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2008 Music, Dance, and Kinship: Baile as Shared Substance Among Diasporic Mexicans in Quincy León García

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FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF MUSIC

MUSIC, DANCE, AND KINSHIP: BAILE AS SHARED SUBSTANCE AMONG

DIASPORIC MEXICANS IN QUINCY

By

LEÓN GARCÍA

A Thesis submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music

Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2008

The members of the Committee approve the Thesis of León García defended on August 20, 2008.

Dale A. Olsen Professor Directing Thesis

Frank Gunderson Committee Member

Joseph Hellweg Outside Committee Member

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.

ii TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures ...... v Abstract ...... vi

1. MEXICO AND MEXICANS IN QUINCY ...... 1

Mexico ...... 1 Mexicans in Quincy ...... 2 Theoretical Framework ...... 4 Methodology...... 5

2. THE MEXICAN DIASPORA IN QUINCY ...... 6

First Contact with Juan ...... 7 Juan in Mexico ...... 10 Juan’s Journey to the United States ...... 11 Juan and His Music ...... 15 Don Fermin and Discolandia ...... 16 Victor ...... 19 Manuel ...... 20

3. ONE BIG FAMILY ...... 22

Traditional Mexican Kinship Challenged ...... 22 Juan’s kin ...... 29 Don Fermin’s kin ...... 32

4. THE TROPI-NORTEÑO STYLE ...... 38

Música Tropical: Cumbia ...... 39 Cumbia Sonidera ...... 42 Música Norteña ...... 43 Musical and Social Fusion ...... 47

5. THE BAILE ...... 53

Music as a Symbol ...... 54 The Baile as Social Drama and Symbol ...... 60 Baile Canon Creation ...... 62

6. CONCLUSIONS: MUSIC AND BAILE AS KINSHIP ...... 65

iii

APPENDIX: FORM OF CONSENT ...... 70

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 71

iv LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1 Music as a Shared Substance……………………………………………...... 5 Figure 2.1 Baile Advertisement……………………………………………………….....18 Figure 2.2 Manuel in the Rehearsal Room……………………………………………....21 Figure 3.1 Baile Advertisment ……………………………………………………...... 26 Figure 3.2 Diagram of a Traditional Mexican Family ……………………………...... 27 Figure 3.3 Juan’s Mobile Home ………………………………………………………...30 Figure 3.4 Juan’s Kinship ……………………………………………………………….32 Figure 3.5 Don Fermin’s Immediate Family ……………………………………...... 33 Figure 3.6 Don Fermin’s Property …………………………………………………...... 34 Figure 3.7 One Big Family …………………………………………………………...... 36 Figure 4.1 Musical and Social Fusion ………………………………………………...... 38 Figure 4.2 Example of Cumbia ……………………………………………………….....41 Figure 4.3 “Yolanda” by Rafael Padilla ……………………………………………...... 41 Figure 4.4 Example of Cumbia Sonidera ………………………………………...... 43 Figure 4.5 Example of Norteño Music ………………………………………...... 45 Figure 4.6 “Mis Tres Animales” by Los Tucanes de Tijuana …………………………...46 Figure 4.7 Music as a Shared Substance…………………………………………...... 49 Figure 4.8 Example of Tropi-Norteño ………………………………………………...... 50 Figure 4.9 Lyrics of “Raquel”………………………………………………………...... 51 Figure 5.1 Discolandia Party Venue ………………………………………………...... 56 Figure 5.2 Juan’s Band During Preparation for the Baile …………………………….....57 Figure 5.3 Discolandia Dance Floor ……………………………………………...... 59 Figure 6.1 Baile Advertisement in Tallahassee ………………………………...... 67

v ABSTRACT

In this thesis I argue that a weekly baile (dance) in Quincy, Florida, constitutes a symbolic process of unification in the Mexican diaspora and that music functions as a symbol of shared substance in the creation of kinship. I examine the lives of some of the people who make up the Mexican diasporic community of Quincy and musical performance and social issues found in the community. I also discuss processes of reciprocity involved in the creation of musical symbolism, which creates a shared substance on which new kin relationships are established.

vi

CHAPTER 1 MEXICO AND MEXICANS IN QUINCY

Mexico Mexico is a country with more than 100 million people and a republic divided into thirty-two states. People from the southern state of Chiapas are typically very different from people in the northern state of Monterrey. In recent years migration from Mexico has come largely from rural areas, primarily from the southern states such as Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Chiapas. The rippled orography that separates these states from Mexico City’s centralized government has left these states out of the overall development of the country. Many of these rural areas experience scarcity of resources, and farming has become increasingly difficult because of trade agreements such as NAFTA, which has left behind many poor Mexican farmers who do not have the necessary technology to compete. While many Mexicans from large cities immigrate to the United States, many others come from a poor, rural background. In order to understand Hispanics in the United States and to discuss their social organization, it is important to acknowledge the differences within the diaspora. Mexicans in Quincy, Florida, are primarily from rural areas in Mexico, and they undergo a different acculturation process than those who come from middle or even lower class backgrounds in one of the larger Mexican cities.

Mexicans in Quincy Hispanics constitute the largest minority in the United States,1 and their presence contributes largely to the economic growth and cultural diversity of the country. The Hispanic presence in the United States has been widely researched, primarily in big cities such as Los Angeles and New York. Small towns with fewer than ten thousand people and growing Hispanic populations, however, have not been researched in great depth. The impact that migrant communities are making on small towns in the United States has economic, cultural, and political implications that have not yet been fully explored.

1 The term “Hispanic” is commonly accepted as both an adjective and a noun to refer to Spanish-speaking people. I prefer this term to “Latino” because the latter technically would have to include French-speaking and Portuguese-speaking peoples of the Americas.

1 Several decades ago, Mexicans in Quincy were only seasonal visitors picking tomatoes on local farms, but today they are a permanent community. As new job opportunities open in areas such as the construction and restaurant industries, Mexicans have changed their status from visitors to residents, and now they constitute more than five percent of the population in Quincy. Their presence affects many realms of economic and social life. Today, signs in Spanish are commonly found around Quincy’s streets, restaurants, and grocery stores, many of them advertising products that are imported from Mexico such as nopales (cactus), chorizo (Mexican sausage), and even botas (boots). Cultural and sports activities for the Mexican community are held regularly in Quincy, such as on Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican independence day (September 15), and for sports competitions. In September 2007, for example, a Mexican basketball tournament included teams named Los Rayos de Oaxaca (The Rays of Oaxaca) and Los Broncos (The Horses). Music is a fundamental part of the Mexican diaspora in Quincy, and music contributes to the national identity of this community. Most important is the weekly baile (dance), in which musicians play for a fairly large audience every Saturday night. Most of the music played is called tropi-norteño, a mix of norteño music revealing Mexican and Colombian influences such as cumbia and vallenato. Because many of the musicians work in the construction industry and spend most of their days under harsh working conditions, they long for free time to be able to practice their music and get ready for the upcoming baile. In this thesis I argue that the weekly baile in Quincy constitutes a symbolic process of unification in the Mexican diaspora and that music especially functions as a symbol of shared substance in the creation of kinship. To explain and analyze this process I begin by examining the lives of some of the people who make up the Mexican diasporic community of Quincy (I have given them pseudonyms). I explore their kinship and social organization to reveal how the baile and everything that constitutes its creation, contributes to the socialization of the diasporic Mexicans. I devote attention to musical performance of the tropi-norteño style and its use in the weekly baile, and I especially examine instrumentation, repertoire, lyrics, and symbolic dimensions. I also discuss some of the social issues found in this diaspora, followed by my conclusions

2 which includes the role of music as a shared substance and its analogy to the creation of the tropi-norteño style.

Theoretical Framework In focusing on tropi-norteño music as symbol and performance, I draw on the theoretical framework of Victor Turner and David Schneider. Turner, in his discussion of symbolism and the dynamics of social life, argues that symbols are not units in abstract, atemporal systems, but resources that are creatively used by actors with particular and often differing intentions and goals.2 He uses the concept of social drama to describe sequences of events in social life. In a similar manner, I approach the weekly baile as a social drama given its similarities, which are discussed in chapter 5. In his discussion of American kinship, Schneider questions how blood constitutes the indisputable basis for kinship in America.3 He points out that the emphasis placed on blood as a shared substance is a historical one; however, he maintains that the idea of shared substance as the main unifier of people in social networks has shifted to a metaphoric or symbolic meaning. In the case of the present study, music is used as a symbol and, the processes of reciprocity involved into the creation of this musical symbolism lays the bases to considered it a shared substance. Music for Mexicans in Quincy is not only a commodity; it is also a symbol that represents shared substance among people. Whether participating in active music making, such as playing an instrument, rehearsing, and dancing, or taking part in activities that constitute passive music making, such as sponsoring musical bands, listening, whistling, talking about music, and tapping one’s foot along with the music, all are “types of ethnic symbolic activities that . . . assist in creating . . . identity that can be shared with others of the same ethnicity.”4 As we will see further, this experience of musical sharing functions as a unifier and a shared substance in the creation of kin relationships. Merging these two theories provides the theoretical framework for my thesis, as depicted in Figure 1.1 below.

2 Turner, “Symbolic studies,” 145-61. 3 Schneider, American Kinship. 4 Olsen, The Chrysanthemum and the Song: Music, Memory, and Identity in the South American Japanese Diaspora, 5.

3

Blood Music Symbolism

Figure 1.1.

Music as a shared substance

Methodology This thesis is based on fieldwork conducted from November 1, 2006 to October 25, 2007. During that one year period I was able to mingle with my fellow nationals and collect ethnomusicological data by video recording the weekly bailes, interviewing musicians and community members, photographing posters that advertised the upcoming dances, and writing fieldnotes during successive visits to Quincy. In addition, I participated as a fellow musician during rehearsals and performances.

4 CHAPTER 2 THE MEXICAN DIASPORA IN QUINCY

In this chapter I introduce the people who are my subjects of study and examine their daily lives, dreams, concerns, and aspirations. First, however, I recount my experience during my fieldwork and narrate some of the stories and aspects of the physical and emotional realms of my subjects. My interest in music of the Mexican Diaspora in Florida began on a Saturday in Tallahassee the capital of Florida and an “All-American city.” Saturday is usually a good day for a Mexican to have eggs with chorizo (a type of Mexican sausage) and beans. Unfortunately, that Saturday I ran out of chorizo, so I decided to go shopping. After driving around in search of the Mexican grocery store the sign of a store, “La Moreliana,” appeared next to a CompUSA sign. I promptly parked and went into the store. A warm “buenas” welcomed me, as the people in the store realized that I was Mexican. With a friendly tone I replied: “buenas, como le va?” Inside the store I recognized many Mexican brands of merchandise and foods that I grew up with and with which I am familiar: bread, soup, tortillas, candy, mole, chiles, and even boots and music CDs.5 I couldn’t find the precious chorizo for my Saturday breakfast, though, so I asked the man behind the counter: “tiene chorizo, amigo?” Either because of the bond that word generates in Spanish, or because he was just happy, he said: “claro, en el refrigerador” (of course, in the refrigerator). I turned my eyes to the fridge, and next to the chorizo I found one of my favorite Mexican drinks: Boing. I decided to take one and have a little chit-chat with the employee while I drank my soda. Soon we were talking about things such as the weather, traffic, and all those subjects that people talk about when they have time to waste. Suddenly, I saw an advertisement of a musical band playing in Quincy, so I directed the conversation to the subject of music. I asked the employee if he knew about bands performing Mexican music, and after thinking for a couple of seconds, he referred me to Juan Bautista, grabbing a piece of paper on which to write his phone number. Soon after that I was on

5 Today the U.S. Hispanic market constitutes more than 642 billion dollars in purchasing power, and many brands from Latin American countries are readily available (Korzenny 2005:19).

