Roadtrip Playlist 1
Spaniards, Mexicans, Texans, Americans for most of the 1800 the people living north of the Rio Grande suffered from an identity crisis. Colonists from Spain, the upstart United states and even some French and Germany woke up to under a different flag almost every decade. Once the dust settle and we were all one big happy family some became happier then others and some of those not so happy and their stories were told through music.
You’re descendentes of Spanish settlers to Texas or maybe you crossed the Rio Grande (big river) yourself. The history of the border is as colorful as the people that live there from the harsh mountain region of big bend to the rich and productive soil of the Rio Grande Valley. I encourage you to take la familia on a road trip and listen to these songs and ask the family to place themselves in those moments of history.
Los Tigres del Norte have been telling the stories of the border for decades and life as immigrants. Please take a trip to Marfa and visit the Blackwell School. In and around the border segregation was not about separating blacks and whites it was about separating Mexican Americans and American. One of the practices of the school was cultural integration or was it cultural erasure. The school had a rule, no Spanish was to be spoken at school at all. “La Jaula de Oro” is the story of a family living the American dream that for the father as turned into a golden cage. One of the stand out lines is the result of cultural integration.
"Escúchame hijo
Te gustaría que regresáramos a vivir México?"
"Whatcha talkin' about dad?
I don't wanna go back to Mexico, no way dad"
Mis hijos no hablan conmigo
Otro idioma han aprendido, y olvidado el español
Piensan como Americanos, niegan que son Mexicanos
Aunque tengan mi color
Driving up highway 90 out of Marfa look for a historic marker on the side of the road. I won’t tell you what it says, you can read it with your family when you find it but also please take a moment and listen to Sus ojos se cerraron. While it is not a corrido it is a way to express the feeling of loss that the survivors must have felt.
Once you head toward the border you will come across the town of Presidio and its sister pueblo Ojinaga the center of the story of “El Zorro de Ojinaga”. Its dificult to talk about the border without Narco Corridos, the most interesting lines is in the intro “El cuidaba la frontera Por ordenes del tío Sam Y casaba terroristas” (He guarded the border by order of Uncle Sam and hunted terrorists). A good question do ask among the family is when did the war on drugs and terrorism become the same thing. Driving from west Texas toward Laredo one of the largest border crossing in the country you may want to listen to “El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez” it’s the story of a farmer that was being interrogated by los rinches (a local word for Texas Rangers) the translator misinterpreted Cortez and his brother and the Rangers ended up shooting his brother and then Cortez shot the Ranger. The song goes on to talk about one of the biggest manhunts of the border.
Passing through Laredo on the way back to San Antonio imagine being a prohibition era contrabandista. No not drugs at the time, tequila! While northerners were making moonshine and transporting it illegally across statelines, “los tequileros” were crossing the Rio Grande with tequila the song is about Jeronimo y Silvano. They crossed the river from Nuevo Leon and where ambushed by los rinches. The story goes that after a brief interrogation the Ranger Captain shot and killed a wounded Silvano Garcia.
We have to include one more narco corrido one that is considered one of the first as it was written in the 1920 and it was about running “la carga blanca” from the border to Ol’ San Antonio.
It’s been an interesting trip and I hope journey of open and frank discussion about being American so I end with three songs that remind us of that fact. Somos mas Americans, Immigrantes and This is not America. We can not forget who we are and how we came to be here and that speaking dos linguajes is a gift.
