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Mariachi, Myths and Mestizaje: Popular Culture and Mexican National Identity Mary-Lee Mulholland Online Publication Date: 01 September 2007 To cite this Article: Mulholland, Mary-Lee (2007) 'Mariachi, Myths and Mestizaje: Popular Culture and Mexican National Identity', National Identities, 9:3, 247 - 264 To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/14608940701406237 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14608940701406237
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National Identities Vol. 9, No. 3, September 2007, pp. 247 264
Mariachi, Myths and Mestizaje: Popular Culture and Mexican National Identity Mary-Lee Mulholland
This article examines mariachi as a central mimetic myth in the construction of a unified national imagery in Mexico, in large part due to its embodiment of mestizaje: the racial and cultural mixing of Spanish and Indigenous cultures and people. Mariachi is a national myth that copies and borrows from other national myths, thus articulating multiple symbols and meanings simultaneously. In particular, mariachi performs its authenticity through the blood, sweat and tears of its performers and its performances. However, the relationship between mariachi and the idealised male mestizo is continually interrupted and unsettled by claims and counter-claims to the origins of mariachi by different segments of Mexican society, and by jokes and parodies of mariachi as stereotypes of Mexican masculinity, ethnicity and class. Keywords: Mexico; Nationalism; Mariachi; Popular Culture; Identity; Mestizaje
I am Mexican, my land is wild. My word as a macho, there is no other land . . .1
La Feria (The Fair) Located in the heart of Guadalajara’s downtown core, La Feria Restaurant Bar y Amigos (The Fair: Restaurant Bar and Friends) is a popular restaurant that provides its customers with an ‘authentic Mexican experience’ by showcasing ‘typical’ Mexican Mary-Lee Mulholland is presently completing her doctorate in social anthropology at York University in Canada. Her dissertation, entitled ‘Mariachi in Excess: Sexuality, Mestizaje and Regionalism in Jalisco Mexico’, examines mariachi as a contested site of the production of identities in Jalisco, Mexico. Correspondence to: Mary-Lee Mulholland, Department of Social Anthropology, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto ON, Canada. E-mail:
[email protected]. This article is based on 15 months of fieldwork in Jalisco from 2002 to 2003 funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I would like to thank John Biles, Paul Spoonley and the reviewer for their comments on the original draft. Any translations are mine unless otherwise noted. ISSN 1460-8944 (print)/ISSN 1469-9907 (online) # 2007 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14608940701406237
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food, dance and music. The restaurant is decorated in traditional Mexican papel picado (cut paper), streamers and pin˜atas all in red, green and white, the colours of the Mexican flag. There are large straw sombreros with the expression ‘!Viva Me´xico!’ and throughout the restaurant are the famous equipales : leather chairs believed to be Aztec in origin and characteristically Mexican. The menu invites customers to ‘Viva Fiesta Aute´ntica’ and includes Mexico’s most famous and ‘typical’ dishes, such as pozole, tacos and mole. The waiters, dressed in black and white, wear bow ties in the style of the traje de charro.2 A ten-piece mariachi dressed in trajes de charro is playing al talo´n, or wandering from table to table, taking requests. Customers at the tables join the mariachi in singing classic songs such as Guadalajara, Si Nos Dejan (If They Leave Us) and Paloma Negra (Black Dove). I went to La Feria one night with a group of friends. Seating up to 200 people, the restaurant was full of customers, mostly Mexican, the majority of whom were in groups of five or more. At eleven o’clock in the evening, the main show began with a mariachi playing on a staircase that descended from the second floor to the main stage located in the centre of the restaurant. The first performers were two folkloric dancers, with the man dressed in a traje de charro with sombrero and the women dressed in a china poblana (a vibrant and colourful folkloric dress). They danced two songs, the second being the famous jarabe tapatı´o (the Mexican Hat Dance). After the dancers completed their short but lively performance, a man wearing a brown suede traje de charro, matching sombrero with an embroidered Aztec sundial on the back of his jacket, began to sing backed by the mariachi. This performance of a lead singer while backed by a mariachi is considered part of the genre of Mexican music called ‘ranchera’ (country music) that first became poplar in Mexico in the 1930s. The first song he sang was Ella (She), a famous song written and performed by ranchera singer-songwriter legend, Jose´ Alfredo Jime´nez. The singer invited the audience to join in with a challenge: ‘Those that don’t know the words can’t be Mexican!’ The audience joined in, singing a song about sorrow and heartbreak, while adding occasional whistles and gritos (yells).3 The singer continued his performance with other classics by Jose´ Alfredo Jime´nez, and when someone in the crowd requested a song not written by Jime´nez, the singer replied: ‘If it is not Jose´, it is joto!’(i.e., ‘fag’). Popular Culture in Mexico Through food, drink, dance, music, crafts and clothes, La Feria performs several important and fundamental elements of Mexicanness (often referred to as ‘lo mexicano’ or ‘mexicanidad’) such as macho men (‘If it is not Jose´, it is joto!’), pretty women (the dancer in a folkloric dress), Indianness (the Aztec sundial and the ‘pre-Hispanic’ crafts), regional identity (mariachi, pozole, equipales and the jarabe tapatı´o are popularly recognised as being typical of the state of Jalisco), and nationalism (‘Those that don’t know the words can’t be Mexican!’, and the overwhelming presence of the colours of Mexico’s national flag). This performance is not unique to Guadalajara and is replicated in cities and towns throughout the