5 my way home, realizing that my field research had just begun. Juan became my main informant and good friend, and most of my fieldwork centers around him; therefore, most of my ethnography relates to him. In the following paragraphs, I narrate how I met him.

Juan After preparing and eating the traditional huevos con chorizo I decided to call Juan. Our first conversation was a little weird, probably because I did not know exactly what I was looking for, and also because he was not sure why I was calling. However, he politely invited me to one of his rehearsals, and agreed to meet me next Saturday. On that day, I got my equipment ready and headed to the place he described as a “white house in front of a store.” First Contact As I drove west on Highway 90 from Tallahassee, trees on both sides of the road kept me company for more than twenty minutes until, little by little, they started to unveil the outskirts of Quincy. As I approached the town, single story buildings, the first stores within the city limits, seemed to be taken from an old movie. Quincy is one of those towns with old southern charm. The deep blue of the sky contrasted with the green of the trees and the light colors of the buildings that are not very tall. An old television shop on Jefferson Street—the main street—exemplifies the locally owned style of commerce in the city. There is no big Circuit City store here to provide the community with electronics.6 Instead, Mack’s TV stands by itself with no building on either side. Another very common business in Quincy is tractors, perhaps because of the town’s rural agricultural economy. As I moved closer to downtown, more single-story buildings, advertisements, and a little more traffic appeared. Colorful buildings permeate the downtown of the city, many of them with 1950s style shades on the windows. An old Coca Cola ad painted on the wall of one of the buildings resembled a view of what life used to be like in the U.S. decades ago.

6 According to the latest census, 19.8% of Quincy residents were below the poverty level (United States Census Bureau, 2008). This, and the small size of the town, could explain why many corporations do not find moving to Quincy economically feasible.

6 The downtown buildings quietly display the different stages of the history of Quincy. While the city hall denotes a classical style, the Gadsden County Judicial Complex has a more modern minimalistic architecture. I saw no chain stores like The Gap or Dillard’s. Instead, a dollar store was holding some kind of sidewalk sale and many items could be found in a street market. As I passed downtown and continued driving on Jefferson Street, I saw signs in Spanish such as Mr. Taco, a fast food restaurant that sells Mexican tacos across the street from Kentucky Fried Chicken. It made me aware of the duality present in Quincy, in which hispanic culture blends with the archetypical restaurant chains of the United States. El Ranchito is another Latino restaurant, this one with the colors of the flag of the Republic of El Salvador painted all over the building.7 After passing El Ranchito I parked as Juan had instructed me. I started walking around the neighborhood searching for a white house without a number. The lack of an address with a street name or number caused me to wander around for a few minutes looking at many white houses. Fortunately, I heard the deep sound of an electric bass in the distance. Following the sound, I got to the house but entered by the wrong door, which made my initial appearance a little awkward. Nevertheless, after standing in the corner of the rehearsal room for the duration of three songs, I was able to introduce myself formally. Whenever I run into a Mexican in the United States, a formal presentation is followed by the question, “What part of the country (Mexico) are you from?” As soon as they know that I’m from Mexico City, a moment of awkwardness arises. Many of the people who have migrated to work in the United States come from the most rural and poorest areas of Mexico. Such people who have experienced the unfavorable end of the disparity of wealth distribution in their own country have feelings of rancor toward “city slickers” like me. This was an issue the first time I met with Juan and his group because they identified me as a chilango, the term applied to an inhabitant of Mexico City and one that is associated with aggressiveness, violence, and drugs (Ariosa 2000:190). I was forced to prove that I am a good chilango. After observing the band and talking to different members for a little while, I realized that Juan is the director and lead singer of the band. His brother Raul is also in

7 According to the 2008 census, 6.8% of the population in Quincy is Hispanic, mostly from Mexico.

7 the band and performs second voice, usually a third above the lead. Juan and his brother migrated to the United States from Mexico five years ago. Although they have a sister in the United States, they have not seen their parents in five years. Both of them stared at the ground when I mentioned the word familia (family), no doubt a sensitive and sad topic. As an immigrant myself I remember the process of becoming a resident, which required me to stay inside the U.S. for long periods of time without being able to see my family. I asked them (Juan and his brother) when they last saw their families, and they both stared at the ground and mumbled a couple of barely intelligible words. Although they were saying something, the words, were not important; their facial expressions and the inflection of their voices told me what I wanted to know. Juan in Mexico Juan was born in a remote area of the state of Guerrero, Mexico, a ranchería8 known as Tlacotepec in the region of Tierra Caliente. The area is well known for its natural beauty as well as for its lack of economic opportunities.9 Life back then, according to Juan, was not very complicated. A poor economy and the distance between Tlacotepec and any major city made life pass by very slowly. Juan fondly remembers growing up looking at the mountains from his humble house, mountains that surround Tlacotepec creating a cradle for the people who live there, but also isolating them from other communities. Farming has been the only activity that people from Tlacotepec can do for survival, an activity that Juan has been doing ever since he can remember. His father, a farmer, taught him everything he knows about cultivating the earth. Working all day under the harsh conditions of an implacable sun, his father would return home and have dinner with his family when his work on the crops was over. A taco of beans and chiles would be the regular meal because meat was not always available. Beer, however, was always plentiful. Juan remembers seeing his father sitting down in his favorite chair drinking after a day of work and then falling asleep during the evening. One day when Juan’s father was sleeping after his usual round of beers, a relative came asking for his father’s gun. Juan’s mother refused to give out her husband’s firearm,

8 Rancherías are small populations in Mexico, with no more than 30 or 40 people. They often lack the most basic services. 9 According to the INEGI (Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Información), the state of Guerrero only contributed 1.68% of the PIB (producto interno bruto, or gross domestic product) in 2004.

8 but the relative took advantage of the sleeping man and took the gun anyway. Not long after, the relative killed one of Juan’s cousins. The father of the deceased man (Juan’s uncle) demanded to know who had provided the killer with a gun. In a rage after having lost his son, the uncle came to his brother’s home and killed Juan’s father in front of his wife.10 There was nothing that Juan could have done to prevent his father’s death. Juan remembers his thirst for revenge, since his father’s assassin was still a free man in Tlacotepec. His older brother, however, taught him to forgive and to move forward. Juan admired his big brother and over time wanted to be like him. Since the death, he has had to help his older brother in providing for the family, and the traumatic event taught him how hard life in the ranchería was. Those tough lessons were only the beginning, however, because his older brother was also murdered when a drunken stranger confused him with another person in a bar and killed him. Juan was only sixteen years old, and he was now completely in charge of the family. He soon realized that he had no possibility of economic survival and perhaps no chance for survival at all if he stayed. Therefore, he decided to leave in search of a better future. Juan’s Journey to the United States Three years went by after the death of Juan’s brother before Juan decided to migrate to the United States at nineteen years old. The decision was a hard one, since he had to leave his mother alone. He left without saying goodbye to his mother and took a bus to Mexico City where he stayed with his uncle—his first experience outside Tlacotepec. Juan was able to borrow money from his uncle to fly to Hermosillo. Once he got near the U.S. border, Juan looked for a coyote11 who could help him cross into the United States. He stayed in Hermosillo for an extra week until he found someone who was willing to take him. He remembers walking with a large group of people during the night for a long time until they reached a highway. They all stopped when they reached the highway, and to Juan’s surprise, many jumped into the drainage ditch that ran along the highway. He remembers the scared faces of people in the ditch and kids crying while their mothers tried to appease them. Meanwhile, the coyote gave

10 In Mexico it is against the law for civilians to purchase or possess a gun.

11 Coyote is the term applied to people whose business is to help others cross the border illegally.

9 instructions for the people to wait for his signal to come out. His directions were simple, as Juan recalls, “you had to come in pairs and run as fast as you can.” His turn to go out came, and he ran as fast as he could. Everything was so fast that he did not notice he was already on U.S. soil. Some felt that safety was not too far away, but they were wrong. Although they had accomplished crossing the border to U.S. soil, the migra, as they call the border patrol,12 constantly patrols the area, and being on the run is a dangerous position. They moved to the bottom of a small hill where they spent the night. The coyote informed them the next morning that certain cars with such and such characteristics would pass by with the window halfway open and that they would not stop; the people would have to run to the car and jump inside it. Juan did not understand why the car was not going to stop, but later he reasoned that that’s how coyotes protect themselves from the migra; if a coyote gets caught, he can argue that people jumped into his car without an invitation. Juan and the others were told that the driver of the car would not be friendly and would even ask, “What do you think you are doing? I don’t know you.” Juan did as he was told and ran to a car. The police stopped other cars with immigrants inside, but Juan’s coyote was lucky and was able to get to Tucson. Juan in the United States During his sojourn in the U.S. Juan has had many different jobs, many of them under tough circumstances such as extreme heat. As he noted, however, “I was a farmer and was used to the extreme heat of the sun.” Eventually, Juan became the favorite worker of a contractor in Texas. He was treated very well by his boss but not by the boss’s sons who constantly chastised him. Juan decided to leave and look for a better place. He moved to the city of Garland, Texas where he worked for American contractors as well as Mexicans. He recalls that discrimination was prominent from both sides, but mostly from other Mexican immigrants who, according to him, felt compelled to be mean to him because people were mean to them, he explained. Over time, as he learned how to fix roofs, he played close attention to details and quickly became an expert roofer. His skills and ability to learn quickly made his employers see him as a valuable worker.

