filed August 2020 the La in wall through ancestral burial border Trump’s further construction of an injunction to stop of the US–Mexico bor is thus important to reorient our understanding It lands (Fry 2020). identifying and examining Black history in Mexico albeit at times in reductive and stereotypical identifying and examining Black history in son jarocho have noted, As Mexican and US scholars alike ways. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on 26 September 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on26 September 2021

98 Jade Power-Sotomayor 26. but notentirelydisappearingthehistoriesthatexistacrossand aroundit. racial historythattheborderisordered, militarized, and “secured” spaceitistoday, burying fleeing enslavementfrommovingsouth(Avila 2020). Itispreciselybecauseofthismessymulti- area. InsteadofkeepingnoncitizensfrommovingNorth, theyendeavoredtokeepBlackpeople century beforethecreationofBorderPatrol, slavecatchers andvigilantespatrolledborder and oftheexistenceIndigenousmestizxnonslaveswho aidedthem. Morethanhalfa sources evidencetheexistencea “freedom train” ofrunaways andmaroonsfleeingintoMexico the USsouthernborderinimmediateaftermathofMexican–American war, historical mestizx andafromestizx comes tothesurface, deeplyintertwinedwiththemany crossingsandpathwaystosurvivalof In followingtheroutesofsonjarocho’s transpositiontotheUS–Mexicoborder, Blacklife sense ofplace” McKittrickwritesthat nonetheless opensaconversationthatmovestowardsrecuperation. Inheressayon “a black Fandango Fronterizodoesnot McKittrick calls “ungeographic and/orphilosophicallyundeveloped” (2006:xiii). Though the long been, aBlackplace. ItchallengesbeliefsthatBlacklivesarewhatgeographerKatherine cursive movestoregionallycordonoffBlackness, remindingusthattheborderisalso, andhas ity totheCaribbean. LocatingBlacknessattheborderdisruptsneatnessofdominantdis- jarocho not onlyofMexicanracialidentity, butoftheUSSouthwest’s racialgeography. white supremacy. Hisracialidentityandpositionpowerfullydisruptedsimplisticunderstandings afromestizo Picowasanemblemofthecollaborationandinterdependencecolonialism leading tothemassivedisplacementofIndigenousandmestizx parents. OntheeveofMexican-American War California’s “last governor” (1845– the FandangoFronterizo with Indigenoushistoryandculture. Forevidence, oneneedlooknofurtherthanthesiteof 2014:29).claims (A. Gonzalez Afro-Mexican identityhasalwaysbeencloselyintertwined control Indigenouslaborersyet, ironically, afromestizxs and lazy(A. Gonzalez2014). The Spanishusedenslaved Africans andtheirdescendantsto ties. Nonetheless, Afro-Mexicans havelongbeenrepresentedinMexicoasviolent, over-sexed, are lessdisadvantagedintermsofincomeandeducationthanotherIndigenouscommuni- interest inachievinggovernmentalrecognitionleadingtoassistanceprograms, Afro-Mexicans the population)checkedthisbox(FernandezDeCastro2015). However, despiteanexpressed Mexican” or “Afro-descendant” basedon “culture, historyandtraditions,” 1.4million(1.2%of mulate. Inthe2015censuswhereMexicanscouldforfirsttimeself-identifyas “Afro- nonetheless difficulttopindownevenasstudiesrecuperateahistoryof Afro-Mexicoaccu- placement attheborderfurther complicatesandframesthisfandango’s politics (2011:949; emphasisadded) food-nourishment maps, familymaps, musicmapswereassembledalongside “real” maps. duced outsidetheofficialtenetsofcartography:fugitiveandmaroonmaps, literacymaps, tive mappingpracticesduringandaftertransatlanticslavery, manyofwhichwere/arepro- the conditionsofbondagedidnotforecloseblackgeographiesbutratherincitedalterna- The US–MexicoborderisnottypicallyimaginedasaBlackdiasporicspace, andwhileson In Mexico, tobebothIndigenousandBlack, orafromestizx, whilebynomeansararity, is (Solis 2019). whom have permanently settled in Tijuana) has drastically increased the presence of Black migrants in the region The influxin recent years of asylum seekers from different African countries and Haiti especially (many of Because sonjarochoprofoundlyrelieson Afro-diasporic signifiers andembodiments, its is indeedcommonlyidentifiedasaBlackpractice, thisisbecauseof Veracruz’s proxim- people. Although thereislittlecollectivememoryofBlack livesat , finding theremanyafromestizxcalifornios directly engagespecificallyBlackstoriesoftheborderlands, it 46), listedasdescendedfromboth “mulatto” and “mestizo” — when onecolonizerreplacedanother were denied Indigenous-basedland people bywhitesettlers including PíoPico, Alta 26 — interrupting — the Son Jarocho 99 The 27 with Black female bodies — a condition necessary to the a condition necessary both metaphorically and literally with both metaphorically — records and marks the Afro-diasporic women’s embodied relationship to place. embodied Afro-diasporic women’s the — that colonization is at all enabled (see Spillers 1987). 1987). that colonization is at all enabled (see Spillers — , discussed in (M. Gonzalez 2014). 2014). Gonzalez (M. in , discussed Mujeres Entre