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republic*particularly those places considered popular destinations for Mexican and non-Mexican tourists. In addition, the mariachis, folkloric dance and papel picado especially are typical performances during the fiestas patrias (Mexican national day celebrations). Central to this performance of Mexican identity is the use of popular culture considered traditional, folkloric or ‘typical’ of the country. The promotion of Mexican popular culture as an important aspect of nationalism has a long history, but it became most influential during the early revolutionary governments. In particular, the muralist movement led by Diego Rivera, David Siquieros and Jose´ Clemente Orozco, music nationalism pioneered by Manuel Ponce, the folkloric ballet showcasing traditional music, dance and costumes from all regions of Mexico, and studies of folklore and anthropology thrived from the 1920s to the 1950s. Writing in the 1930s, Mexican public intellectual Samuel Ramos (1962, [1934], p. 115) argued that the production of ‘an authentic national type’ was a strategy to distinguish Mexico from Europe and the United States, but ran the risk of reaffirming ‘a false Mexicanism’. Recent art has undertaken an amplification *as in a resounding box *of the ‘picturesque’ dimensions that have found wide acceptance, especially among Yankee tourists. But this Mexico of the charro (Mexican horsemen) and the Mexico of the china poblana (colorful style of women’s regional dress), as well as the Mexico of the legendary savage (whose novelty and attraction for Europeans I cannot understand; there is proof of their own savagery in what has transpired since 1914), constitute a Mexico for export which is just as false as the romantic Spain of the tambourine. (Ramos, 1962 [1934], p. 103)
Images of moustached mariachi musicians wearing sombreros and silver-studded cowboy outfits while strumming guitars and drinking tequila have long penetrated the production of ‘an authentic national type’ in Mexico and, at the same time, been criticised for producing an image of a ‘false Mexicanism’. Mariachi is a musical ensemble consisting of 812 performers dressed in trajes de charros that play a range of string instruments including several violins, guitar, guitarro´n (a large bass guitar), vihuela (a small, five-string guitar with a rounded back), occasionally a harp, and one or two trumpets. The music played by mariachis includes different genres of songs such as rancheras, sones, jarabes, huapangos, corridos and boleros that narrate nostalgic, humorous and emotional stories of love, heartache, death, drinking and place. Mariachis are most commonly comprised of men and heavily associated with drinking, overt emotionality, fiestas and cowboys, and are virtually interchangeable with the stereotype of the Mexican macho. Although there are variations of mariachis, including traditional ones (sometimes referred to as ‘mariachis antiguos’, or ‘Indigenous mariachis’), mariachis femeniles (all-female mariachis) and mariachis mixtas (mariachis comprised of men and women), the overwhelming majority of Mexican mariachis are all-male. Moreover, in Mexico, the image of the mariachi is inseparable from the images of movie stars of
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the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s who sang ranchera music (country music) backed by famous mariachis in the wildly popular singing cowboy films of that era. A combination of these films, radio and the state-sponsored performance of mariachis at national events led to the transformation of mariachi to a national symbol and myth associated with machismo, regionalism and mestizaje.4 The image of mariachi is at once a stereotype of the drunken lustful macho and a national symbol that celebrates Mexico’s folklore, regional tradition and mestizaje. It is a mimetic performance of Mexican national identity, copying and drawing on important symbols, icons, traditions and cultural references that circulate in the discourse of mexicanidad. The objective of this article is to demonstrate how this entangled mimetic performance of mariachi, ranchera music and Mexican national identity produces certain ideals and norms in the production of mexicanidad. ‘Mythic Mexico’ and the Production of Mexicanidad As witnessed in the performance at La Feria, the Mexico of the charro, the china poblana and the mariachi is still a dominant and influential representation of Mexican identity. Moreover, this performance of mexicanidad is not only one created for a ‘Yankee audience’, as Ramos contended, but it is also a meaningful and important story that Mexicans ‘tell themselves about themselves’ (Geertz, 1973). Mexicans engage in the performance of this ‘false Mexico’ as both producers and consumers of mariachi, ranchera music, charros and folkloric dance. This is demonstrated by the participation of young Mexicans in the ever-present folkloric dance troupe in almost every town and city throughout Mexico, by the massive popularity of Mexico’s regional music genres including ranchera, banda, grupero and norten˜a, and the ongoing popularity of charrerı´as (Mexican style rodeos) and the sport of the charros. Furthermore, mariachis are an important part of the everyday lives of Mexicans in small towns and cities, particularly in western Mexico and the United States, playing at weddings, municipal celebrations and private parties. Together with other popular cultural performances, these folkloric traditions are requisite in the production of mexicanidad. Central to this argument is the theoretical understanding of Mexico as an ‘imagined community’ conceived as a concrete entity that moves intact through ‘homogenous empty time’ (Anderson, 1983, p. 7). In order to imagine the nation as concrete, a sense of a collective identity and ‘continuity with a suitable historic past’ is needed (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983, p. 1). It is the representation of ‘invented traditions’ as ancient and historic that gives them a sense of moral and cultural authority and authenticity that produce continuity with the past. Importantly, the performative nature of invented traditions such as mariachi creates not only a sense of authenticity and historicity, but also the illusion of origins (Morris, 2000). Similarly, mariachi is a performance that quotes and cites previous performances ad infinitum creating this illusion. Mariachi does not exist a priori or a posteriori of mexicanidad, rather they are co-constitutive, constantly drawing on each other in an