12 Migra is the abbreviation of the word migración, which means immigration.

10 Juan worked in Houston for about three or four years and eventually moved to Florida, where his company sent him to work on a large housing project in Tallahassee. The lack of workers in Tallahassee required contractors to look for help in nearby cities. While working in Tallahassee and living in Quincy he discovered a lifestyle that he liked because of the similarities with his rural life in Mexico. After a while he started working with a man named Dennis who owns his own construction service company. Dennis is a white American citizen who appreciates Juan very much, according to Juan. Dennis has said to him that as long as someone is responsible and proficient on the job, he does not care about that person’s nationality or legal status. They have developed a close friendship. In my many visits to Juan’s work place I have never seen his boss; usually Juan takes care of the job while his boss functions as a booking agent. According to Juan, whenever they meet, they plan the upcoming job schedule and then have a good time talking and drinking. Dennis is impressed with Juan’s accomplishments, such as his recent triumph in the basketball tournament and his new homemade music CD. Roofing is particularly dangerous work. While doing this research I felt compelled to get on the roof with Juan to see firsthand the job he and others did on a regular basis. I was particularly impressed with how rapidly he went up and down a wobbly ladder while carrying large, heavy sacks of material to fix the roof. Juan and his crew do not have any kind of health insurance. When I asked him what he does when he gets sick he jokingly said: “No le hago caso,” (I just don’t pay attention to him),13 as if the disease was a separate entity, some kind of spirit that comes to bother him for a while and goes away when he ignores it. In a more serious tone Juan said that he plans to go to Mexico to visit his family and have a physical examination. In the rural Hispanic subculture in the United States, illness is often perceived as relating to three causes: (1) psychological states such as envy, anger, or fear; (2) environmental causes, such as cold, hot, dust; and (3) spiritual or supernatural causes such as malevolent spirits or bad luck (Giachelo 1985:163). The last of these largely explains Juan’s perception of health problems and how he has dealt with them. Music is one of the strategies he uses to get rid of malas vibras (bad vibes) as he calls it.

13 An important distinction is that Juan used the word le (him or her) instead of lo (it).

11 Juan and His Music Juan started playing guitar when he was ten years old. He also participated in local festivals in his community. Ever since he moved to the United States, he has been involved in several musical bands. When I first met Juan the band in which he was a member was called Explosion Latina de Guerrero. Juan remembers this first band experience as a bittersweet one. While the opportunity of doing what he loved opened contacts and gained exposure for him, personal interests and disagreements made it impossible for him to continue performing with Explosion Latina, so he decided to start his own band. With no money and no place to rehearse, Juan sought out band members who would commit to his vision. He found an empty house in Quincy, “a white house in front of a store,” as he initially described it to me. Coincidentally, that house was across the street from a place called Discolandia, and soon Juan’s opportunities in music took a whole new path when he met Don Fermin . I will expand in chapters four and five on Juan’s musical activities, and will specifically return to Juan in chapter four with an analysis of his work with his present band, which he formed after meeting Don Fermin . First, however, I would like to introduce Don Fermin , a succesful enterprenuer of Mexican music in Quincy.

Don Fermin Don Fermin is a shy man, not very talkative, and his attire is nothing flashy or exaggerated: jeans, sneakers, a shirt, and an old sweater, but cars are a different story. Don Fermin likes to drive his fully loaded Infinity SUV.14 He has become one of the wealthiest men in Quincy due to his vision of founding businesses that target the Hispanic population. According to his friends, however, he continues to be the same man that they met twenty-five years ago when he first came to the United States. Don Fermin refers to himself as a Mexican with no ambiguity; he states that he is from Mexico as if he was simply visiting the United States for a long period of time. Dale Olsen has referred to this posture as the “myth of return” when writing about the Japanese diaspora in South America: The Japanese concept that resulted in the “scattering” of thousands of individuals to the

14 Hispanics from humble economic backgrounds who encounter sudden financial success often become full-fledged consumers of luxury items (Korzenny 2005:49).

12 Americas (and elsewhere, such as Hawaii and the Philippines) was intended to be a voluntary and temporary immigration. The return home, however, almost never happened, and the sojourners became colonists, and their colonies became diasporic subcultures made up of people who yearned for the homeland. (Olsen 2004:4)

The myth of return described by Dale Olsen exemplifies a common feeling among the members of the Mexican diaspora in Quincy. Many have come looking for a better future and with the main goal of accruing capital that will allow them to start a business in Mexico. Many, like Don Fermin and Juan, establish economic and familial ties to the United States; they also get used to a standard of living which would be difficult to maintain in Mexico. Therefore, the idea of return becomes a myth. Discolandia Don Fermin had accomplished many of the business projects on which he had set his mind, and Discolandia was only one of them. Discolandia is many things in one place: a restaurant where customers can enjoy a meal of enchiladas or tacos; a venue that people can rent to celebrate traditional holidays, such as cinco de mayo, or personal festivities, such as baptisms and weddings (I will explain more about the venue itself in chapter four); and a grocery store that sells traditional products from Mexico such as nopales (cactus), mole, and bread baked in a Mexican fashion. Grocery stores like this one resemble the popular tienditas back in Mexico, small local stores with basic home supplies. Such grocery stores are usually gathering places where customers drink, snack, and develop close friendships with the employees. Similar social effects take place in grocery stores such as the one in Discolandia, where Mexicans gather in the store to drink and eat after a day of work. The ability to have everything centralized in one place makes Discolandia an attractive place where Mexicans can hang out. Customers of Discolandia have developed a friendly relationship with Don Fermin and his family, and Don Fermin has designated an area of the locale to function as a rented party venue. When Don Fermin heard about Juan and his interest in creating a musical band, he saw the opportunity to engage in a musical enterprise. He invited Juan to play in his restaurant and then started promoting his performances at private events in Discolandia. Figure 2.1 shows an advertisement found in a grocery store that promotes an upcoming baile in Discolandia.

13

Figure 2.1 Advertisement on the door of a grocery store shows Juan’s first band “Explosion Latina de Guerrero” playing at Discolandia

In this ad, the main group is Renacimiento 74, and Juan’s band is promoted as the opening band, Explosion Latina de Guerrero. Today, Juan and Don Fermin have engaged in a reciprocal relationship, close friendship and, as we shall see, links of “kinship” as well. Don Fermin has designated an area in Discolandia where Juan and his band rehearse on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and Juan does not have to worry about the neighbors knocking on the door or calling the police.

14 Victor In Juan’s band there are five members. One of them is Victor, a seventeen year old young man. Victor comes from a broken home in Texas, and has not been a Florida resident for very long. His mother decided to leave Victor’ father and move to Florida where her sister was living. Victor has adapted very well to his new environment, but his previous experience in Texas led him to search for his Tex-Mex roots. He has recently started to play the accordion and pay more attention to radio programs that feature banda music or pasito duranguense, a dance developed in the Mexican community of Chicago that has recently become very popular among Mexicans in the United States. In this music, Victor finds a way of being connected to his father, who also plays the accordion. As a Texan, Victor carries with him a heavy influence of musica norteña. He proudly wears his norteño hat and whistles the tunes of groups such as Los Tigres de Norte and Los Tucanes de Tijuana. Like many other teenagers, Victor is also exposed to MTV, and his I-pod has an eclectic selection of Tex-Mex music and pop. He has recently shown interest in joining the army as a way to gain the respect of his friends and family,15 but his strong interest in music has counteracted that feeling. His main role models are either famous norteño singers or war heroes. Don Fermin is Victor’ uncle, because Don Fermin is married to the sister of Victor’ mother. Therefore, Don Fermin and Victor have developed a father/son relationship. Victor’ recent interest in playing music, particularly the accordion, has created a connection between Juan, Don Fermin, and Victor; the result is a musical band. This new musical adventure has brought all three of them closer together. Don Fermin and Victor share a house and a workspace, and now they also share their love for music.

Manuel Another member in Juan’s band is Manuel, a young man from the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Chiapas is located in the south of Mexico. The state has attracted international attention since the uprising of the EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation). Like many other states in Mexico, where rural communities constitute the population, the lack of opportunities and corrupt

15 Respect usually plays a central role in the development of young Hispanics like Moises.

15 governments have transformed a state rich in national resources into a land of people with uncertain futures. Manuel left his family in Chiapas to immigrate to the United States. Like Juan, he had difficulties crossing the border illegally, but finally made it to Texas where he first met Juan after Juan moved to Tallahassee a few months later. Manuel followed him. In the band, Manuel plays keyboards, and he is responsible for most of the synthesized horn arrangements. During the day he is Juan’s co-worker. When I met Manuel for the first time he was particularly skeptical of my presence in the rehearsal room. Figure 2.2 shows Manuel looking at me suspiciously in that first encounter.

Figure 2.2 Manuel in the rehearsal room

Over time, however, Manuel came to trust me, and has become very interested in learning about computers and technology (which was my profession at one time). On one occasion he offered to lend me one of his synthesizers so that I could study it and explain to him how it worked. We also started playing together and became good friends.

16 In the next chapter we will see how the lives of Juan, Don Fermin, Victor and Manuel intersect in music. Although they come from similar backgrounds but with different idiosyncracies, they are united by their Mexican roots, love for music, and family.

17 CHAPTER 3 ONE BIG FAMILY

In discussing the Mexican institution of family and the ideologies that stem from it, Ralph L. Beals (1957:327) writes the following: In the traditional Mexican value system, whose study is necessary to understand the background of changes, the central focus of values lies in the family. This is still true today, but both the institution and the emphases on ideologies related to it have altered. Nevertheless, in the present as in the past, family values ramify into many aspects of society and affect both national life and the individual.

While this statement is relevant to diasporic cultures as well, the following questions arise: How exactly has the institution of family altered, and how do family values affect society on both national and individual levels? In this chapter I will explore at a deeper level the way members of a community interact among themselves, how relationships are established, and how music can alter the institution of family, even though emphasis on ideologies such as machismo and marianismo prevail and help shape the process of making music. In order to do this I will review “traditional” Mexican kinship values and then compare them with those of Juan’s and Don Fermin’s family.

Traditional Mexican Kinship Challenged For the purpose of this thesis I use the concept of the Mexican kinship system as it has been promoted by the Mexican government through television commercials and social campaigns. I acknowledge, however, that different systems of kinship co-exist in Mexican society. Researchers Viola Waterhouse and William R. Merrifield, for example, have discovered non-lineal kinsmen in Oaxaca (Waterhouse and Marrifield 1968:190).16 Nevertheless, most of the people in Mexico own or have access to television and therefore are exposed to government-sponsored advertisements. Since the early 1980s these advertisements have urged people to have “pocos hijos, para darles mucho” (few children to provide them with more). This particular initiative was an attempt to decrease

16 Also, Mexicans from the Yucatan peninsula with Mayan heritage often have different costumes, traditions and social practices.