- develop and sustaining, creating, in women of role under-acknowledged often and imperative the on more For - music-re transnational and research performance Gonzalez’s Martha see practice jarocho community son and ing project, cording The dancing in place at the Fandango Fronterizo foregrounds afromestiza feminist praxis at the Fandango Fronterizo foregrounds The dancing in place feet in time and in space 27. Throughout the Americas we repeatedly encounter the trope of dancing Indigenous and Black Americas we repeatedly encounter the trope of dancing Indigenous Throughout the civ- religious, discourse as a threat to all things moral, colonial framed by patriarchal, bodies, sex- dissent, The well-rehearsed scenario of these dancers inciting revolt and human. ilized, an anticapitalist lack of efficiency has long called and ultimately laziness, ual lasciviousness, discipline aimed specifically at prohibiting and lim- forth technologies of corporeal control and Jacqueline dancing has been suspect. From potlatches to ring shouts, iting any such dancing. dance interrupts the assimilationist-genocidal logic Shea Murphy writes about the ways that difference Once this different from the settlers. by marking the Indigenous as irreconcilably the On the other hand, the Indigenous lose their claims to land (2007:29–52). is eradicated, in Africans and their descendants was justified by racial differences instantiated, enslavement of by Paul As documented by slave dances in plantation societies (Thompson 2014). part at least, forms to force Spaniards prohibited Indigenous dances while using syncretized dance Scolieri, Africans, enslaved Similarly, conquest (Scolieri 2013). Indigenous people to dramatize their own with were made to prove their aliveness Passage, the people-turned-objects in the Middle their distance effectively increasing aboard ship decks, shackled dancing cued by cracking whips This was seen by slavehold- from death and proving their worth in a system of racial capitalism. instead of as embod- “healthy” ers as an empty physical action aimed at keeping their cargo Since for both Indigenous peoples and ied documentation (see Hazzard-Gordon 1990:3–13). music, communality, Africans dance was never something easily distinguished from ceremony, and history was illegible to those who sought to its function as a form of knowledge and song, The body-to-body transfer of these dances through centuries is own and/or disappear them. This history and relationality. space, time, evidence of non-European notions of spirituality, in the 20th is especially significant when we consider the way that media and popular culture Unleashed and 21st centuries continue to construct nonwhite bodies as perpetually dancing. Disciplining Dance, Writing the Border, the Border, Writing Disciplining Dance, Disappearing Bodies that in turn foregrounds the physical geography of the borderlands and the political and rela- the physical geography of the borderlands that in turn foregrounds realities of forced migration and It also actuates the violent therein. tional histories contained marks these struggles the tarima, The portable site of dancing in place, separation from place. Through woman- land and body. binding and unbinding them to simultaneously for survival, the tarima centered custodianship, not only the gendered narratives of Mexican nationalism but also the anti-Black violence of but also the anti-Black of Mexican nationalism gendered narratives not only the - the disembod a place for Blackness, in this way recuperates Marking the border colonialism. - The deterritori liveness of Black experience. located-elsewhere-and-nowhere, displaced, ied, this displacement. to prison normalizes slave ship to plantation Black people from alization of to place give meaning and space and matters are spatial matters” “black argues, As McKittrick (2006:xii). lives women’s particularly Black Black life, production of Indigenous erasure and of Blackness as a cloak of objecthood for Black bod- erasure and of Blackness as a cloak production of Indigenous violence that is itself constitu- performatic pushes against the anti-Black This decolonial ies. and production of Black For it is through the historical imagination tive of settler colonialism. interchangeable nonhumans and accumulatable, bodies as fungible, is the performed refusal to be desterrado, Fandango Fronterizo their ungendering producing the reproductive labor, uniquely positioned in their capacity for Black nonsubject Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on 26 September 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on26 September 2021