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impulse to move forward and create a sense of past. It is this seemingly metonymic link between mariachi and a perceived Mexican ‘essence’ that allows mariachi to perform idealised and, at times, hegemonic representations of Mexican identity. This essence is characterised as mestizo, macho and rural. One of the most important strategies in the imaginings, performances and productions of mexicanidad are the nostalgic narrations of certain origin myths, including mariachi, that have become highly circulated and influential. Here, I choose the word ‘myth’ deliberately because the reference to ‘Mexican myths’ (Bartra, 2002; Florescano, 1994, 1995; Lomnitz-Adler, 1992; Monsiva´is, 1997; Paz 1961) or ‘mythohistory’ (Alonso, 2004, p. 462) is common in public discourse on Mexican identity. Moreover, these myths are not remnants of an archaic national discourse nor are they solely produced by state actors, but rather they are produced in official and elite discourses of mexicanidad and in the everyday. In his book Blood, Ink and Culture: Miseries and Splendors of the Post-Mexican Condition , Mexican anthropologist Roger Bartra states: Despite Weber’s claims, modern society has not ceased to generate myths. One of those myths is precisely the myth of national character. In Mexico that myth as crystallized into what I have playfully called the axolotl canon. That canon orders and classifies the features of Mexican character according to a basic duality: Mexicans are amphibious beings who shift between the rural savagery of melancholy Indians and the artificial and playful aggressiveness of urban pelado s. (Bartra, 2002, p. 6)5
The majority of these myths are the legends and histories of individuals, characters or events that are understood to have been important in the founding and creation of Mexico. There are, of course, several versions of these myths with differing degrees of authority and acceptance. Nevertheless, there are certain myths and their associated protagonists that have an undeniable influence and power in the imaginings of Mexican identity and in Mexican society itself. Never told in a vacuum, these myths and their symbols and meanings work in tandem with the listener’s knowledge of the stories that both precede and follow the one being told. Myths mingle while characters drift from one setting and story to another. They cite each other and tend to refer back to a primordial Indigenous beginnings represented by the glory of the Aztec and Mayan civilisations or the violent and degrading union of the conquerors and the conquered that led to the creation of a mestizo nation. These myths are circulated and reified in the imaginings of Mexico through popular culture, education, the state and academia by appearing in songs, movies, telenovelas (soap operas), school texts, magazines, public art and on currency. Due to the influence these myths have in the imaginings of Mexican identity, there is an extensive body of literature preoccupied with the history, analysis and debate of the meaning and authenticity of particular myths (Bartra, 2002; Florescano, 1994, 1995; Lomnitz-Adler, 1992; Monsiva´is, 1997; Paz 1961; Ramos, 1962). Included in this pantheon of myths are iconic figures such as the notorious and controversial
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relationship between Corte´s and his Indigenous translator/slave/lover La Malinche at the time of conquest, the religious apparition of the brown-skinned Virgin of Guadalupe to the Indian peasant Juan Diego, the political reform of the Indigenous president Benito Juarez, and the revolutionary zeal of Emiliano Zapata or Pancho Villa. There are also more general archetypes such as the urban poor pelado, the indio (Indian), the pachuco (Mexican-American male youth), the narcotraficante (drug dealer), the good virtuous woman, the soldaderas (women who travelled and fought with soldiers in the revolution), the charro (Mexican cowboy) and the mariachi . Moreover, new myths and mythic figures are constantly invented, drawing on previous archetypes and tropes, including actors, professional wrestlers and modernday revolutionaries. Many of these myths are predicated on the seemingly contradictory performance of mexicanidad as modernity and tradition, cosmopolitanism and folklore, independence and dependence, and progress rooted in a pre-Hispanic past. Situating modern Mexican identity on the foundation of its Indigenous and folkloric past has been a strategy in the imaginings of a Mexican nation since before the revolution. For example, Enrique Florescano (1994) argues that the Indian past becomes important in Mexican nationalism and identity for the Creole elite after independence. He states that ‘by integrating antiquity into the notion of country, the Creoles expropriated the past of the Indigenous people and made the past a legitimate and prestigious antecedent of the Creole country’ (Florescano, 1994, p. 231). This strategy of mexicanidad *a dual imagining of Mexico as a modern nation in the making, yet rich with tradition*also figured dominantly in official and dominant national discourses in the 1930s to 1950s (cf. Joseph et al., 2001). For example, there was a seemingly paradoxical objective to salvage and preserve Indigenous culture in museums, on the one hand, and educate and modernise the Indigenous masses, on the other. While these myths reproduce a complex matrix of idealised representations of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, place (region, rural versus urban) and religion, it is the characterisation of mexicanidad as mestizo that is the most prevalent. Not only do many of the myths idealise mestizaje, but the original mestizo (the child of Corte´s and Malinche: Don Martı´n Corte´s) is a myth itself. Moreover, the image of the mestizo was supported and produced by the governing and intellectual elite. For example, Manuel Gamio, a student of Franz Boas and the father of anthropology and archaeology in Mexico, argued in Forging the Fatherland (1916) that ‘a powerful Fatherland and a coherent nationality’ could be achieved through a ‘fusion of the races, convergence and fusion of cultural expressions, linguistic unification and economic equilibrium of social elements’ (Gamio, as cited in Garcı´a Canclini, 1993, p. 43). Similarly, Jose´ Vasconselos (1925), secretary of education in the early years of the revolutionary government, argued that the unique combination of Indigenous and the European races in Mexico created a ‘cosmic race’ of mestizos that were destined to build a future Latin American civilisation.