18 birthrates in Mexico.17 The television ads presented a family consisting of a father, a mother, and two kids going to a picnic in their automobile, while a soft voice repeatedly says “pocos hijos, para darles mucho.” This campaign not only encouraged Mexicans to have fewer children, but also presented an image of an ideal family: a mother, a father and a maximum of two children. Mexicans who have emigrated from Mexico in the past twenty years have doubtlessly been exposed to this government propaganda, and many of my informants have referred to the desire to make money in the United States to eventually go back to Mexico and establish a nuclear family. This desire is reinforced by their exposure to American life and the idea of the American dream, implicit in which is the model of a nuclear family. One concept in particular is central to this idea: the fundamental separation in Mexican culture of friends and family members. Family holds a privileged place in the social order where friends are welcome but not granted the label of brother or sibling. The only case in which a close friend is considered almost like family is through compadrazgo, in which two friends participate in the baptism of one of their children. Compadrazgo originated in the religious practices of the Catholic Church in Spain, and it can be translated as “co-parenthood” (Carlos 1976:73). As we will see further in the chapter, social organization among the informants of this thesis provides a departure from the traditional Mexican familial ties. While in U.S. society friends can become almost as close as family and family almost as distant as non-relatives (Schneider 1980:94), in Mexico this is very rare. Traditionally, in Mexican families as well as in Mexican-American families, the establishment of new kin relationships is usually controlled by the family (Jones 1948:52). Courtship, for example, is represented by the concept of noviazgo, which is the preparatory process towards marriage (McGinn 1966:23). Whether for a possible marriage or simply for the establishment of a sentimental relationship, the immediate family and many times the extended family participate in the decisions of individuals. In noviazgo, the male normally asks the female to be his novia, and both parties consult

17 As a child in Mexico, I remember seeing those commercials. They were the government’s attempt to slow the rapidly increasing population in the country.

19 their families. Regular visits to each other’s family homes provide the scene in which the family evaluates the novio or novia. Noviazgo is usually the prelude for marriage, and marriage is the nucleus of the family institution in many societies. The latter has been championed for many years by Christianity in Mexico as the basis for a good life; it also symbolizes the union of two families. Marriage is considered to be inappropriate, however, when the relationship has been consummated before a religious ceremony (Clark 1959:95). In Latin American societies, married men are expected to be sexually active, while married women are expected to be almost frigid. The man is expected to exercise his sexuality with other women besides his wife. The wife is expected to suppress her sexual desire except when her husband requires it. These two ideologies are the bases of two of the most well known sociological phenomena in Mexican society: machismo and marianismo. Machismo is the idea that men are expected to be sexually active outside of their home and brag about having different women, sometimes having offspring with these women. This is also a matter of pride among men, and sons are expected to be as macho as their father and to defend the honor of the women in their immediate family. Marianismo is the idea of women welcoming abusive male behavior as the spiritual verification of their true womanhood (Bachrach 1991:3). In this idea, the woman mimics the popular image of the Virgin Mary. Her traditional duties are around the house, such as cooking, cleaning, child bearing and occasionally providing sex for the husband. She is forbidden also from any sexual activity other than with her husband (Lewis 1949:62). These two sociological phenomena have a great impact upon the Mexican community of Quincy, and particularly when related to music. Men who participate in the baile, for example, go to the event in search of sexual partners in order to prove their manhood. Women, on the other hand, fall into two categories: available and unavailable. Available women at the bailes often dress provocatively to attract male attention, while the unavailable women are expected to remain beside their boyfriends or husbands. Among the performers, gender roles also establish rules. For example, musical groups are mainly constituted by men, and women are often objectified as icons of desire. Posters

20 and advertisements like the following (Figure 3.1) portray the idea of beauty and sexuality among young women in the Mexican community.

Figure 3.1, Baile advertisement.

This is an advertisement promoting an upcoming baile. In the top left corner is a picture of the group Los Palominos. The men with sombreros in the ad appear with their hands in their pockets in a challenging macho posture. The drawing of a galloping horse presents nostalgia for a cowboy lifestyle in which manhood and machismo are intrinsically tied. On the right side of the poster, a scantily-clad woman looks at the viewer in a seductive way. At the bottom, in yellow print we read: “first 25 ladies free of charge.” These sociological descriptions usually account for individuals in the Diaspora who have not established a nuclear family. The traditional concept of Mexican family is comprised of an extended family usually formed by grandparents, parents, uncles, and children, usually more than three per family, the social and political organization of Mexico has led large numbers of people to estblish in cities, most of the job oportunities

21 are concentrated in those citites, therefore members of one family usually live in the same city, facilitating the reciprocal interactions among them, reinforcing kin ties. Figure 3.2 exhibits a typical diagram of a traditional Mexican family:

Figure 3.2. Diagram of a traditional Mexican family.

Mexican kinship is similar to American kinship in that the nuclear family is based on the shared substances of blood and law (Schneider 1980:21). Schneider’s ideas about the shared substances of kinship thus provide an important departure point for the study of kin relationships among Mexicans. The importance placed on blood and the idea of nuclear family is closely related to the reciprocal interactions that take place among members of the family. In doing so, certain external factors challenge blood as the main unifying element. Schneider reviews some of these factors, such as: economic, in which a family “united” by blood might not be in close contact because of differences in wealth, political, whereby blood relatives may distance themselves because of different political views or ideologies, and geographical, in which members of one family might live so far away that continuous reciprocal interactions are impossible to sustain. Then the following question arises: Why do Mexicans in Quincy not necessarily establish nuclear family ties as the only model of kinship? In Quincy, members of the Mexican community share a common goal of gaining economic wealth (the reason they left Mexico in the first place). Disparities in socio- economic class also exist among Mexicans in Quincy, but these disparities do not seem to

22 function as divides, as in the examples provided by Schneider. Instead, they set the conditions for music to flourish and new kinship relationships to be established. Politics within the Mexican community can be summarized as the avid desire for immigration reform in which the community no longer has to live in fear of deportation. This shared desire sets the conditions for music to flourish as a shared substance for establishing kinship. If blood is not the infallible basis for kinship in this community, then other factors (such as music) might work as symbols of shared substance. Generations of Mexicans have migrated to the United States, many establishing new families constituted from members whose nationalities are different. Such is the case of young couples from Mexico who have children in the U.S. Their real life situations challenge traditional concepts of the nuclear family. In the Mexican community in Quincy, the geographical factors described by Schneider significantly reduce reciprocal interactions with those who stayed in Mexico. Though continuous monetary contributions are made by the immigrant in the United States, families in Mexico have often no way to reciprocate. This facilitates the search for new members among whom establish reciprocal relationships. Therefore, new shared substances flourish among community members. Practices like noviazgo in Mexico change to more practical forms of courtship. Courtship among Mexicans in the United States lacks the input of their respective families, and the concept of noviazgo is replaced by the concept of dating. Sexual intercourse is often practiced before marriage, and procreation without marriage is more common. Bailes contribute to that process, facilitating the temporal and physical space in which young men and women without their families find comfort interacting with other members of the community. Similar to marriage among Mexicans in Mexico, marriage among Mexicans in the United States is an institution for establishing family ties. In this case, however, the union of couples does not necessarily symbolize the union of two families. Rather, it symbolizes the union of two individuals outside their families and country, and living in a foreign environment. For migrants in the United States these unions help them deal with the problems of everyday life (Chavez 1998:127). Chavez divides these relationships into three main groups: transnational families, bi-national families and domestic groups. In his chapter “Transnational Families,” for example, he explores families with members in

23 Mexico as well as in the United States. In his chapter “Bi-national Families,” he examines families that have been created inside the United States, with members of the host culture. Finally in “Domestic Groups,” he analyzes social organizations that do not fit in any of the previous categories. Furthermore, such alliances between two individuals often form only part of an extended group known as a domestic group. Domestic groups are sometimes defined as a group of people who share a roof (1998:130). In Quincy, domestic groups are mixed, with married or cohabitating couples often sharing living space with other individuals, as in the case of Juan.

Juan’s Kin Juan, through hard work, has managed to acquire a mobile home for which he pays eight hundred dollars every month. He and his wife have moved into this humble home. The outside of the house is white, in fairly good condition. Juan, however, refers to the many cucarachas that live there, and he has slowly but steadily been repairing all the malfunctions of their home. As you enter the house a sense of coziness fills the living room, which is decorated with pictures of their family back in Mexico. A TV stands on an entertainment center in which Juan keeps his CDs and movies; that piece of furniture and two couches constitute the living room. The house has four main areas, two bedrooms on opposite sides, and a kitchen and living room in the middle (Figure 3.3). Juan sleeps with Martha and their child in the bedroom next to the main door and the living room. His brother and his friend Manuel share the other bedroom. The area in the middle is used for dining and recreation. This new family is constituted by Juan, Martha, Raul (his brother by blood), and Manuel (his new “brother”). Juan states that both musically and personally he relies more on Manuel than on Raul, who has had some trouble singing the harmony to Juan’s first voice in the band. This has led to some tension between the band and the family. Manuel, on the other hand, sings, plays the keyboard and works on the roofs with Juan. On the roof, while working, they often think about possible arrangements for the songs they play. The closeness that has developed between them is largely because of music.

24

Bed TV

Bed Living Room Kitchen Bed And Dining

Couch

Figure 3.3. Juan’s mobile home.

Martha is a sweet woman from the state of Chiapas, not very tall, and with dark hair and white skin. Her shyness usually hides a beautiful innocent smile. Her days of working for restaurants are over, since she has now found Juan who takes care of her economically. She now devotes much of her day to her daughter Antonia and to cooking for Juan and his brothers. For his part, Juan now expects to find homemade food every evening when he and his brothers come home. Martha cooks several dishes for them, and even make tortillas from scratch. Figure 3.4 is a diagram that symbolizes Juan’s kinship as it has been established in the United States. At its nucleus is Juan’s union with Martha and their baby Antonia, born in the United States. Juan’s immediate kin include his family back in Mexico. Together they form a transnational family with members who have two different nationalistic ties—to Mexico and the U.S. (Chavez 1998:121). Figure 3.4 also shows Juan’s blood brother Raul, and how through music Manuel belongs to the family. The Mexican flag in a triangle represents a male born in Mexico. The Mexican flag in a circle represents a female born in Mexico. The United States flag in a circle represents Antonia, the daughter of Juan and Martha.

25

Figure 3.4 Juan’s kinship from left to right, Martha, Antonia, Juan, Raul, and Manuel.

Families like Juan’s are becoming more common in the Mexican diaspora. Another example of a transnational family is that of Don Fermin and Victor.

Don Fermin’s Kin Don Fermin is married to Doña Sofía, who has six sisters who also live in Quincy. All of Doña Sofia’s sisters work in Don Fermin’s business and they spend most of the day in Discolandia. Almira, Victor’ mother, is one of Doña Sofia’s sisters. Victor is a tall teenager who moved to Quincy when his mother decided to divorce his father. Victor and Don Fermin have developed a close kin relationship, even though they are not blood relatives.18 According to Victor, he considers Don Fermin his father. Victor, however, keeps in contact with his biological father and goes to visit him from time to time in Dallas, Texas, Nevertheless, the bond that has grown between Victor and Don Fermin has become strong, especially now that Victor plays in Juan’s band. Figure 3.5 shows Don Fermin’s kin and his connections with both a Mexican past, present, and a Mexican- American future. The United States flag within a circle represents his wife and sisters-in- law. The United States flag in a triangle at the bottom represents Victor.

