Ritual

The ritual of history telling is an ancient practice.

a people's way of marking the passage of time, and as everyone from the bards of Bronze Age Greece and pre-Christian Europe to the griots of West Africa have known music is the perfect way to bring collective memories to life.

For far longer than it's been written down, history has been a tale told and sung.

In Mexico, the musical genre of corridos falls squarely into this tradition with ballads that sing the praises of culture heroes past and present.

The word corrido comes from the Spanish word correr meaning to run or to flow.

Like a boat on a river, these songs move through streams of time.

They remember those long gone and iconic figures from more recent generations into the fold.

In the American South, the performance of corridos among those with Mexican heritage is a reminder that the past is woven from many threads.

These songs bear witness to the multifaceted, not to mention multilingual nature of Southern identity.

Today I'm going to explore the ritual of singing history and learn how communities along the Texas-Mexico border use corridos to reclaim their stories and take pride in their past.

I'm Tarriona "Tank" Ball, and this is Ritual.

Caught between the Spanish and Comanche empires, and the Mexican, Confederate, and United States governments, Texas has a long history as contested terrain.

Telling the history of this embattled land is difficult business, and each portrayal of the past reveals just as much about the present day point of view of the narrator.

One Army's victory is another's defeat.

And what is heroic to some might be perceived as villainous by others.

The Texas government has historically portrayed Mexico as opposition in the struggle for statehood.

But while military power was fought for territorial control, the lives of Texans from all backgrounds remained intertwined.

Even Jim Bowie, the legendary American frontiersman, wasn't positioned on only one side of the conflict.

Though he died fighting the Mexican army at the now famous Battle of the Alamo.

He did so as a Mexican citizen.

When traditional Mexican singers among American Chicano communities convey history through their art, they bring a variety of fresh perspectives to stand beside the official Texas narrative.

Singing century old corridos allows them to remember a past which has plenty of room for their own heroes and moments of glory.

Singing corridos is a time honored tradition, and the music is as powerful as the stories they tell.

Musicians like Juan grew up hearing these songs and learned their craft from community elders.

They play corridos at Tejano music clubs and community celebrations, where the songs reach the next generation who will one day grow up to carry on the tradition.

I am in San Antonio, Texas, on the 4th of July with scholar, musician, human activist, just amazing person all around.

Juan Tejeda.

Can you please tell me about what corridos are?

Very simply, corridos are a ballad.

It's a musical ballad.

It's a song that tells a story.

It tells a story of a person could be a hero.

It could be just some historical event that took place, of a city.

This particular type of corrido tradition, song was created here in the Texas-Mexico border, which was this fusion of different cultures that came together on the border, right.Indigenous, the Spanish, the Mestizo, the Mexican, the Mexican in Texas, the Tejano, right the Mexican within the United States.

And from this fusion of cultures, new song forms were born like the corrido tradition.

Really it's world music because it's a blending of world music.

Colombian Cumbias, German, you know, and Polish polkas and waltzes and schottisches.

And that's how you learn to play that accordion, right?

That's right.

That's exactly right.

They brought over those rhythms with the accordion.

We blended it to create something new.

Yes.

That's incredible.

But it's really important, the story and then it's told from your perspective and your history.

That's exactly right.

That we take control of the narrative.

This is our story that we are telling for our people, primarily.

The corrido tradition and the songs within the corrido tradition were some of the earliest forms of protest music against these Anglo invaders and settlers that came in and took over the land here, the indigenous Mexican land, and committed massacres and atrocities, lynchings and killings like from the Texas Rangers.

So a lot of the early corridos are writing about this, and I think that our people obviously needed heroes.

Right.

So our heroes then came in the form of the corrido that told us stories about these heroes that defended their rights, human rights and civil rights against, you know, Anglo racism and racist law.

That's what the early corridos talk about.

Later on, like I said, we have corridos about everything.

Any time anything is important to the Mexican, Mexican-American, Chicano people, Tejano people, there's going to be a corrido about it.

Like I said, Hurricane Beulah, about Archbishop Patrick Flores, about the first, you know, modern Mexican-American mayor here in San Antonio, Henry Cisneros, and even the affair he had while he was in.

Come on, what?

There's corridos about that.

I'm telling you.