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Drawing on Mexico’s history of mestizaje, Samuel Ramos (1962 [1934]) developed a psychological analysis of the Mexican character in The Profile of Man and Culture in Mexico. He argued that the Mexican character is defined by an inferiority complex that emerged as a result of a series of events including conquest, Spanish colonialism, the war with the United States and the French occupation. This inferiority complex is called ‘malinchismo’ in Mexico, and a ‘malinchista’ is someone who is viewed as being a traitor to Mexico or who expresses more affection and admiration for those things foreign. It stems from the notion that Mexicans are descendents of both a literal (the relationship between Corte´s and Malinche) and metaphorical rape (the conquest of the Indigenous people by the Spanish). As a result of this inferiority, Ramos argued the Mexican men (particularly the urban poor) are generally emasculated individuals whose only strategy for the assertion of dominance is through machismo. Specifically, the only salvation for the Mexican male in the face of all these failures is his virility. Here, machismo and mestizaje become entangled in the Mexican imaginary. Influenced by Ramos, Nobel laureate Octavio Paz (1961) would further develop this connection in his famous essay on Mexican identity: The Labyrinth of Solitude. Paz would argue that at the core of the production of Mexican normalised gender roles is the history of Mexicans being ‘hijos de la chingada’ (‘sons of the fucked/ violated one’). Mestizaje , of course, does not work alone, but is entangled with other motifs in the imagining of Mexico, including indigenismo (Indigenousness: a movement to recognise Mexico’s Indigenous heritage), machismo, marianismo (Cult of the Virgin Mary that influences female gender roles in Latin America), malinchismo and patrias chicas (Mexico is a country of many cultures). In addition, memories and myths of Mexico being a rural country are glorified in romantic idyllic images of the countryside. As a result, representations of Indigenous people slide into representations of women and the countryside and the south whereas representations of the mestizo blur with that of machismo, the city and the north (Alonso, 2004, p. 469). If mestizaje is the most important origin myth defining the Mexican character, then suffering is its most salient allusion. The image of the poor and emasculated Mexican as portrayed by Ramos, or the Mexican characterised by solitude and machismo, as portrayed by Octavio Paz, have dominated the imaginings of Mexico. As Roger Bartra argues, the Mexican prototype ‘reaches from the stooping Indian to the mestizo pelado, passing through the major points of articulation of the Mexican soul: melancholy-idleness-fatalism-inferiority/violence-sentimentalism-resentment-escapism’ (Bartra, 2002, p. 8; emphasis in original). If the image of the Mexican character as created by the imagining of a mythic Mexico is a sentimental, suffering macho mestizo, then the greatest performance of this is mariachi and ranchera music. In her description of a night in the famous mariachi plaza in Mexico City, Plaza Garibaldi, Alma Guillermoprieto captures the importance of sentiment in mariachi and Mexican identity, particularly through tears:
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Mexicans know that a party has been outstandingly successful if at the end of it there are at least a couple of clusters of long-time or first-time acquaintances leaning on each other against a wall, sobbing helplessly. That activities that one normally associates with a party . . . are mere preludes to or distractions from the ultimate goal, which is weeping and the free, luxurious expression of pain. . . . Hardly anyone knows anymore what it is to live on a ranch or to die of passion, and yet, when it comes to the defining moments of mexicanidad , ranchera music, with its odes to love, idyllic landscapes, and death for the sake of honor, continues to reign supreme. (Guillermoprieto, 2003, pp. 41 42)
Mariachi Myth: Blood, Sweat and Tears Most Mexicans experience mariachi in one of two ways: the performance of mariachi ensembles, or the popular music genre called ‘ranchera’. In the former, ‘modern mariachis’ are almost always dressed in trajes de charros and work in various locations in cities and towns throughout Mexico, including plazas*most famously the Plaza Garibaldi in Mexico City, the Plaza de los Mariachis in Guadalajara and El Parı´an in San Pedro Tlaquepaque. They also play in restaurant bars, such as La Feria, cantinas, private parties, official occasions and at sporting events (in particular charrerı´a and cockfighting). In the Mexican imaginary, mariachis are comprised of mestizo men and are heavily associated with drinking, melodramatic sentimentality, cowboys and the professed birthplace of mariachi: the western state of Jalisco and its capital, Guadalajara.6 Mexican anthropologist Jesu´s Ja´uregui has extensively studied the transition and transformation of mariachi into a national symbol and myth, most notably in El Mariachi: Sı´mbolo musical de Mexico (Mariachi: Musical Symbol of Mexico) (Ja´uregui, 1990). In this work, Ja´uregui details the different factors leading to mariachi’s status as a national symbol including migration, political influences and the impact of mass communications. In the nineteenth century, the traditional performance of mariachi in rural areas of western Mexico (particularly the state of Jalisco) was characterised by small groups of men (often peasants) who played predominantly string instruments at religious or community events. The look and the sound of the modern mariachi emerged in Mexico City in the 1920s and 1930s when the Mexican state was actively creating and promoting mexicanidad. A combination of the influence and involvement of the state, cultural industries, private patrons and mariachi’s move to this new urban context would have a dramatic impact on the look, style and form of the ensemble. Mariachis grew in size, incorporated trumpets and almost entirely abandoned the inclusion of religious songs (minuetes) in the repertoire adopting predominantly ranchera songs instead. Most drastically, they replaced Indigenous or work-clothes with the flashier and more expensive trajes de charros. The two most important and controversial changes to the modern mariachi were the inclusion of the traje de charro and the trumpet. First, the traje de charro was an outfit associated with the land-owning elite, the hacienda managers and bosses of the peasants. Therefore, by incorporating the traje de charro, the performance of the
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mariachi slipped from Indigenous peasants to wealthy cowboys. Ja´uregui (1995, p. 196) argues that the traje de charro was adopted to disguise the roots of mariachi as Indigenous or African, to become a ‘mestizo prototype’ situated in an international paradigm of the American cowboy and the Argentine gaucho. Second, the inclusion of the trumpet not only changed the sound of mariachi, but it also situated it in a broader, thoroughly modern, cosmopolitan and urban style of music that was linked to other musical styles such as jazz and Cuban music, which were immensely popular at that time. Thus, the inclusion of the trumpet and the traje de charro marked an important shift in the performance of mariachi that allowed the performance to draw on and cite both international referents of popular culture, such as the cowboy and the trumpet, but also placed it firmly in the modern urban idea of the nation. Through these changes, the transformation of mariachi from a small rural Indigenous musical group to a larger urban popular ensemble created ‘a prototype of a popular Mexican mestizo’ (Ja´uregui, 1990, p. 78). The new performance of mariachi as a modern music associated with the mestizo rural elite (charros) as opposed to Indigenous peasants facilitated a shift in the its appeal to an urban mestizo middle class. As a result of these transformations, the modern mariachi draws on symbols and myths that circulate in the production of mexicanidad, performing dual and contradictory images of cosmopolitanism and folklore, modernity and tradition, Indigenousness and