18 Don Fermin is technically Moises’ uncle (by law) because he is married to the sister of Moises’ mother. In Mexico, however, there is a special term for this relation: tío politico, which is normally a more distant bond than that of a typical “-in-law.”

26

Figure 3.5 Don Fermin ’s immediate family (Second line, left to right: Don Fermin , Sofia, Sofia’s three sisters, including Victor’ mother, Victor’ father. At bottom: Victor)

Although he is not a performing musician himself, Don Fermin is an important musical enterpreneur in Quincy. He has experienced economic success though hard work and vision by establishing a plethora of services, including music for Hispanics around Quincy. He originally started working in the transportation industry by moving mobile homes. He then saved enough money to buy an old warehouse where he established a shop to fix trailers. As the Hispanic community in Florida grew during the 1980s and 1990s, he started a small restaurant next to his shop. Today that restaurant has expanded into a bakery, a grocery store, a shoe store and a party venue, which is a musical performance space that is rented out for events. Figure 3.6 shows a diagram of the property.

27

Figure 3.6 Don Fermin ’s property which includes Discolandia (Party Venue)

The front of Don Fermin’s property has been designated as the grocery store and two different areas for parking. These parking areas are often used as gathering points at which Mexicans can socialize. The grocery store is connected to the restaurant, and both the restaurant and grocery store have access to the parking lot on the left side. The restaruant is connected to the kitchen, and the kitchen also functions as the bakery. In the middle of the property is the party venue. On the left there is a big stage door for equipment and on the right there is a screening section that I will discuss further in chapter four. In the far back part of the property, Don Fermin has his tools and equipment to fix trailers; it is here where he has designated a space for Juan to rehearse. An old mobile home is the room where Juan and his band practice. In recent years, Don Fermin has become a sponsor of Juan’s band. He provides the room in which they store their instruments, most of which were bought by Don Fermin, and since he (Don Fermin) is the one in charge of the audio during concerts and other performances. The success of Juan’s band is intimately linked to the success of Don Fermin as a manager and booking agent. The relationship that has grown between Juan

28 and Don Fermin and between the other members of the band is heavily based on reciprocity, whether in the course of their daily activities or in musical activities that take place during the rehearsals and performances. These two levels of reciprocity have created a shared substance based on music that forms the center of their relationship. Figure 3.5 shows how, through music, blood relatives and non-blood relatives come together to create a new family. In this syncretic process both previously unlinked families join through music. In Figure 3.7, the dotted lines represent relationships in which music functions as a shared substance to create new kin. Therefore, Juan has created familial bonds with Victor and his family, who accept Juan as one of them by allowing him to participate with them during holidays such as Christmas and Thanksgiving. They also act in familial ways by sponsoring Juan’s musical aspirations. Don Fermin , who acts as a putative father of Victor, now embraces Juan as another son19. In the second section of Figure 3.7, Manuel is also incorporated into Juan’s family and by extension into Don Fermin’s family through his participation in the band. Music, then, proves to be the shared substance in which they establish their new kinship ties. The following diagram in Figure 3.7 illustrates the merging of the two previously presented diagrams: Juan’s kin and Don Fermin’s kin. While family structures continue to change among members of the Mexican community in Quincy, many of the ideologies associated with familial ties, such as machismo and marianismo, continue to be present in their social organization. In both of the examples that I have presented women continue to work under male supervision and are subject to scrutiny. In the case of Juan’s wife, Martha, she is expected to take care of Antonia, have the house in order and provide food for Juan and his brothers, and she is not encouraged to have a job outside of the house.20 Juan, on the other hand, occasionally flirts with the ladies who come to the bailes, and is quick to show how macho he is in front of his fellow musicians and siblings.

19 Don Fermin says of Juan: “Es como mi’jo.” (He is like my son.) 20 Personal interview with Juan, summer 2007.

29

Figure 3.7 One Big Family (Top two lines: Don Fermin ’s family as in Figure 3.5. Third line from left to right: Victor, Juan, Martha, Raul, and Manuel. At bottom: Antonia)

In the case of Don Fermin’s family, the women work outside the home (in Discolandia) but are constantly subject to the family’s approval or disapproval regarding boyfriends or possible spouses. Don Fermin exercises all the power and he is consulted for almost everything. Mexican or Mexican-American families in the United States will inevitably continue to change, and in many cases music will be part of this change. Music functions very much like transnational domestic groups in which two people get together to create a social bond beyond friendship. People from different backgrounds who share a common Mexican heritage establish domestic groups or transnational families in way that resembles the way in which the combination of two Latin American musical genres, musica cumbia and norteña, established the tropi- norteño style. Music, then, reflects the sociological process of unification taking place in the Mexican diaspora in Quincy. This fusion, as we shall see in the next chapter, is rooted in music.

30 CHAPTER 4 THE TROPI-NORTEÑO STYLE

Dance and music play a crucial role in Mexican nationals’ lives in Quincy, where performances occur every weekend. The origins of these practices can be traced back to both urban and rural communities in Mexico, where a local weekly baile, or dance, is generally held for a community (Rivas 1989:233). This baile is usually a time of relaxation and camaraderie, and time to solidify social bonds and establish new ones. In this event a set of interactions happens in which music plays a central role. In this chapter I explore the tropi-norteño style, its two main influences, its origins and the musical and social elements that constitute it. I begin by describing the two main musical elements that contribute to the tropi-norteño style: música tropical and música norteña, and conclude by establishing that the fusion of these two musical styles is analogous to social fusion, both creating new kin relationships and a new musical style: tropi-norteño. Figure 4.1 illustrates the two fusions: music and social.

Figure 4.1. Musical and social fusion. Creation of kinship and tropi-norteño style

Since the establishment of the XEW radio station in the 1930s, in Mexico City, Mexico has been a cultural and artistic hub for many Latin American artists, and the development of entertainment in Mexico opened opportunities to other musics and musicians from South America (1989:146). In the 1950s, several musical styles rapidly gained exposure in the Mexican market and quickly spread to the rest of the continent. Performers such as Chico Che, La Sonora Dinamita, La Sonora Tropicana, and later

31 groups such as Los Angeles Azules and La Tropa Vallenata became favorites in Mexico, South America, and the United States (Ragland 2003:342).21

Música Tropical: Cumbia In Mexico, the concept of música tropical is used for most danceable music, especially the music that contains Caribbean influence (Rivas 1989:236). Cumbia, danzón, mambo, and salsa, all categorized as música tropical. The music of the artists associated with these styles was played on radio stations such as La Tropi-Q and La Z, and they were widely popular on the public transportation buses that carry large amounts of people during a workday, acculturating an entire generation. Cumbia has had a particular appeal among Mexican musicians and audiences because songs heard on the radio can be reproduced with only a few musicians instead of the large ensembles that salsa and danzón require. The tropi-norteño style is a mixture of cumbia and música norteña. Cumbia is one of the most representative musics from Colombia and is believed to have a tri-ethnic heritage, of native, African, and European. As many other musics in the Caribbean, cumbia is said to represent the conquest of a woman by a man (Zapata 1967:92). Cumbia was originally performed by a group of people who played aerophones called caña de millo and percussion. These groups were also known as conjuntos (ensembles) de gaitas (1967:93). Today the accordion, bringing a German influence and a new sound to the cumbia, has replaced the conjunto de gaitas (ensemble of gaitas). The typical instrumentation of cumbia today includes bass, guitar, accordion, and a percussion section that can range from a drum set to a more expanded ensemble with timbales, bongos, congas, güiro, and cowbell. Cumbia is usually played in duple meter (4/4), and its driving force is the bass that accents beats 1, 3, and 4. Today, cumbia makes use of guitar to play beats 2 and 4 as a counterpart to the bass. The accordion usually performs the introductory melody and the improvisations in the middle of the song, which are usually extended according to the people’s dancing requirements on the dance floor.

21 Ragland mentions that several of these groups are “not those typically heard on commercial Spanish- language radio in Mexico.” On the contrary, they are widely played on most radio stations in Mexico.

32 In the beginning, cumbia was danced with minimal contact between a woman and a man. The woman used to hold a candle in her right hand while holding her skirt with her left hand. The candle lit the way of the dancing couple and was used as a symbolic weapon against the man who tried to “conquer” the woman (1967:92). Today cumbia uses no candles; flashing lights from the roofs, however, illuminate the dance floor. The dancing is a combination of complicated turns and moves in which the man leads the woman. Figure 4.2 shows some of the basic elemtents of cumbia.

Figure 4.2 Example of cumbia, quarter = 180, Yolanda by Rafael Padilla, Transcribed by León García

Figure 4.2 is the beginning of the song “Yolanda,” composed by Rafael Padilla and made famous by popular Venezuelan singer Pastor Lopez, also known as El rey de la cumbia (the king of cumbia). The song starts with the accordion playing an ascending line from the scale degree 5 to scale degree 3 of F minor. The bass establishes the tonality by alternating tonic and dominant chords, and the guitar occurs on beats two and four. Figure 4.3 provides the original lyrics in Spanish and their translation.

Cuando te vi por primera vez When I saw you for the first time Aquel momento no puedo olvidar That moment I can’t forget Cuando te vi por primera vez When I saw you for the first time Aquel momento no puedo olvidar. That moment I can’t forget.

33 Y me la paso pensando en ti And all I do is thinking about you Sin olvidar tu manera de mirar Can’t forget the way you look Y me la paso pensando en ti And all I do is thinking about you Sin olvidar tu manera de mirar. Can’t forget the way you look.

Yolanda, sabes que te quiero Yolanda, you know I love you Yolanda, que por ti me muero Yolanda, you know I die for you Yolanda, sabes que te quiero Yolanda, you know I love you Yolanda, y me desespero. Yolanda, you know I am in despair.

Figure 4.3 Yolanda by Rafael Padilla

Small variations in the simple lyrics and harmony make this song danceable and easy to remember. The lyrics contain constant repetition, and the phrases are based on straightforward rhymes. Small textual alterations in the endings such as quiero, muero, desespero make the rhymes easy to learn as well. The harmony alternates between F minor in root position and C7 in third inversion so that the bass note only moves by step. The fact that the songs are simple and memorable is a key element in the process by which the band’s repertory is developed.

Cumbia Sonidera With the advent of electronic instruments, new sounds and effects were added to the cumbia. The sounds of entire brass sections are now sometimes synthesized by only one musician, and sound effects, such as rain and thunderstorms, have been incorporated into the music. These changes create what is known as cumbia sonidera, which focuses more on the sound effects than the lyrics. In fact, sometimes cumbia sonidera contains no lyrics at all. In this way it borrows from the sonidero bailes, weekly organized dances that focus on the sonido, or sound system (Ragland 2003:340). Cathy Ragland, who has conducted research among the Mexican diaspora in New York and New Jersey, describes the sonidero dance as “one more example of how communities and subcultures are able to exploit features of a commercial music industry to create their own expressive events in accordance with their own sensibilities and desires” (2003:352). In fact, many of the cumbias sonideras played by Juan’s band in Quincy are adaptations of a famous traditional cumbia, with modifications in the instrumentation and addition of noisy sound

34 effects. Figure 4.4 is an excerpt of a song I recorded during my fieldwork, “Cumbia tormentosa.” The excerpt exemplifies musical creation with an emphasis on sonido aesthetics.