100 Jade Power-Sotomayor ies inthesemovementrituals. desires, needs, andpulltowardrelationalnetworks ofbelongingdrivetheborder-crossing bod- tionships, andtheflowofpowerbutitisconstitutedby movementitself. Conversely, thedaily 2011). Notonlydoestheborderasa “scriptive thing” directthemovementofbodies, rela- ories ofembodiment, andperformanceasbothanact anoptic(Rivera-Serveraand Young 29. 28. with theviolenceofborderhavebeenobscured(Hernández 2012). terms the “borderlands academiccomplex,” localembodiedexperiencesanddailyencounters the US–Mexicoborderhaveexplodedinrecentdecades, producingwhatRobertoHernández looks attheborderthroughlensofembodiment(Hernández2018:159). While studiesof event’s efficacyasan “epistemicandcartographic disobedienceandresistance” isclearifone tor ofallmeaning-makingandknowledgeisthecoreFandangoFronterizo’s resistance. The able butdangerous(Molina-Guzmán2010;Mendible2007). tional changesinhipswaysmarkthesebodiesassimultaneouslydesirableandunreliable, avail- sexuality anduncontainabletemperamentsdrivingfreneticfootpattersquick-paceddirec- Vargas Ramírez; of the Centro courtesy de Memoria del Fandango Fronterizo) Figure 7. A couple dances on the of Chicanafeministshaveinsisted. bodies attheborderbutalsotheorizesthrough body, as Anzaldúa andalegion around thissite. Thus, myurgencyistoengage borderstudiesinawaythatnotonlytheorizes izes, italsoremainsaquotidianexperienceforthemillions ofpeoplewholiveandworkat “border crisis” reachesnewhorrificproportionsofcrueltythat themediainturnspectacular The poweroftheracializeddancingbodytodisruptsupremacylogosasorigina- discussed in Díaz-Sánchez (2012). See Moraga’s “theory in the flesh” (Moraga and Anzaldúa [1981] 1983) and Celia Herrera-Rodríguez’s work as tional immigrants through the borders of time and space broadly conceived. “the border” is still employed as a metaphoric frame for thinking about the dances that follow intra- and interna- For instance, in Dancing Across Borders: Danzas y Bailes Mexicanos (Nájera-Ramírez, Cantú, and Romero 2009), tarima in the evening at the 2019 Fandango Fronterizo. (Photo by Gustavo 29 As borderstransformspaceintoplace, theynecessitate the- 28 Forevenasthecurrent - Son Jarocho 101

- - - — - - legal The topia 31 (Madrid 2011:8), then the bor (Madrid 2011:8), hetero of notion Foucault’s following — - “kineto calls a what Sydney Hutchinson movement, had more to do with the spiritual and the moral as had more to do with the spiritual and the practice, oral practice of a word/prayer/intention given by a leader leader a by given word/prayer/intention a of practice oral practice, danza Movement at the border produces space and place. The permeation space and place. at the border produces Movement 30