mestizaje, rural peasants and an urban middle class. Key to this duality is mestizaje itself. The Mexican mestizo embodies this duality in his blood (he is almost always imagined as male), the blood of the Indian (folklore, traditional, rural peasant) and the European (cosmopolitan, modern, urban, and middleupper class). Representations of mariachis and their mythic historical origins have become intertwined with the colonial origins of the Mexican nation through a history of mestizaje. The roots of mariachi as a musical ensemble are understood to dwell with Indigenous people who combined Indigenous and Spanish instruments, melodies, culture and religion to create a mestizo music/nation. The musicians that first played this ‘mu´sica mestiza’ were men who toiled on the land under the control and oppression of Spanish or Creole landowners. These men expressed the grit, sweat, blood and tears of this difficult life and their bond with the land through mariachi music thus produced a vision of the Mexican man as brave, rugged, hard-working and rural. For example, Ramon Mata Torres, a local expert on mariachi and a state cultural worker, explained in an interview: ‘The symbol of Mexico is not the Indigenous people, but rather the mestizo. Mexicans feel in their soul the music of the mariachi because it is popular and from mestizo people’ (September 2003). Another local mariachi aficionado and former Director of Popular Cultures of the Secretary of Culture of the state of Jalisco, Cornelio Garcı´a Ramı´rez, explained it to me this way: Mariachi is mestizo. It is a mixture of European instruments that are mexicanized here: the guitarro´n and vihuela are originally from Cocula. But this music is . . . the same thing happened with the jigs and reels from Ireland in Canada and the United
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States. They came from Europe but when it arrived in America it was simulated but it was the same reels, but it is not the same any more, it changes. The same thing happened here. The Indigenous and the people that came from Spain or the criollos started playing these instruments that the colonizers brought but with Mexican feeling. It wasn’t Indigenous anymore, it wasn’t Spanish anymore, it was Mexican that is a mixture of both cultures. And that is how it started. (October 2002; original in English)
The notion that mariachi is fundamentally a mestizo music and thus a representative of the Mexican ethos is a commonly held perception, both popularly and academically. In fact, mariachi as a ‘mestizo’ prototype has even transcended national boundaries. During the 2002 International Mariachi Festival in Guadalajara, I interviewed a visiting mariachi from Ecuador and inquired why mariachi is so popular in Ecuador. Mariachi and ranchera music became very popular in Ecuador in the 40s and 50s because of Mexican film. At the time, Ecuador did not have well developed cultural institutions and much of the popular culture was about Indigenous people. The mestizos in Ecuador identified with what was on the screen in Mexican films. In Ecuador, there were not cultural things to identify with, but mariachi filled this void. (September 2002)
As stated earlier, if mestizaje is the prevailing myth of mexicanidad, then suffering is its primary allusion. As a consequence, the genuine expression of suffering through sentimentality, feeling and tears are not only the ‘defining moments of mexicanidad’ and ‘ranchera music’, as Alma Guillermoprieto stated, but also the markers of an authentic mariachi . In his discussion on ranchera music and boleros, Carlos Monsiva´is (1997, p. 192) argues that sentimentality in Mexican popular culture is valued over authenticity, but I would argue that in Mexican popular culture, and in particular mariachis, authenticity is, in fact, measured by sentimentality and sincerity. In my research in Guadalajara, the theme of sentiment was a constant and reoccurring discussion with mariachis, fans and experts. During interviews and conversations, people would often ask if I played an instrument or sang. I would always reply with ‘I sing, but not very well’. The response was always the same: ‘It doesn’t matter as long as you sing with feeling.’ Discussions about the measure of a mariachi or a ranchera singer’s performance were always centred on their ability to perform with ‘feeling’ and ‘flavour’. For example, I was told by one fan, musician and hobby folklorist in Guadalajara that: ‘Mariachi is music that you feel, you do not need to be educated. . . . The music you hear on the radio is commercial, it is for the feet not the heart . . . it has no flavour. . . . The sound of the mariachi is not educated, it is from the countryside, the instruments are tuned differently and it is that sound that is the flavour’ (September 2003). An authentic mariachi must live and embody the music and, in order to express the sentimentality of the music, experience the pain and suffering felt by the rural life of a mestizo male. The ability to express an authentic sentimentality (thus an
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authentic mexicanidad) comes from the blood, sweat and tears of the musician. The music runs through the blood of the mestizo passed down from father to son, the pain is in the sweat of the land-working man, and the tears of a man left broken hearted by a woman. Thus, the authenticity of the mariachi is literally rooted in the tierra (the dirt, land and homeland) of Mexico (preferably of Jalisco) and the blood of the mestizo passed down from father to son. The first sounds I ever heard were the cry of a cock and the sound of the jarabe. (Mariachi from Jalisco, September 2003) You need to be from the land where the music comes from. It comes from the blood and from the land. To play mariachi you can’t learn it in school, it runs in your blood and you learn it from your family. To play a song with feeling you need to be from the countryside, from where the music comes from, from the land. You can only play the notes if you feel it, Chilangos [people from Mexico City] can’t play it well, they don’t have the feeling, the words sound different. (Mariachi from Jalisco, September 2003) Because the origin of the sones comes from the countryside, from the land-work, as people that sweated all day long being exploited by the hacendado, working fifteen twenty hours a day under the sun picking the maize, ploughing the land, working hard. So this music belongs to the peasant, to the man that worked the land. And the feeling and the rage he had expresses itself through the strings of the guitarro´n being pulled with guts. (Cornelio Garcı´a, October 2002; original in English)
Due to its association with working the land, Cornelio Garcı´a argues that mariachi is in fact ‘a cosa de los hombres’ (‘a man thing’). The opinion that only men can capture the essential feeling of mariachi is not uncommon, particularly when it is associated with drinking, the land (that presumably the men worked) and matters of the heart (caused by the actions of women). The connection between authentic mariachi and blood suggests that only those with the right blood (i.e., a Mexican) can play the music and that this authenticity is passed down within the family. The notion that mariachi is a birthright passed down to the new generation by fathers, uncles and grandfathers is widespread.7 Most of the mariachis I spoke with told me that they had learned to play it from an older male family member, and this phenomenon of mariachi being a ‘family affair’ is mentioned in several ethnographies on the genre (cf. Sheehy, 1999). The core of many mariachis is a group of (most often) male relatives, perhaps fathers, uncles, brothers and cousins, that learned the essence of mariachi from one of their relatives. ‘The mariachi musician cannot be made, but rather is born with this quality that grows from the moment of conception back to the genes of the mother and father’ (Oscar Rosales Navarro, n.d.). The ‘family’ becomes an important site not only for the reproduction of the performance of mariachi, but also of Mexicanness itself. In addition, there are even popular contemporary ranchera singers, most notably Pepe Aguilar and Alejandro Ferna´ndez, who are part of famous ranchera singing families.