Figure 4.4 “Cumbia tormentosa,” an example of cumbia sonidera

The song begins with a thunderstorm sound effect, which is repeated throughout the song, usually but not always together with the bass on beat one. This type of cumbia has become very popular among the younger generations, and the electronic effects included in the songs provide a fresh character to the genre. The cumbia also mixes the use of sounds of traditional instruments such as the accordion with new sounds that could be described as “galactic,” “atmospheric,” and “flashback.” Some of these sounds can be used to play melodic lines, while others only provide a sound that resembles nature, such as a thunderstorm or wind. The genre is also known for its slower pace, which provides a break for the audience that continues to dance almost all night long. Most of these cumbias are in minor mode, which, along with the mystical sounds of nature, create an atmosphere of mystery.

Música Norteña The second factor in tropi-norteño is the norteño influence. Norteño, which means “from the North,” is music associated with the border of Mexico and the United States. Its roots can be traced to the corrido, a popular genre during the Mexican revolution when many social uprisings happened across Mexico against the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. Scholars do not agree exactly about where the corrido as a genre came from. Some say it originated in the Spanish romanzas, and others say that it came from Spanish decimas or baladas. The general perception, however, is that the corrido stems in general from the ballad genres of Western Europe (Geijerstam 1976:49).

35 The corrido was certainly crucial during the years of the revolution. It has been said that the corridistas, people who sing corridos, were originally employed as spies (1976:54) who would infiltrate the enemy lines as singers accumulating information that they delivered to their employers. Many of these spies were semiprofessional musicians who traveled in groups not only to augment the instrumentation (with included harp, vihuela, and guitar), but also because their job was extremely dangerous. Corridos, thus, became an effective way of telling stories and rapidly became the favorite genre of the population in Mexico, especially for the new post-revolutionary middle and lower classes. The corrido, as a type of music from and for the people, was diminished by art music composers like Carlos Chávez, whose lack of appreciation for the genre was due to its “monotonous melody” (1976:55). Nevertheless, the corrido managed to survive criticism and influenced the exported genre of norteño music. Música norteña continues the tradition of the corridos because it deals with social issues through its lyrics. Música norteña and corridos were both for the lower classes. Manuel Peña writes: “conjunto [a small ensemble] was for poor people, rural people, orquesta was for high society” (Peña 1985:4). Peña also acknowledged the symbolic value of the conjunto norteño (northern ensemble) and its implications for social relationships among Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. Today, norteño music is not restricted to the northern border between Mexico and the United States, but is widely performed on both sides of the Rio Grande and by people from a broad array of social classes. Música norteña is performed on at least three musical instruments: bajo sexto (a chordophone with twelve strings in double courses), a diatonic accordion, and a string bass. Variations of this instrumentation can also be found, such as the inclusion of a steel string guitar or a snare drum. Norteño music is in duple meter (2/4), with the bass accenting beats one and two. The bajo sexto plays most of the upbeats and sometimes embellishes with riffs. Figure 4.5 is an example of the rhythmic pattern of norteño music, which shows some similarities with cumbia. The opening line in the accordion ascends while the bass establishes the key by playing the first beat of the measure. The opening line in the accordion ascends while the bass establishes the key by playing the first beat of the measure. The bajo sexto alternates with

36 the bass, but in a 2/4 meter, providing a more rapid feeling. Also similar to the cumbia, chord changes are often between the tonic and the dominant.

Quarter = 120, Transcribed by León García

Figure 4.5 Beginning of el Golpe Traidor by Remberto Lopez Garza

Given norteño music’s inheritance from the corrido, its lyrics usually deal with social issues. Many of the songs performed by Juan’s band are part of that tradition. The song, “Mis Tres Animales,” for example, reflects the dreams, concerns and aspirations of immigrants in the United States. Figure 4.6 provides the original lyrics in Spanish and in translation:

Aprendí a vivir la vida, hasta que tuve I learned to live life until I got money. dinero. Y no niego que fui pobre, tampoco que fui I won’t deny that I was poor and even a burrero. shepherd. Ahora soy un gran señor, Now I’m a big shot, mis mascotas codician los weros. And the whites envy my success.

Traigo cerquita la muerte, pero no me se Death follows me closely, but I’m not a rajar. quitter. Se que me busca el gobierno, hasta debajo I know the government is looking for me, del mar. even under the sea.

Pero para todo hay maña, But there is a way for everything, mi escondite no han podido hayar... They haven’t been able to find my hiding place...

37 El dinero en abundancia, también es muy Money in abundance is also very peligroso. dangerous. Por eso yo me lo gasto, con mis amigos That’s why I spend all my money with my gustoso. friends. Y las mujeres la neta, Women, really when they see money ven dinero y se les van los ojos... Their eyes go crazy.

Figure 4.6 “Mis Tres Animales” by Los Tucanes de Tijuana

This song, composed by Los Tucanes de Tijuana, describes the process by which a Mexican goes from poverty to wealth. The song belongs to a sub-genre of norteño music known as narcocorrido. Simonett’s study of the narcocorrido (a derivative of the corrido norteño) and its symbolic meaning for people in Los Angeles, establishes the importance of this music and how it has significantly contributed to the creation of Mexican identity. According to Helena Simonett, narcocorridos are a relatively recent phenomenon, as she writes: Corridos that apologize and glorify drug trafficking and violence are a relatively recent phenomenon . . . Although at the margins of society, drug traffickers are far from being an exploited, suppressed, powerless subaltern group for whom musical expression functions as a symbol empowerment in its struggle for social betterment (Simonett 2001:316).

Simonett implies that the rural Mexican populations who also consume narcocorridos, unlike the drug traffickers, do, in fact, live at the margins of society. They are exploited, suppressed, powerless subaltern groups for whom music functions as a symbol that helps them deal with their social struggle. They identify with the lyrics of songs like “Mis Tres Animales” and make them their own. This is also true of the Mexican community in Quincy, where this song touches on key issues, such as the benefits of having money and the issues that come with it: aprendí a vivir la vida, hasta que tuve dinero (I learned how to live life, until I got money). It also shows a preoccupation with the law: se que me busca el gobierno, hasta debajo del mar (I know the government is looking for me, even under the sea). In performance, the band and audience sing the lyrics of this verse together in a moment of musical and social solidarity. The song finishes, touching on issues related to relationships: y las mujeres la neta, ven dinero y se le van los ojos (and women, really, when they see money their eyes go crazy). This shows the prevalence of

38 social stereotypes in which women do not work and actively search for men with money who can support them. Lyrics like these often reinforce the premises on which social organization is established.

Musical and Social Fusion As a mixture of tropical cumbia and norteño music, the tropi-norteño style is a type of musical syncretism, because it is neither cumbia nor norteño, but a new form. The tropi-norteño style. This relationship between cumbia and norteño can be traced back to the tejano (Texan) or norteño music played by the large orquestas tejanas of the 1960’s and 1970’s. As Manuel Peña writes: In addition to the polka, Mexican boleros and cumbias (the latter the latest variant in a long historical line of Afro-Hispanic popular genres) were very much a part of the band’s musical repertory. Closer than the polka to the greater Mexican performance styles and clearly demonstrating the orquesta’s strong ties to popular greater Mexican musical culture, the cumbia and Mexican bolero nevertheless incorporated certain unique features common only to tejano musical groups (Peña 1980:52).

In recent years this initial approach between the two of these musical styles flourished as a new musical expression, facilitated largely by the development of new technologies such as synthesizers. Nevertheless, the basic tenets of cumbia and norteño have prevailed as the two axioms in which tropi-norteño has been developed. Tropi-norteño has borrowed different elements from the two genres. For example, the bass in the cumbia accents beats 1 and 3, providing a sense of emptiness in beat 2 and 4, which is complemented by a chordophone, such as a guitar, and percussion instruments, such as güiro and cowbell. In norteño music in 2/4, the bass accents beats 1 and 2, which means that no space is left between beats. This creates both a faster-paced music and a more marching feeling. Tropi-norteño music in 4/4, however, has a caribbean dance feeling instead of a germanic polka feeling like the norteño. Another element is the accompaniment of the cumbia, which is created by a guitar accenting beats 2 and 4; while in norteño music every upbeat is accented by the bajo sexto, in tropi-norteño the cumbia style of accompaniment is kept, and bajo sexto and guitar are used as interchangeable

39 instruments. A common denominator between cumbia and norteño is the accordion, an instrument inherited from the German communities that settled in America. The German migrations to both Mexico and Colombia led to the adoption of the accordion for each country’s national musics, such as cumbia, vallenato, and norteño. In tropi-norteño the accordion is kept as the main instrument; it performs introductory melodies and then accompanies the singer throughout the entire song, providing quick melodic embellishments. The accordion also functions as a symbolic element of unification. Tropi-norteño therefore represents the unification of musical styles, and more importantly the unification of people reflected in music. Figure 4.7 illustrates this unification (or syncretism) between cumbia and norteño.

Figure 4.7 Syncretic process between cumbia and norteño

The following example (Figure 4.8) shows the tropi-norteño style, which combines elements of norteño and cumbia.

40 Figure 4.8 Example of tropi-norteño

This song, performed by Juan’s band, begins with a major chord played by Victor on his accordion, followed by a brief pause. The accordion then plays an introductory theme, which is repeated as an interlude in the middle of the song to provide a break for the singer. Juan’s bass accompanies the introduction performed by Victor and his accordion. Once the introduction has been played entirely, Juan sings emotively. The act of playing the bass physically moves him from side to side, and the deep sound of his instrument is only overpowered by his explosive voice while he says: “Yo no se por que, yo no se que fue” (I don’t know why, I don’t know what it was). Every one in the band and in the audience seems to have a great time with this particular song. Manuel, for example, happily contributes with percussion instruments or filling in when ever the bajo sexto player cannot attend. The lyrics follow in Figure 4.9.

41 Anoche que sali yo a bailar con Raquel Last night I went dancing with Raquel Me atropello un remolque o no se que fue (and) a trailer ran over me, or I don’t know what it was Anoche que sali yo a bailar con Raquel Last night I went dancing with Raquel Me atropello un remolque o no se que fue (and) a trailer ran over me, or I don’t know what it was Por que me dejo una pata chueca ‘Cause I ended up with a crooked leg un brazo torcido y el ojo morado A hurt arm and a black eye Por que me dejo una pata chueca ‘Cause I ended up with a crooked leg un brazo torcido y el ojo morado A hurt arm and a black eye Yo no se por que, yo no se que fue I don’t know why, I don’t know what it Yo no se por que, yo no se que fue was I don’t know why, I don’t know what it was Por andar de karateca me dejo una pata For trying karate I got a crooked leg chueca Por andar de ofrecido me dejo un brazo For being so sleazy I got my arm broken torcido Por andar de enamorado me dejo el ojo For being in love I got a black eye morado Pero el gusto que me queda nunca mas me But I enjoyed it like never before. lo habia dado.