Hutchinson draws on musicologist Josh Kun’s (2005a) description of description (2005a) Kun’s Josh musicologist on draws Hutchinson sound. by defined and produced space a Tijuana, “audiotopic” an from comes that a concept is “Palabra” in a gathering of people around a circle (see Luna 2011:128). For a discussion of the historical practice of having having of practice historical the of discussion a For 2011:128). Luna (see circle a around people of gathering a in 2010). (Lyons see “x” an performedof inscription the by treaties on signatures American Native Today, it is the writing of “documents,” the “papers” of citizenship that repeatedly perform “papers” the “documents,” it is the writing of Today, rather than is one becomes rather than is a space where If the borderlands Bodily interventions at the border must be framed in relation to the power of the writ- at the border must be framed in relation Bodily interventions the originary power of the written treaty and the juridical system that protects it. These inscrip- the originary power of the written treaty and the juridical system that protects it. “daughter,” “mother,” replacing humanity out of existence, tions hold the power to write one’s “undocumented.” or even the slightly less offensive “illegal,” and “alien” with “lover,” “brother,” papeles in The implications of this are even more profound if we consider the way that the word functional one’s on, that one takes “role” of citizenship and a “papers” Spanish signifies both the der also implies activity, a doing, that even in its promise to contain and control relies upon and control relies its promise to contain that even in a doing, activity, der also implies place of constant it is a As such, movement. 2011:44). (Hutchinson pia” rupted by fluttering skirts, the heat produced by the friction of bodies huddled together in move- huddled together in the friction of bodies heat produced by the fluttering skirts, rupted by It a contraband carried in bodies. an embodied smuggling, a border-crossing, is not simply ment, the border has been defined. circumventing of the very terms by which a is a deactivation, work citing the as Saldaña-Portillo suggests, Or, and relations. ten word to map geographies materiality of colonial occupa- we gain insight into the geographers, of feminist and critical Drafting the border (2016:18). writing on the land” “physical it as a tion when we understand Hidalgo at the close of the Mexican- of Guadalupe Treaty in the 1848 between nation-states resources, power of the word to steal land, the signatories used the performative War, American and policing, while subjugating, to corral and remove some human bodies, and ancestral homes; imposing the same function, Americas performed treaties across the Indeed, exploiting others. forms of knowledge production communities who long practiced their own the written word on whose sense of palabra and government, of the border fence by sound waves produced by pounding feet, the directional flow of air inter flow of air the directional feet, produced by pounding fence by sound waves of the border principles and binding agreements than with the “law” of a coerced signature on paper. “law” with the principles and binding agreements than 30. 31. ars and artists have tirelessly illustrated, these discursive formations have permeated all levels these discursive formations have permeated ars and artists have tirelessly illustrated, and bury counternarratives that have nonetheless been working to erase of Mexican society, embodied culture (Quiñonez 2002). kept alive in the day-to-day transfers of trate power in the hands of white and mestizx Mexico. These writings have stereotyped and Mexico. trate power in the hands of white and mestizx the very literary expression that purports to celebrate subjugated Indigenous Mexico through La Malinche, producing the gendered trope of the female Indigenous sell-out/whore them, As Chicana feminist schol for her original sin. mother to the Mexican race yet never forgiven ent bodies: white, Indigenous, Black, mestizx. Even as an increasingly militarized border has mestizx. Black, Indigenous, ent bodies: white, perceived threat of invasion from the Global South, in recent decades attempted to curb the responded to US imperialism with the writing the Mexican lettered intelligentsia has long For the of Mexico as inferior to the US. of a national narrative that contests the positioning upon the symbolic value of Mexico’s these narratives have drawn greater part of 200 years, to concen while continuing Mexican Blacks, Indigenous population and ignored or jettisoned finality of the treaty’s written word trumps other forms of negotiation and ways of relating, of negotiation and ways of relating, written word trumps other forms finality of the treaty’s border; first, It was the word that produced the performing the ultimate violence of erasure. with steel “a line drawn in the sand and then re-drawn with wire fences and then re-drawn as wired with electronic sensors and digital cameras” walls and then re-drawn with steel walls engendering the birth of new nations and nationalisms It was also writing, (Kun 2005b:147). Masculinist into being (Anderson [1983] 1991). these distinct communities “imagined” that differ “displacing” and “placing” did the work of narratives of national belonging in Mexico Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on 26 September 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on26 September 2021