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The use of the family in national discourse is, of course, not unusual, but in Mexico the family, and more specifically the ‘revolutionary family’, is an institutionalised and official plank in Mexican nationalism (Zolov, 1999). The notion that mariachi is mestizo, macho, tied to the land and part of the family are all central and essentialising tropes in mexicanidad. Moreover, these notions establish the limits and exclusions of not only who can play in a mariachi, but also the image of an idealised Mexican. The implication is that if playing in a mariachi is a birthright, it is one limited to Mexicans, and even more specifically: men from the state of Jalisco. Mariachi, Ranchera Music and Mexicanidad This mythic portrayal of mariachis with mestizaje, machismo, sentimentality and the state of Jalisco took hold in the Mexican imagination with the extremely popular Mexican cowboy films of the 1930s1950s. As leading Mexican cultural critic Carlos Monsiva´is (1993, p. 144) stated: ‘Between 1935 and 1955 (approximately, of course), it was the cinema more than any other cultural instrument that . . . reshaped the notion of Mexican national identity by turning nationalism into a great show.’ Often referred to as the ‘Golden Age’ of Mexican culture and nationalism, this era produced several important cultural icons*particularly the comedia ranchera (country comedy) genre of film and its star the charro cantor (or singing cowboy). Combining the music of mariachi and the cowboy tradition of charros, these films produced an image of the idealised Mexican man: a rural, mestizo cowboy who possessed a loyal, brave and stubborn character. In these films, such as Alla´ en el Rancho Grande (Over on Big Ranch) (1936) and Ası´ se quiere en Jalisco (That is How They Love in Jalisco) (1942), mariachis became the cinematic and mythic compadres of Mexican mestizo charros who lived rugged and honourable lives tied to working the land, drinking tequila and the love of a good woman (Ja´uregui, 1990; Na´jera-Ramı´rez, 1994; Rubenstein, 2001; Serna, 1995). Associated with the incredible popularity of these films was the equally popular genre of music called ‘ranchera’. The style of singing ranchera songs in the bel canto style backed by a mariachi was pioneered in the 1930s by classically trained vocalists such as Lucha Reyes (Ja´uregui, 1990, p. 60). While popular images of mariachis at this time were predominantly masculine (despite the presence of all-female mariachis), many of the stars of ranchera music were women, including Lucha Reyes, Lola Beltran, Lucha Villa and Chavela Vargas.8 The masculine stars of this genre, many of whom were also actors, such as Pedro Infante, Jorge Negrete, Javier Solı´s and Jose´ Alfredo Jime´nez, became enduring iconic myths of the Mexican macho. Similar to mariachis, the expression of angst performed with ‘guts’ is essential to the popularity and success of ranchera singers. In fact, ranchera singers including Pedro Infante, Jose´ Alfredo Jime´nez and now Vicente Ferna´ndez are famous for their expressive performance of the music, the authenticity of which is based on their humble beginnings.
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Today, mariachi and ranchera music continues to be extremely popular in Mexico, the rest of Latin America and in the United States. While mariachis are hired for special events such as weddings, baptisms, patron saint celebrations or serenades, fans can enjoy ranchera music on the radio, jukeboxes in bars and cantinas, and in concerts. Contemporary ranchera singers such as father and son Vicente and Alejandro Ferna´ndez, Pepe Aguilar (son of famous ranchera singers Antonio Aguilar and Flor Silvestre), Pedro Ferna´ndez, Pablo Montero, Juan Gabriel, Ana Gabriel and Lucero all frequently perform in popular venues for ranchera concerts such as palenques (cockfighting arenas), lienzo charros (rodeo arenas) and plazas de toros (bullfighting arenas). During their performances, they are dressed in a traje de charro, for at least a portion of the concert, and perform their own popular hits or classics from the Golden Age backed by a large mariachi with as many as fifteen musicians. In addition to their performance of ranchera music backed by a mariachi, some of these stars (notably Pepe and Antonio Aguilar and Vicente and Alejandro Ferna´ndez) also situate themselves in the world of cockfighting and charrerı´a. For example, Antonio Aguilar is famous for entering his concerts in large arenas on horseback. I attended concerts between 2002 and 2003, including one in the fall of 2003 in the city of Aguascaliente to see Alejandro Ferna´ndez perform in the Plaza de Toros Monumental. At the time, Alejandro Ferna´ndez had just finished filming the new and controversial biography about Emiliano Zapata by director Alfonso Arau and had been, up until the concert, sporting a large Zapata-style moustache.9 The concert was a mimetic montage of mexicanidad par excellence including images of Zapata, icons from the Golden Age, folkloric dancing, cockfighting, bullfighting, charros and, of course, mariachi. The concert started at nine o’clock in the evening with an elevenpiece mariachi and several pairs of folkloric dancers. After a couple of songs, the dancers left the stage and then, all of a sudden, the plaza went dark and a haunting eerie music began to fill the stadium. Standing in the dark plaza where raging bulls are the usual performers, a new sound began to take over, the sound of an animal breathing heavily, panting and snorting. The attention of the audience was drawn to a large screen in the centre of the stage playing a clip of a large white steed (Zapata is often portrayed riding a white horse) fighting the bit in his mouth. The rider, partially obscured by the darkness of the film, is Alejandro Ferna´ndez dressed in a dark traje de charro riding bareback through the abandoned streets of a ghost town. The white steed reared up and Alejandro Ferna´ndez easily overpowers and subdues the beast and begins to dismount. Suddenly, the lights go out and in place of the image on the screen stood the real silhouette of Alejandro Ferna´ndez dressed in a traje de charro and sombrero with clouds from dry ice billowing around him. In an instant, the copy replaced the original and the audience went wild. During the concert, Alejandro Ferna´ndez showcased folkloric dancers, mariachis and a series of images on the screens to situate his own performance in a long history of Mexican cultural tradition. For example, while singing classics from the Golden Age, there were a series of pictures starting with Pedro Infante, followed by Jorge Negrete, Alejandro’s father Vicente Ferna´ndez, and then an image of himself,