About Selena when she passed away.

Why do you think that it had to be in song?

I think it had to be in song because the melody helps you to remember the words.

And back then, when the corridor tradition started here in the mid 1800s, 1830s, again, there weren't these schools up there.

There weren't these means of communication, these newspaper that reach certain people.

So some people were illiterate.

So the oral tradition then became even more important because it was through the songs and, and the poetry, the declamaciones that these traveling in minstrels or griots and the poet played for the people and they would remember the stories and the songs.

So it was it was education.

It was like the news of the day for some people that were illiterate, that they got it by hearing the songs and they passed it on through the oral tradition, these stories and these songs.

So cool.

That's so cool.

How are corridos a form of ritual?

That's a great question because I think when people think of music, they don't think that necessarily it's ritual.

You sort of associate ritual more with ceremony.

Yes.

But I firmly believe that the corridos and music in general and the arts in general, you know, all of the arts are ritual.

And I wrote about our sacred Saturday night dances, right, where the people come to gather with their when you're creating something, when you're performing even an important part, I think, of of the ritual that then you emanate to the entire community.

Right?

And it connects you to each other, connects you to the divine, connects you to your culture, your history, your people, Our music, I think, we have a higher calling with our arts.

And our music is not just we're creating music and art just for art's sake.

It was always for the people.

More recently, the presence of Mexican migrants has added strain to the already complicated relationship between Anglo and Hispanic Texans.

For many, the journey to the United States is a treacherous one.

There are many dangers in the Texan desert for those who attempt to cross it on foot.

Sometimes the difficulties of immigrating both on the journey and after they arrive can make these individuals feel powerless.

But modern day corridos tell the story of their courage throughout their trials and tribulations.

The songs show that you don't need an army like Pancho Villa's to be a hero.

You just need a dream and the perseverance to carry it through.

I'm meeting up with Dr. Teresita Lozano, who researches the modern day corridos, which tell stories of everyday heroes looking to make a better life for their families.

How do corridos honor the migrant experience?

So when the corrido first arose on the US-Mexico border, specifically in Texas, and then moved into Mexico, many of these songs were about specific people at specific times who were doing specific things.

But when it comes to the migrant experience, migrant corridos, which told that collective story of crossing the border, coming for a new life, trying to foresee a future for their families, that started to become a really major theme in the corpus or the body of work of balladry.

It was more this general story, this collective experience.

So instead I would say, Tank, I'm going to sing to you a story about a migrant.

Don't know their name.

We don't know where they were born, but we know that they had a, you know, a dream of a better life.

And they wanted to escape persecution, poverty, political instability.

And this is their story.

And when migrants would hear it on the radio or hear people singing because there was no name that was put to it, they'd say, That's my story.

Can corridos be spiritual?

Oh, absolutely.

If you ever picture a church, especially like a mexican Catholic church, oftentimes in the very front, you'll find these little candles.

People will light a candle.

It's like a prayer.

And these migrants, many of them are undocumented, meaning that they've had a very difficult journey.

They have made a very conscious decision to risk this journey.

You not only risk, you know, being deported, but you risk your life.

So they're honoring the migrant experience in the same way that somebody who would go to church, light a candle and say a prayer.

Instead of doing that, they're singing their story and they're sharing it with other people.

Ya con esta van tres veces "With this it has been three times " Que se ha visto lo bonito "That something beautiful has happened" La primera fue en McAllen "The first time was in McAllen" En Bronsville y en San Benito "In Bronsville and in San Benito" When history is as complicated as it is in Texas, no one way of telling it could claim to be the whole truth.

Perhaps the best way to see the bigger picture is not to seek out one definitive account, but to ensure that as many perspectives as possible can coexist.

By bringing stories to the fore that are often absent on the main stage of American history, corridos play a vital role in that process.

These songs remind all who listen that Southern identity is complex and ever changing.

They reveal the past to be a chorus of many voices.

And it is only by listening to them all that you can truly appreciate the many.

de carabina y pistola "with his rifle and his pistol" ntrenle rinches cobardes "C'mon in cowardly rangers" Que'l pleiro no es con un nio "The fight is not with a child" quierian conocer su padre "you wanted to know your father" yo soy Jacinto Trevio "I am Jacinto Trevio"