102 Jade Power-Sotomayor sional apprehensionofmeanings disallowing Indigenous, African, andnon-Western epistemologiesthatvaluethemultidimen- Western logocentrism hasframedthetermsofconversationbetweencolonizerandcolonized, and embodiedmodesofenactingcounterknowledgesalsoworkagainstalongsidewriting. always bysituatinglogosatthelocusofpower, blindsidingthewaythatrelationalstructures a wayto “talk back” tocolonialpowers, tellingalternateversionsofthesamestory, itdoesso un-geographic stateofthedesterrados. Evenaswritinghasdoubtlesslyserved, andserves, as purpose. Someonesinpapelescanbeseenasapersonwithoutroletoplay, suspendedinthe 32. from withinstructuresofpower todestabilizethem. of survival, of “survivance,” enactstheslippery andplayfulwaysthattheseembodiedactswork promise embodiedfreedomatthesametimethatsonjarocho, asan Afro-Indigenous practice Indigeneity andBlackness. BlacknessandIndigeneityareperformatives thatbothprecedeand that sonjarochopracticeisread nial performatic, Iamalsowaryofanoverlyutopicreadingthat blindsidestheparticularways While therearemanyreasonsforarguingthattheFandango Fronterizo activatesadecolo- Son Jarocho andEmbodiedLiberation Between Freedoms andUnfreedoms are waysofdoing temologies andcounternarratives. Visual andsensatesovereignty by thesettlerstatereliesonapoliticsofinclusionthatdeniesexistenceIndigenousepis- ple havealternateembodiedenactmentsofsovereigntythatareimportanttothem. Recognition legal systemdoesnotmeanthatIndigenouspeopleneedtoacceptthoseterms;peo- these scholarsassertthatjustbecausethesettlerstatedefinessovereigntyaccordingtoitsown 2011; Taiaiake 2005;Raheja2007;Goeman2013). Reappropriatingtheconceptofsovereignty, tion theideathatonlywaytobe the other, albeitnotwithoutextremetension. Simpsonandagrowinggroupofscholarsques- eignty thatquestionsthecolonialproject, showinghowonesovereigntycanbenestedwithin Canadian and American citizenship, theseperformancesofrefusalenactanembodiedsover tradition ofmovingfreelyacrossnorthernborders(Simpson2014). Rejectingtheconfinesof ing thisrelationship. Membersofhertribeengageinvariousactsrefusalbyexercisingtheir Mohawk scholar Audra Simpsonwritesabout “ethnographic refusal” asastrategyofredefin- decolonial performaticoftheFandangoFronterizo. Addressing similarissues, Kahnawake indeed by Western philosophy, arerefutedbyembodiedepistemologies. the “loss” and “disappearance” implicitindefinitionsofsovereigntyframedby Western law, of thematerialbodyitchallengesassigning “Indigenous tradition” tothepast. At thesametime, to howitis “represented.” Ontheonehand, byprivilegingthepracticethroughimmediacy the convivialityofadancedandmusicalexchange, instantiatinghowaculture “feels” asopposed is doublyproductive:itproducesphysicalsensation, “feelings” ofbeingandbelonging, through Reason oraccessto Truth. Thus the “body logic” ofanembodiedpracticesuchassonjarocho ing itimpossibletolinkthinkingwithmovementandrenderingthebodyunableproduce tence onthematerialnatureofbodyincontrasttononmaterialthought, mak- that transcendstimeandspaceunchanged” (2007:28). explains Indigenous “sovereignty asaprocessthatiskineticratherthanrigidsetofprinciples tion, endurance, and vitality. beyond “survival” in relationship to the victimhood of Indigenous people, but to also invoke presence, continua- “Survivance” is a term first coined by Anishinaabe cultural theorist Gerald Vizenor (1994) as a way to think Indigenous scholarshiponsovereigntyprovideshelpfulinsightforthinkingthroughthe At theheartof Western logocentrismandEnlightenmentthinkingistheCartesianinsis- sovereignty inrelation, notattainingastateofbeing — — by meandothers sound, gesture, andrelationalaffect. sovereign istohaveauthority/ownershipofland(Rickard 32 —

as liberatory, especiallyinrelationto — dance-acts andsong-acts sovereign. MichelleRaheja - — Son Jarocho 103 is and - and 21st–century at which the tribal com- - Black history and aesthet a fraught though nonethe- at the border is to under —