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deliberately situating himself in a history and tradition of ranchera singers. He acknowledged several times that the performance and appreciation for Mexican culture and patrimony he had learned from his father. He then sang a song, ‘Viejito’ (‘Old Man’) while flashing images from his father’s career. There were also musical and visual tributes to Mexico’s most prolific songwriters (and icons of machismo) Agustin Lara, legendary songwriter-actor of the bolero genre, and Jose´ Alfredo Jime´nez. Finally, throughout the concert, the screens showed images of cockfights, bullfights, horses, charrerı´as and beautiful women. Mariachi Fatigue and Failure In the imaginings of Mexico, mariachi and ranchera are mimetic performances that reciprocally draw on one another as proof of their legitimacy as ‘authentic national’ traditions. However, this nostalgic imagining of Mexico in and through the performativity of mariachi and ranchera music is not fully accepted or uncontested. In fact, the concern expressed by Samuel Ramos regarding the reification of a ‘false’ Mexico through charros, mariachis and chinas poblanas is an enduring one. By the 1950s, the Golden Age was over, marked by the deaths of Jorge Negrete and Pedro Infante, and there was a growing fatigue with both the state and official nationalism. The ‘middle sectors begin to desert the practice of ‘‘Mexicanness’’’ (Monsiva´is, 1997, p. 20), and there was a growing critique in public and academic discourse regarding the false and ‘imaginary’ Mexico. Fatigue led to frustration as the gaps and failures of mexicanidad became even more dramatically exposed by the student massacre at Tlateloco in 1968, the economic and political upheavals in the 1970s and 1980s, and the aftermath of the devastating 1985 earthquake in Mexico City. As Roger Bartra (2002, p. 13) states: ‘In Mexico we have had an excess of modernity, so much that its weight has become unbearable: national identity in excess, exorbitant nationalism, revolution beyond measure, abuses of institutionality, a surplus of symbolism.’ This fatigue continues to be felt toward the heavily circulated, highly repetitious, borrowed and blurred myths of mexicanidad. As a quintessential ‘invented tradition’, mariachi is repetitious: copying and mimicking other images, symbols and myths in the Mexican national imaginary. However, it is important to make clear that while mariachi is a performative site wherein an idealised Mexican identity is produced, it is also a site where ambivalent, contested and ‘heterogeneous histories of contending peoples’ (Bhabha, 1990, p. 299) are fashioned and disputed. Performances are never homogenous or bounded, and always include gaps, failures, cracks, excesses and ambivalences. Following Judith Butler (1990), the potential for subversion or resistance of the performative is only possible when the performance goes beyond, between or is excessive of the norm. It is ‘between the acts . . . in which risk and excess threaten to disrupt the identity being constructed’ (Butler, 1990, p. 28). Mariachi is a performance in excess, brimming with a surplus of symbolism. It is at the same time normative, a musical expression that is meaningful in the everyday, and excessive, always at risk of failure, critique and parody. For example, the traje de charro and
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mariachi are often used by critical performance artists in the United States, such as Guillermo Gomez-Pen˜a and El Vez, and in the Mexican context by Astrid Hadad, to critique hegemonic and stereotypical notions of race, gender and class in the American and Mexican contexts. Therefore, on the one hand, mariachis continue to be a vibrant and salient part of the everyday lives of Mexicans, and on the other hand, a performative site where Mexicans can critique, challenge and undermine the hegemonic image of Mexican identity as macho and mestizo. Like many other important myths of mexicanidad, mariachi was dissected and analysed, exposing the manner in which it was transformed by certain hegemonic ideologies. As mentioned earlier, most notably the work of Jesu´s Ja´uregui (1990, 1995) examined the process by which mariachis were transformed from a poor rural Indigenous music of the peasants to a mestizo urban music of official national culture. In addition to Ja´uregui’s work, there was a surge of anthropological, ethnomusicological and popular research on the origins and history of the ensemble, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s (cf. Chamorro Escalante, 2000; Ochoa Serrano, 1994). As part of this trend, there was also an interest recognising and promoting an authentic and traditional performance of mariachi * one untouched by the ravages of modernity. The modern mestizo ‘false’ mariachis (including traje de charro and trumpet) from the Golden Age were compared to the ‘authentic’ traditional mariachis (typified by work clothes and predominantly string instruments) common in rural areas and Indigenous communities throughout western Mexico (Chamorro Escalante, 2000). Whereas the mariachis of the Golden Age were seen as ‘invented traditions’, those mariachis viewed as traditional or Indigenous were seen as an authentic expression of indigenismo. In particular, many of these studies emphasised the Indigenous (Chamorro Escalante, 2000) and AfroMexican (Ochoa Serrano, 1994) influences on the development of mariachi. While this recognition is both welcome and long overdue, its inclusion often results in the reification of the dichotomy between modern (mestizo and urban) and traditional (Indigenous and rural) wherein the latter are often represented as modern-day cultural artefacts of Mexico’s pre-modern history frozen in time and space. In addition, while women have always been popular