Figure 4.9 Lyrics of “Raquel”

Tropi-norteño lyrics are often about love/hate relationships or social issues such as immigration, politics, economy and also drug trafficking. The song “Raquel,” for example, describes a situation of meeting a woman at a baile and the interaction between a man and a woman. The recurrent question, “Yo no se por que, yo no se que fue” (I don’t know why, I don’t know what it was), expresses the confusion and the irony of having a great time dancing but later getting beaten up. This is an example of how tropi- norteño lyrics expresses the emotions of some members in the Mexican diaspora in Quincy. The lyrics portray the duality in which many Mexican immigrants live. On one hand the lyrics express the immigrants’ difficult life of work and fear in a foreign country far away from their families in Mexico; on the other hand, they express happiness at being able to make it in the United States and arrive at some level of economic success. The line “Pero el gusto que me queda nunca mas me lo habia dado” (But I enjoyed it like never before) is a reflection of the migrants’ status in the United States, which provides them with economic benefits; but at the same time, it hurts them.

42 The lyrics and the instrumentation of tropi-norteño are the result of innumerable transformations that have taken place musically and socially among Mexicans inside and outside of the United States. Musicians like Juan and his band are living examples of how musics such as cumbia and norteño help them and people from different backgrounds (such as Victor and Juan) intersect and create a new musical expression. Such new musical expression can also be the foundation of a new way of establishing kin relationships. The musicians’ shared dreams and concerns become a collective shared substance. The fusion of musics and the integration of people are similar processes, providing exceptional ways of relating to others in the diaspora. Every weekend in Quincy, processes of musical and social syncretism flourish in the bailes, creating musical/cultural unification among musicians and audiences as they perform and enjoy tropi-norteño music while they solidify their social bonds. The baile, then, becomes an important musical event, crucial space (dance hall) and temporal place in which music and kinship arise together. In the next chapter I will describe these processes in more detail.

4 3 CHAPTER 5 THE BAILE

In recent years many academics have focused their attention on activities like dance among diasporic communities. Jan Sverre Knudsen for example, has conducted research among the Chilean diaspora in Norway, in which he has shown that the performance of dances constitutes a symbolic process in which the community deals with common concerns, especially when framed within a new social framework (Knudsen 2001:62). Another example is Dale Olsen’s research in Japanese diasporic communities in South America in which he shows the role of dance in festivities such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, as well as larger celebrations in massive events such as dance exhibitions (Olsen 2004:233). This growing interest in dance and what it means to the people who perform it has formulated questions that attempt to explain social characteristics and social behavior. Teresa Jill Buckland, for example, writes: This interest [in dance] may engage with ethnographic approaches to dance to formulate questions around “whose body in performance?” so that issues of gender, social status, kinship, ethnicity and power can be addressed as well as more reflexive concerns related to bodily experience (Buckland 2001, emphasis mine).

Ethnographic approaches related to dance can provide an insight into the creation of place and social identity. Furthermore, and for the purpose of this thesis, music, kinship, and dance intersect in a symbolic process of micro-events that take place in the baile. Drawing on Victor Turner’s ideas of social dramas, the baile itself becomes a symbol, a social drama in which participants grant higher priority to members of the community, people who share values dreams and concerns and have a common history, real or alleged (Turner 1980:149). I am, however, aware of the conflictual caracterisitics of the social dramas and the four phases describe by Turner, which I explain further in this chapter. In this chapter I describe and explore the baile in the Mexican community of Quincy, its implications as social drama, and the symbolic processes resulting from it. Furthermore, I analyze the differences among the Mexican community and the

44 sociological and musical strategies for their unification. In order to accomplish that, I explore music as a symbol in the baile as a social drama. works of two scholars: Robbins and Peña, and compare their conclusions with the symbolic process in the baile in Quincy.

Music as a Symbol The following two examples by Robbins and Peña pertain to music and symbol as agents of division, whether generational or class division. According to Robbins, for example, Cuban son provides a unifying symbol among Cubans that helped them establish national solidarity. This symbol, according to Robbins, provides first and foremost the basis of Cuban solidarity. In Quincy, “solidaridad” (solidarity) is a recurrent word among the Mexican community,22 and people rely on each other for help in many ways. The exchange of goods and services helps members of the community deal and negotiate with challenges on a daily basis, and these interactions are consolidated and reinforced during the weekly baile in which music, like the son for Cubans, plays a symbolic role. Furthermore, son contributes to the creation of a pan-Caribbean identity (Robbins 1990:192). Robbins also acknowledges, however, that as a symbol, Cuban son is not always shared by all members of Cuban society. Son can also function as a symbol of generational difference (1990:193). The symbolic power of musical genres can therefore bring a community together or separate it. Peña, on the other hand, established a symbolic value granted to conjunto norteño and the Mexican American orchestra. While conjunto was for the poorest Mexican Americans, the Mexican American orchestra that he researced in his book was for the wealthiest (Peña 1999:13). Among Mexicans in Quincy, however, music as a symbol functions as an agent of social and musical unification. A common historical background contributes to the creation of this event, and the baile, as a social drama, plays an important role in the development of music as a symbol that functions as a shared substance in the creation of kin relationships and social organization.

22 During the earthquake of 1985 in Mexico City, the government launched a social campaign called “solidaridad,” and the word soon became an ingrained concept of Mexican solidarity.

45

The Baile in Quincy In the baile, hundreds of micro-interactions take place before, during, and after the event, from the preparation to the expectation that generates radio advertisements and the dismantling of the equipment afterwards. The baile as a whole comprises an important event in the creation and solidification of key relationships among Mexicans in Quincy. Many of these interactions constitute the social drama. The baile takes place in Discolandia, which is divided into three main parts that correspond to distinct phases of the baile, as seen in figure 5.1.

Figure 5.1. Discolandia party venue

The first is the parking lot, the second is the lounge area with concessions, and the third comprises the stage, the dance floor, and tables. The parking lot is connected to the lounge at the entrance. The lounge interface is connected to these and to the dance floor in phase three through two large gates. The stage, in part three, also has a back door for musicians and staff. Figure 5.2 shows the back door of the venue, while the band waits for the baile to start.

46

Figure 5.2 Juan’s band during preparation for the baile

Usually staff and musicians begin their preparations for the baile as early as 5 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon, whereas the baile itself is scheduled to start at 11 p.m. During the preparation time for the Discolandia baile, Don Fermin and Juan connect all the equipment: a set of two mixers, a dozen microphones, instruments, and at least twenty-four speakers. A large portion of the preparation involves testing the equipment and searching for the right volumes for microphones and instruments. Once the equipment is connected, Juan’s band usually rehearses five or six songs while Don Fermin twists the knobs to find the loudest possible setting. Sometimes this rehearsal deceives some of the “early birds” already waiting outside for the music to start. Customers start arriving as early as 9 p.m. Saturday evening and mingle in the parking lot, which is usually a good opportunity to show off their cars or trucks as signs of success. Sometimes the parking lot is the place where drinking starts as well. Mostly men in groups of four or five, however, stay in the parking lot; women usually go straight into the venue. During this pre-performance period, Juan and his band stop their rehearsal

47 soundcheck and get dressed for the concert. This time is a period of emotional and physical adjustment for them as they truly transform themselves into stars among their community. For example, they take their dress seriously. One time, while I was in attendance, all of the members of the group were at the back door of the venue. They were in an improvised “backstage” waiting for the cue to start playing. The vibe was very friendly, a mixture of nervous jokes with the excitement of performing for an audience. One thing caught my attention, and that was that Juan was not there. Later, I realized that he was in his car waiting by himself, like a celebrity waiting in his trailer. His appearance was markedly different from the time I met him in the rehearsal. He looked taller, maybe because of his boots, and he was wearing a wide belt and a large texano sombrero (Texan hat). Around 10 p.m. the front door opens and people who had been waiting in the parking lot begin the process of screening. They arrive into a small, barely illuminated room. Here men and women pay a $30-$40 entrance fee. It is also here where people who don’t belong to the community might be discouraged from entering; the doors are small and it feels as if you are entering a ceremonial ritual. The people start entering the venue as they pass from the screening section, while Rosy, a hired person in charge of the food, starts preparing tamales and refrescos (sodas). The lounge area is usually more illuminated than the dance floor. Many of the people who attend the baile prefer to stay in the lounge area for a short time while they eat something and wait for friends. As people eat food and mingle in the lounge area, Don Fermin usually plays CDs. The stage is empty at this point, and Juan’s band is nowhere near. The audience’s anticipation builds. Figure 5.3 shows the dance floor of Discolandia. Some of the people have come early with their families; the two children on the right are playing while waiting for the band to start playing. House lights are used during this time until more people enter, and then more dramatic dance lights are used.

48

Figure 5.3 Discolandia dance floor.

After a deejay’s introduction, Juan’s band comes on stage, complemented by sound effects and sometimes smoke and laser lights. At this point only women and a few brave men go straight to the dance floor. Women in groups of three or four sit at tables around the dance floor, waiting for the music to start and for men to invite them to dance. Families usually grab one of the tables around the dance floor for the entire family. There is a division between the lounge area and the dance floor, that division has two entrances in the shape of arches. Many times men who have not entered the dance floor stay at these entrances looking from a distance at the women seated at the tables. Once the music starts they try their luck inviting the women onto the dance floor. An aspiring superstar, Juan waits until the very last minute to appear on stage. When the time is right he comes out of his car and goes up on stage, the lights go off and from the complete darkness a few random notes are heard. Suddenly the sound of a deep bass along with the drum set lets the audience know that the concert has begun.

