Narcocorridos: Giving Mexican-American Youth a Sense of Cultural Identity in the US Victor Guzman Psych 141-1979 Con cuernos de chivo y basuca en la nuca/ Equipped with guns and bazookas Volando cabezas al que se atraviesa/ Heads fly of those who stand in the way Somos sanguinarios locos bien ondeados /we shed blood, crazy in the head Nos gusta matar / we like to kill Pa dar levantotes somos los mejores /we’re the best ones to get the job done Siempre en caravana toda mi plebada /always on caravans with all my people Bien empecherados blindados / bullet-proof vested Y listos para ejecutar/ and ready to execute Despite Mexico’s …show more content…
to test their fate, another quickly emerging option was to join the underground drug trafficking market. The changing climate in the drug trafficking world did not go without having any effect on the corridos, of course. As history evolved, so did the style of the corrido. The corrido was incorporated into different genres of regional music, particularly of the Northern part of Mexico, known as musica nortena. These songs ranged from love ballads to songs that make political statements and even stories about what Wald calls “smuggle stories” (Wald 3). Many were written about legendary figures like Pancho Villa (Quinones 27). The norteno group Los Tigres Del Norte is given the credit for officially taking corridos to the next level- that of narcocorridos and giving the grounds for which the narcocorrido takes off. They sing about the rise of drug traffic in the US-Mexico borderlands as well as about the injustices that Mexicans and Mexican-Americans have faced and continue to face in El Norte, a very popular nickname for the United States. Los Tigres del Norte (who originate from the United States) never fail to make a political statement, shedding light on controversial issues such as the rising power of the drug cartels in Mexico, which results because they present an alternative to poverty that Mexicans face every day. The following are two stanzas from a corrido by Los Tigres del Norte: A mí me gustan los corridos / I like listening to
His careful language exemplifies a quasi-diplomatic approach in controlling his followers. Brunk also emphasizes that “many other jefes […] resented what Zapatista headquarters had become: the centralizing product of Zapata’s interaction with urban intellectual parties” (350). This internal struggle stemming different actor’s perspective on what was happening to Zapatismo provides a more nuanced look at a pivotal group in the Mexican Revolution.
Even though Narco corrido is a present trend, the ancestry of this Mexican music mode can be traced more or less a century back. These extractions were forged by the tunes of customary Corrido music, a method that puffed up the 1910 Revolution as well as the battles of admired conquerors such as Pancho Villa along with Emiliano Zapata. The earlier artists were quite reserved; they never injected the hard hitting lyrics (Villalobos et al 27). Their compositions could be classified as moderate narco corridos. The past performer employed the music as a form of a local bulletin where they poured and talked of the local issues. However, the change came Back then after a Norteno group recognized plainly as Los Tigres del Norte sired the up the initiative to record a solo with reference to the days of a female smuggler who dared to bring marijuana into the US and later killed her collaborator in crime ahead of escaping with the funds of their business deal. That solo was called "Contrabando Y Traicion" and turn out to be a
In George J. Sanchez’s, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles 1900-1945, Sanchez brings forth a new understanding of Mexican-American culture through the presentation of how the culture made substantial adaptations under limited economic and social mobility (Sanchez 13). Unlike other historians who studies the variations of Mexican American cultural identity from a national prospective , Sanchez creatively selects Los Angeles as his site of research because, not only is the city home to the largest Mexican population in the United States, but also because Latinos play a profound role in shaping the city’s culture. Growing up in an immigrant family himself, Sanchez undoubtedly has many personal
‘Coyotes’ (Conover. T. 1987) was written in the hopes that it would help better understand the impact that illegal immigration had on the two societies, American and Mexican, and since Conover is an American citizen, and was at the
Mexico has a long history of cartels the deaths, drugs and weapon trafficking is in all time high increasing year by year. “Mexico's gangs have flourished since the late 19th century, mostly in the north due to their proximity to towns along the U.S.-Mexico border. But it was the American appetite for cocaine in the 1970s that gave Mexican drug cartels immense power to manufacture and transport drugs across the border. Early Mexican gangs were primarily situated in border towns where prostitution, drug use, bootlegging and extortion flourished” (Wagner). They keep themselves armed and ready with gun supplies shipped from the U.S, taking control of the drug trades. The violence is spilling so out of control that
The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela is arguably the most important novel of the Mexican Revolution because of how it profoundly captures the atmosphere and intricacies of the occasion. Although the immediate subject of the novel is Demetrio Macias - a peasant supporter of the Mexican Revolution -, one of its extensive themes is the ambivalence surrounding the revolution in reality as seen from a broader perspective. Although often poetically revered as a ‘beautiful’ revolution, scenes throughout the novel paint the lack of overall benevolence even among the protagonist revolutionaries during the tumultuous days of the revolution. This paper will analyze certain brash characteristics of the venerated revolution as represented by Azuela’s
The students of the Centre are conformists. They are typical example of Spanish citizens to live under Franco’s Rule during the 1950’s. They accept what they are thought by Don Pablo and Doña Pablo and do not question it. In contrast to the students Ignacio is an independent character who does not conform to the society of the Centre. He challenges what the students have been thought. ‘Ciegos! Ciegos y no invidentes, imbéciles.’ Ignacio keeps on emphasising how there is a division in life between ‘los invidentes’ and ‘los videntes’ and tries to spread his darkness to the people of the centre. ‘La Guerra que me consume os consumirá.’