ranchera singers, there is a growing trend in all-female mariachis in Mexico and the United States (Ja´quez, 2000). The performance, participation and success of women mariachi unsettles any essentialised notions of the genre as masculine. In addition, famous ranchera stars such as Ana Gabriel (with Chinese ancestry), Astrid Hadad (of Arab descent), Chavela Vargas (born in Costa Rica) and Tania Libertad (born in Argentina) disrupt and interrupt the myth of mestizaje in Mexican nationalism. Astrid Hadad, Chavela Vargas and Juan Gabriel are all openly homosexual, further challenging notions of normalised Mexican sexuality and identity. The performance of mariachi as essentially Mexican and macho can also fail through rumours and gossip. For example, in Guadalajara, a city paradoxically known to be home to the authentic Mexican macho and as the gayest city in Mexico, there is speculation regarding the (homo)sexuality of local well-known ranchera
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singers, Vicente and Alejandro Fernandez. While the Ferna´ndez family represents the authentic, traditional Guadalajaran macho, rumours and gossip regarding their sexuality undermine this performance by situating them in Guadalajara’s queerness. The uneasiness produced by the simultaneous performance of masculinity and queerness by the Ferna´ndez family is an anxious reflection of the unavoidable contamination of the macho with the queer in Guadalajara. This rupture, the seemingly paradoxical performance of the gay mariachi, is not accidental, and is a consequence of the excessive performance of masculinity (Mullholland, forthcoming). Conclusion The emergence of women in mariachi, the recognition of traditional mariachis and the rumours regarding gay ranchera singers undermine the authority, authenticity, coherence and continuity to an ‘imagined’ Mexican nation. The varying lived experiences and interpretations of the performance of mariachi disrupt the so-called ‘seamless national narrative’, thereby making alternative visions of Mexican identity visible. Expressive cultural forms such as mariachi are important in the imaginings of national identities due to their emotive power in the telling of the national history and origin myth. Musical styles or genres such as mariachi are productive narrative spaces in which struggles of conflicting identities of gender, region, class, nation, ethnicity and generation are performed and contested. Mariachi became an integral part of the longing to create a unified national imagery due to its ability to invoke and mimic the Mexican myths and tropes of mestizaje and machismo. Paradoxically, it is at once a symbol of an essentialised Mexican identity and a powerful site wherein identity can be unsettled and fragmented due to its immense symbolic capital in the national imagining. Notes [1] [2]
[3]
[4]
Exert from ‘Yo Soy Mexicano (I am Mexican)’ written by E. Corta´zar and M. Espero´n in 1943 and performed most famously by Jorge Negrete. Literally meaning a ‘cowboy suit’ that is worn by charros (Mexican cowboys) and mariachis . Mariachis wear the ‘gala’ (or elegant) version of the suit, which is most commonly black, consisting of a short jacket, bow tie, tight-fitting pants decorated with silver buckles down the leg (botanadura ), cowboy boots and occasionally a matching sombrero. ‘Yell. Gritos mark emotion-packed moments in mariachi music, especially during sones and canciones rancheras . Listeners or musicians may spontaneously let out a grito when moved by the music or (by the musician) for dramatic effect. While gritos may be spontaneous and varied in sound, they nevertheless tend to fall within certain culturally determined stylistic parameters’ (Sheehy, 2006, p. 95). Mestizaje is the racial and cultural mixing of Spanish, Indigenous and African peoples to create the Mexican people and culture. There is a greater emphasis on the Spanish and Indigenous influences, but there is a growing awareness of the influence of African culture and people in Mexican culture.
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[7]
[8]
[9]
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‘Pelado’, literally translated as ‘baldie’, refers to the urban poor (most often rural migrants to the city) and has connotations of ‘lacking’ education, culture and economic resources. The pelado was made famous as an enduring icon in popular culture by the legendary Mexican comedian, Cantinflas, who is often compared to Charlie Chaplin (Monsiva´is, 1997). The ‘mythic’ association of mariachi with the state of Jalisco has been extensively debated by anthropologists and ethnomusicologists in Mexico (Chamorro Escalante, 2000; Ja´uregui, 1990; Ochoa Serrano, 1994). With the increase of mariachi musical programmes at schools and universities in the United States, many young Mexican-Americans are now learning it at school rather than from family members. Female mariachis are also an important exception. Rather than acquire their skill from a male relative, the majority are music students who join all-female mariachis in their late teens or early twenties. The performance and popularity of all-female mariachis , or mariachis femeniles , in Jalisco is particularly interesting. In my dissertation I argue that the performance of mariachi femeniles both reifies and challenges hegemonic notions of gendered Mexican identities. In addition, famous ranchera singers such as Lucha Reyes, Lola Beltran, Lucha Villa, Paquita la del Barrio and Astrid Hadad are important actors in the production and contestation of gendered, class and racial ideals of Mexican identities. Although, I am unable to address the complexity of female performers of mariachi in this article, it is a major part of my dissertation. The film was controversial for two reasons. First, Antonio Aguilar (father of Alejandro Fernandez’s rival, Pepe Aguilar) had played Zapata in an earlier film considered a classic in Mexican film. And second, there were concerns that director Arua (director of ‘Like Water for Chocolate’) was planning to include references to Zapata’s rumored bisexuality. In the final film, there were no such references. Lucero, popular female ranchera singer also starred in the film as Zapata’s Spanish lover.
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