49 The Baile as Social Drama and Symbol Turner formulated his concept of “social drama” by detecting patterns associated with disturbances in the social lives of the groups he studied. He divided the process into four parts: 1) A breach of norm-governed social relations between individuals or groups within the same system of social relations 2) A phase of mounting crisis during which the breach widens until it exposes a pre- existing pattern of factional struggle within the social group 3) The introduction of formal or informal redressive mechanisms, such as arbitration or the performance of public ritual 4) Either recognition of an irreparable breach between conflicting parties or the reintegration of the disturbed social group(s)23

Social drama in the weekly baile of Quincy is reflected in terms of competition usually underlining a competition to attract the opposite sex. Similar to the four phases described by Turner, the baile in Quincy also has similar characteristics: 1) during the first hour or two of the baile a breach occurs among the young members of the community who show off their new cars and trucks in the parking lot, breaking the social norm of equality in the community. Mexicans who have emigrated understand that many other co-nationals faced economic hardship in Mexico and continue to have economic difficulties in this country; therefore, bragging about wealth is not always welcome within the community. This initial breach marks the competition which will be continued inside the venue. 2) The expansion of the original disturbance among the community is reflected in the dance floor. Competition for dance partners is expressed by showing off the best dance moves, and men compete to attract the females who observe them from the tables. During this time in the baile, the dance floor is full of couples who participate in this crisis while at the same time negotiate future long and short term relationships. Some of these couples end up establishing a family (such is the case of many of my informants). Competition is fierce on the dance floor, and misunderstandings sometime arise. 3) The crisis is usually resolved while Juan’s band plays a huapango (Mexican musical genre) that seems to be enjoyed by everyone and seems also to function as a call for reconciliation. During a huapango, everyone on the dance floor dances in circle as a group, almost in a

23 Paraphrased from Victor Turner, Schism and Continuity in an African Society: A Study of Village Life (Manchester University Press, 1957; reprint Berg, 1996): 91-92,

50 ceremonial fashion. The song continues and an unison chant of “Viva Mexico” can be heard. This emotive part of the baile re-establishes the order and reminds members of the community of their state of union. 4) A recognition of this union sets the basis for the reintegration of the community.

Baile Canon Creation For the Mexican community of Quincy, the weekly baile is an occasion for its members to celebrate their Mexicanness (i.e., their common background as Mexicans) as well as to interact with people from different Mexican states and regions of the homeland. Many of the members of the community have been recently incorporated into the dynamics of the diaspora, and their differences consitute a important role in their their interactions. Mexicans in the United States have often been considered one of the Hispanic subcultures in the United States. Mark Slobin writes the following about subcultures: Interaction among subcultures is rarely the object of scholarly study . . . yet at the local level it may be a force to reckon with as groups cooperate or compete for attention and dollars. There is a constant conversation of subcultures among themselves . . . (Slobin 1992:57).

Differences among the Mexican community of Quincy have produced a musical dialogue affecting those inside the diaspora as well as outside. Inside the community new musics and musical events continue to take place because Americanization is strong. Moreover, outside the Mexican community members of the host culture (i.e., non-Mexicans) have developed an interest in the activities of the Mexican diaspora in Quincy. Thus, there is “a constant conversation of subcultures” in an even greater way than as discussed by Slobin. Differences of background and unification through music have also helped diasporic Mexicans overcome social isolation. This unification through music could not have been possible without the development and standarization of the repertoire. The creation of a canon of songs and the performance of these songs is crucial to set the bases of their intersection. Thomas Turino, in his article “Nationalism and Latin America,” writes about regionalism in Mexico:

51 Canon creation is key because the same items will repeatedly be found together and thus come to be strongly associated with each other and with the symbolic frame ‘nation’. . . ’nation’ emerges as the combinations of these attractive sights and sounds (Turino 2003:196).

These “attractive sights and sounds” constitute the building blocks on which the baile and its symbolic consequences are founded. Juan’s band’s repertory contributes to the creation of this canon. Capable of playing eighty-nine songs by memory, Juan is able to choose a song set that conveys in words the dreams and concerns of many individuals. The songs articulate the feelings that the people in diaspora carry during their daily lives in the United States. This canon of songs also plays an important role in the solidification of social bonds, and furthermore it reflects the fusion of difference among the community. For example, Juan and Manuel come from the same country (Mexico), but they have different idiosyncrasies. Juan belongs to a rural area with moderate Western influence while Manuel comes from Chiapas, an area with a great deal of Mayan influence. While they both acknowledge their Mexicanness, when it comes to music Manuel brings his musical influences from Chiapas. Another example is the contribution of Victor; even though he is a citizen of the United States and fluent in English, Victor also acknowledges his inherent Mexicanness. He brings to the music his Tex-Mex influence through his accordion. The symbolic power of music has brought Juan, Victor, Manuel, and Don Fermin together. An accumulative set of backgrounds, musics, and interactions has helped them overcome their differences. The relationship that they now share has established a kinship bond between them that continues to grow. The baile sets the spatial and temporal place in which members of the Mexican diaspora dance and enjoy as a family from 10 p.m. Saturday to 4 a.m. Sunday. The citizens of this nation do not belong to a specific political boundary, and the only passport required is their love for music and dancing. Men and women, single or married, children and entire families contribute to the creation of this event. Food, drinks, and lights make the baile a familial experience. Musicians such as Juan and his band experience the effect of being stars for the night, while dancers on the dance floor show off their best moves, alluring the opposite sex. Families enjoy dancing as well as looking at others dance. Don

52 Fermin enjoys seeing the people having fun, but even more he enjoys being the one who has made it possible by facilitating the venue and sponsoring the band. Hundreds of micro-interactions happen during the bailes, many resulting in new families. United by the music and the baile, Mexicans in the Mexican diaspora of Quincy become one big family. The symbolic power of music, expressed in many other studies, has the particularity in this case of uniting the members of this diaspora. Class, race, and generational differences are overcome through the same desire to have a good time with friends and families.

53 CHAPTER 6

CONCLUSIONS: MUSIC AND BAILE AS KINSHIP

In this thesis I argue that the weekly baile in Quincy constitutes a symbolic process of unification in the Mexican diaspora and that music functions as a symbol of shared substance in the creation of kinship. Several processes take place in the creation of music as a shared substance. Music is what brings people from the Mexican Diaspora together in the first place. It is at the core of the different spheres of the Mexican Diaspora in Quincy. It provides people with different backgrounds from north Mexico, south Mexico, and Texas, for example, with an aural atmosphere that reproduces and channels emotions and feelings, common goals, and common concerns.

Music is the reason that Juan looked for members to start a band, and it is also the reason that Don Fermin decided to support them. Musical creation is the driving force that keeps their interactions constant, providing continuity to their original goal of creating music, providing a familial tie in which members who participate in the production of the baile interact on a regular basis, whether to rehearse, play or just hang out.

These constant meetings are fertile soil for reciprocal exchanges, higher levels of reciprocity hold together these newly formed relationships, such as lending money to each other, participating in ceremonial or religious practices such as the arrival of a newborn, or spending holidays together. These reciprocal activities set them apart from others as kin.

The bailes have gathered more and more attendees, creating demand for more performing groups and venues. Since the beginning of my research I have returned many times to the grocery store where I saw the advertisement for the baile at Discolandia. Not long ago I went to the same store looking for Mexican products and I found another advertisement for a new dance venue called El Rancho that has recently opened in Tallahassee. Juan’s band is already booked to perform in this new venue. This shows how

54 this thesis has been a localized view of a larger phenomenon taking place today in many cities in the United States. Figure 6.1 shows the advertisement of a new venue for bailes in Tallahassee.

Figure 6.1 Baile advertisement in Tallahassee

This thesis has focused on some of the social interactions among members of the Mexican Community in Quincy, Florida, particularly the baile and the complementary events necessary for its creation. I have argued that music at the center of this baile functions as a symbol and that this symbol is a shared substance in the establishment of kin relationships and social organization. I have tried to provide my reader with a more profound understanding of the Mexican community in the United States by looking inside

55 the cultural richness of a small portion this community, in which different individuals with Mexican heritage gather in Quincy, Florida, to create a new approach to social organization and a new type of music. Don Fermin, who at the beginning of my fieldwork was very skeptic of my presence, has graciously allowed me to conduct interviews and record at many of the bailes. He has successfully managed Juan’s band, bringing his dreams of becoming a music enterpreneur to life. In doing so, he has become closer to Victor. Don Fermin has also embraced Juan and his new family as his own. Victor, who was only a teenager when I met him, is now a motivated musician, proud of his heritage, aware of his fortune for not having to go through the danger of illegally crossing the border. He finally decided not to join the army; instead he practices his accordion and waits anxiously for the next rehearsal, baile, or tour to nearby cities. In music, Victor has found his identity and his kin. Juan has come a long way since he left Mexico, where he left his family behind. He has created a new family through music. Don Fermin has expanded his already large family and Manuel has found a brother in Juan. Juan and Manuel have become economically helpful to each other; they both contribute to the household necessities. They also help each other out during their day job in roofing. They have become kin, stronger than any consanguineal kin. They continue to perform and aim to become a nationally renowned band; they are now invited to play at many events and in new venues. When I met Juan several years ago, he was in the beginning stages of putting a band together, single and with many dreams; today he has a performing band with uniforms and steady gigs, and he is buying his own home. Even though Juan and I share different backgrounds, we are now good friends. I provide him with technological help such as demo CDs, business cards, and pictures for his advertisements, and he has helped with this thesis as well as with advice about the roof of my house. This is another example how through music, Mexicans in the United States establish kin relationships. I’m proud to call Juan my brother, and he has already asked of me certain favors, including visiting his mother in Guerrero to show her my videos and CDs of his

56 performances, since he is not able to leave the United States. Music has brought us together, just as it did for him, Manuel, Victor, and Don Fermin.

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APPENDIX

FORM OF CONSENT AND IRB APPROVAL LETTER

Estimado(a)______.

Soy estudiante de postgrado bajo la dirección del profesor Dr. Dale Olsen en el departamento de música en la universidad del estado de Florida. Estoy dirigiendo una investigación para saber más sobre las historias musicales en la diáspora mexicana.

Le estoy pidiendo su participación, la cual consta de una entrevista que será audio grabada y que tomará de 10 a 15 minutos. Su participación en este estudio es voluntaria. Si escoge no participar ó retirarse del estudio en cualquier momento, no habrá ninguna penalidad. Los resultados de la investigación quizás sean publicados, pero su nombre no será utilizado. La entrevista es anónima, y la información obtenida durante el curso del estudio se mantendrá confidencial, hasta donde la ley lo permita.

Si tiene alguna pregunta referente a este estudio, por favor llámeme ó al Dr. Dale Olsen.

Dale A. Olsen Florida State University's Institutional Florida State University Review Board College of Music 2010 Levy Ave Bldg B Suite 276 Tallahassee, FL 32306-1180 Tallahassee, FL 32310 (850) 644-5536 (850)-644-8673 [email protected]

Muchas Gracias

Sinceramente,

León García (850)3085298 [email protected]

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62 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

León García was born and raised in Mexico City. He grew up playing Mexican music, learning to play the guitar at eight years old and performing professionally at fifteen. After attending the Universidad de las Américas, Puebla, León moved to the United States in 2002. He enrolled in the Musicology program at The Florida State University in 2005. His research focuses on music in the Mexican diaspora of the United States and the Latin American trio style of the 1950s. León was given the Minority Award by the Smithsonian Institution in 2006. He has presented papers at the Society for American Music and has a forthcoming article in the Grove Dictionary of American Music. In 2008 he was an invited lecturer at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. León is currently developing a curriculum of Mexican music in San Antonio and is conducting research with the Trio Los Tres Reyes.

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