a reality further complicated by histories of complicated by a reality further is to disrupt the divisive binary logic imposed is to disrupt the divisive the existence of Blackness in the fandango — making son jarocho’s — are aware of these contradictions. Maybe they know that their are aware of these contradictions. and some insiders — By contrast, Thomas DeFrantz insists that it is through the dances of the the dances of insists that it is through Thomas DeFrantz By contrast, 33 for its unique capacity to corporeally liberate and to symbolize insurrection, a and to symbolize insurrection, for its unique capacity to corporeally liberate — must address. For now, the lesson of this fandango For now, must address. is the performative negotiation that the Fandango Fronterizo is the performative negotiation that the Fandango at the border, it also cites “Black cultural practice” it also cites at the border,

inspired by and recorded in part at the 2018 Fandango Fronterizo. inspired by and recorded in part at the 2018 Fandango Fronterizo. Wall at the Fandango

placement The basic premise of the Fandango Fronterizo The basic premise of According to Wilderson and Afro-pessimism more generally, “the slave” refers to the position of “the Black” Black” “the of position the to refers slave” “the generally, more Afro-pessimism and Wilderson to According position contemporaryin slavery from inseparable ontology an as society structurala as “non-human” (Wilderson 2010). Even though there is an undeniable function of the performativity and slipperiness of performativity and slipperiness function of the there is an undeniable Even though Maybe the fandanguerxs ics opaque. ics opaque. Afro-diasporic song, dance, and music, it is still imperative to note how corporeal Blackness is how corporeal Blackness imperative to note it is still and music, dance, song, Afro-diasporic Black bodies via and away from visibly employed mestizaje. It is unclear for whom and how this circulation of corporeal Blackness translates into translates into of corporeal Blackness and how this circulation It is unclear for whom mestizaje. dance but is “the slave can that III asserts Wilderson Frank B. politics of liberation. a productive (2012). still a slave” 33. Mexico border and includes vibrant footage of the Fandango Fronterizo (see fandangowall.com). Mexico border and includes vibrant footage of the Fandango Fronterizo (see fandangowall.com). Later his project Music Without Borders would release an audiobook of the same name by Without Later his project Music Jones, Kabhir Sehgal and in September 2020 a documentary for HBO produced by Quincy Veracruz to the US- The film follows son jarocho from and Carlos Santana. Young, Andrew Addendum Arturo O’Farrill released the Afro-Latin jazz musician and composer renowned In 2019, album dancing is both liberatory and complicit. Even as the danced action of the Fandango Fronterizo Even as the danced action of the Fandango dancing is both liberatory and complicit. and the anti-Black violence upon which it has been disrupts colonial claims to the borderlands I imagine a future beyond recognizing predicated, less useful term its distance from the center. capacity defined by its very difference, African diaspora that the Black self can exist (2004). At the same time, DeFrantz is cautionary in same time, At the the Black self can exist (2004). African diaspora that of freedom with the mass prolifera- of specifically neoliberal discourses pointing out the pairing of distribution that would Son jarocho resists technologies dances (2012). Afro-diasporic tion of - its diasporic prac Yet, (2012:135). cravings for black social dance” “marketplace have it fulfill market forces that read its does not entirely escape these same tice and increasing popularity the Blackness in son jarocho At the same time, to corporeal freedom. Blackness as a channel not obvious to outsiders by the border: inside/outside, us/them, belonging/unbelonging. However, part of what enables part of what However, belonging/unbelonging. us/them, by the border: inside/outside, by Blackness and Black and completeness is the labor performed this move into a wholeness this move inadvertently, Thus, and state of freedom. to a place “us” corporeal practice to bring existing as something cordoned off from the into universal belonging depends upon Blackness ungeographic. ahistorical and perpetually suspended, contained and bordered, greater whole, this marginalization of Blackness by its embod- At the same time that son jarocho challenges ied in Mexico more largely writ. We have recognized for centuries the Black presence in the US have recognized We in Mexico more largely writ. into making Black and unable to translate recognition into real power, with little to show for it, I envision a Fandango Fronterizo Likewise, Afro-Latinx lives matter. Mexico are where the Indigenous communities in munities of the borderlands are recognized, This present. fandanguerxs state of the embodied freedom it enacts and places is score that the fleeting and impermanent not now within reach but sought after (in Harney and Moten “fugitive,” what Fred Moten calls freedoms and unfreedoms syncopating on and off its It is both liberatory and incomplete, 2013). dancing in place. land, bodies as they together sculpt sound into Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on 26 September 2021 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dram_a_00966 by guest on26 September 2021

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