Mariachi

Over the past fifteen years, indigenous Wixárika/Huichol musicians of western Mexico have become a musical phenomenon, popularizing cumbias in the Wixárika language, performing covers of the latest narcocorridos (drug ballads), being nominated for a Grammy in the música regional genre category, and winning other awards as música grupera. The most popular group, Huichol Musical, is hailed by their record label as “innovators” who combine “indigenous rhythms” with “modern” popular music. Meanwhile, some Mexican academics and culture officials proffer the same groups under a very different genre label—as keepers of “traditional mariachi.” A critical ethnomusicological view might see the groups neither as mariacheros nor profound hybridizers. Instead, indigenous clothes and the occasional use of indigenous language serve as markers of difference that give rise to diverse and sometimes contradictory interpretations (i.e., as preserved early mariachi or as evidence of new multicultural modernities). This paper, informed by over two years of fieldwork amongst such music groups, analyzes both interpretations, viewing them as attempts to harness the value of indigeneity for disparate and potentially deceptive ends. The state-supported position defined by academics encourages a longstanding indigenismo ideology behind Mexican national identity while record labels commercialize the roots trope despite evidence contradicting their claims. Engaging with the work of theorists of value such as David Graeber, Adam Arvidsson, and Robert Foster, this paper hones in on the nexus of music, indigenous identity, and state cultural ideology in the creation of value.

In order to broaden the critical scholarship on mariachi, this paper will examine the hybrid development of mariachi, particularly through the artistry of Campanas de America. Renowned as one the first nationally recognized “Mexican American mariachi ensembles”, and yet alternately accepting-rejecting being labeled as a “mariachi”, Campanas has traversed the cultural boundaries of traditional mariachi expression combining a broad spectrum of American and Latino American influences, representing a growing transformation of mariachi in the United States. Music hybridity has played a prominent role in the discourse on cultural experience in US/Mexico relations. Formative research has examined the politics behind the histories of displacement, dispossession, acculturation, resistance and transculturation effecting the development of hybrid musical expressions. The mariachi tradition, although retaining very strong links to Mexican American culture, has curiously been poorly critiqued remaining on the periphery of critical scholarship. Within the cultural imaginary of national identity, mariachi is a strong signifier of Mexicanidad and thus largely reified as a public display of “Mexican” performative aesthetics. Although research has examined mariachi transnationalism in the US (Jáquez, 2005; Rodríguez, 2006), much attention has been paid to historical development, transmission, and gender. Yet, the recent explosion of mariachi, especially in Southwest Texas, is producing a growing hybrid culture, characterizing a more diverse Mexican and Latino American experience. The contrast between Campanas’ artistic recordings and their livelihood as a working-mariachi illustrates the intersection of cultural identity appropriation, commodification, aesthetic, authenticity and ownership.