The character of Demetrio Macias proves to be quite ironic. One facet of his character reveals his determination to find Pancho Villa’s army,
The United States has a long history of intervention in the affairs of one it’s southern neighbor, Latin America. The war on drugs has been no exception. An investigation of US relations with Latin America in the period from 1820 to 1960, reveals the war on drugs to be a convenient extension of an almost 200 year-old policy. This investigation focuses on the commercial and political objectives of the US in fighting a war on drugs in Latin America. These objectives explain why the failing drug policy persisted despite its overwhelming failure to decrease drug production or trafficking. These objectives also explain why the US has recently exchanged a war on drugs for the war on
In the article “Welcome to Tijuana”: Popular Music on the US–Mexico Border. Sociology and Social Researcher Elena Dell’Agnese studies popular music on the US-Mexico border. This study shows that classic corrido is the most popular along with other hydbrid types of music. These different types of music show that the US-Mexico border is very mixed. Elena starts off the article stating that since the sixties there have been many different branches of research over popular music focusing on a certain location and tradition. She then goes in to describe the first most popular music type discovered on her study case. Corrido was recorded as the most popular and most ancient of all the music genres in the area of the border. A corrido is a Mexican
Mariano Azuela’s The Underdogs, is about a brotherhood of the Mexican people taking a journey with only one thing on their mind; revenge against Huerta and the Federales. In this story, we as the reader are confronted with characters, such as Demetrio Macias, who is destined to lead his people into the depths of retaining an incorrupt lifestyle and hopes to find peace from the effect of war. Although Demetrio is seen as one of the main characters in the novel, we are also briefly engaged in the other revolutionary forces under Pancho Villa, Carranza, Obregon, and by peasants under Zapata. These appositional forces gain strength against the Huerta government as well. The Underdogs almost symbolizes a Robin Hood story, in which, Demetrio and
Recognized as one of the most fearless and violent cartels in all of Mexico, Los Zetas was brought forth by a need for personal security in the Gulf Cartel. This former hit man/security style operation, active since 1997, has since grown into its own ruthless and violent organization becoming the second most powerful cartel and easily the most feared in all of Mexico. Heavily trained and armed, members of Los Zetas are set apart from other cartels because of the level of brutality they are willing to administer to those who cross them, though they had initially hoped that by being more intimidating they would have to fight less. It is their command of the drug market, their lack of fear in using violent tactics, and the
The international drug trade from Latin American states is having an impact on a global scale. The trafficking of drugs along with corruptness and murder is an international conflict that is being fought daily. There are many aspects of the drug war from Mexico and other Latin American states which have effects on United States policy as well as policies from other countries that participate in the global suppression of illegal drugs.
During the early 1990’s Colombia being one of the biggest exporters of narcotics in history, led by Pablo Escobar, who had a wide range of organized crime affiliations throughout Latin America. Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug lord and he smuggled narcotics all the way to South Florida as when authorities tried to capture him. One of Pablo Escobar’s most important alliances was that of the Mexican-based traffickers. Escobar knew that this was an important trade route because of its geography and how it would be easier to smuggle the narcotics into the United States. This allowed a smuggling partnership between both countries and Mexico was to eventually lead their own drug based trafficking system with the help of Pablo Escobar. From the distributed drugs, cartels would take a certain amount of profit, and would use that money to bribe Mexican officials. By bribing Mexican officials it was insured that if smugglers were to be arrested they would either be let go, the case would be dropped or taking action against a rival smuggling group by giving away information about the rival’s plan to carry
En este 1er capítulo de la obra se narra sobre que desde la creación del mundo , siempre hubo guerras entre el bien y el mal o la luz y la oscuridad .