Of Chords and Scars: Musical Musings of a Border Crosser
Dr. Néstor Medina takes us on a musical journey from Guatemala to Canada
“Yo me pierdo cuando escucho música latinoamericana y latina.”
I first met her back in Guatemala when I was a kid. Every Sunday, my mom and dad turned the little room we had into a pista de baile. Gumercindo Palacios’s “Lágrimas de Thelma” resounded in our humble home, the sound of the marimba — the inheritance of African slaves — bouncing from our clay floor. We had little food, clothing with holes, and a single bed for five of us to sleep in. But we had music. By the time I was eight years old, I had become the sought-after marimba dancer by all the abuelitas on my block.
I tell you, I got lots of food doing that. I tell you, I was well fed. I chuckle when I remember those formative years, which continue to shape my social consciousness, and music was at the centre.
By the time I was 12 years old, I had moved on to different genres and styles of music. What remained in me was the manner in which music, almost always, provoked in me a wide range of emotions. Whether salsa, merengue, reggaetón, rap, danzón, norteña or cumbia, Latin-American and Latina music invite participation. Their melodic patterns and emphasis on beat and syncopation elicit an embodied response. I can’t help but dance.
Music once again made its presence during my teenage years. The social climate was such that one could not remain politically neutral. I still remember Los Guaraguao’s admonishment to one Tío Juan:
“uste’ no ve que se llevan lo que es de nuestra tierra y solo nos van dejando miseria y sudor de obrero”
I found myself and my family in those songs. During the 1976 earthquake, the house we “rented” collapsed, and so we had to build our own casa de cartón. For some time, I was one of the very earth-colored, scarred, worm-filled children described by Los Guaraguao’s “Casa de cartón”:
“niños color de mi tierra, con sus mismas cicatrices, millonarios de lombrices”
Religion was never absent during these times of growing social consciousness. It was too easy to feel powerless. Money was not easy to come by. Military repression had reached unprecedented heights. Sometimes, it felt like the only option we had was to pray. I can still close my eyes and hear my mother’s voice singing to the tune of Agustín Lara’s “Oración Caribe”. In her distinct low pitch, my mother would sing the chorus:
“piedad… piedad para el que sufre, piedad… piedad para el que llora”
Hope remained, however bleak. Though years later Mercedes Sosa popularized it, already at the turn of the 1980s we sang our plea a voz en cuello::
“solo le pido a Dios, que el dolor no me sea indiferente, que la reseca muerte no me encuentre, vacía y sola sin haber hecho lo suficiente.”
Even though it sounded more like a resignation, we shouted, solo le pido a Dios...
“que la guerra no me sea indiferente, es un monstruo grande y pisa fuerte, toda la pobre inocencia de la gente”
Not very differently, the churches chanted Corito’s “en Egipto esclavo fui” motif, a song whose biblical reference to Israelites’ deliverance from slavery in Egypt found its loudest proponents in Liberation Theology.
I left home, started migrating north. In some naïve way, I thought I was leaving behind the need to remain socially and politically engaged. Not so, said the music of Los Tigres Del Norte.
As I swam across el Río Bravo, also known as the Río Grande, I found myself tres veces mojado — a triple wetback. Having left from el Salvador like the narrator in the song “Tres veces mojado” (2002), I counted the kilometers one by one:
“Los cinco mil kilómetros que recorrí, puedo decir que los recuerdo uno por uno”
Since then, I have celebrated with many undocumented mojados who constantly face the stubborn law of the the United States,
“a quienes “siempre [les] busca la ley, porque estamos ilegales y no hablamos el inglés, el gringo terco a sacarnos y nosotros a volver”
For many of those who crossed the border and who have not gotten their papers, the “American Dream” turned out to be a jaula de oro, a gilded cage:
“casi no salen a la calle, pues tienen miedo que les hallen y los puedan deportar”
Once again, music introduced me to the plight and grievances of those who for generations have called the southwest USA su tierra. La rajada abierta — the open wound — as Gloria Anzaldúa would say. She led me to learn further about the untamable voices from the Caribbean under the heavy yoke of empire. Even today, its tentacles prevent a proper response for the affected island of Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane María. But in the parodical words of Bad Bunny,
“‘Tamos bien…sobran los billetes de 100…joda, que se joda, que se joda.”
Quite often, when some people speak of music, they mean fiesta. Others more bound to artistic language might say that music marks the moment when the senses reach heightened expression, when the musical score leaks out into real life. For me, music has also been an open invitation to enter the imagined world of possibilities for social engagement — “the subjunctive,” as Roberto Goizueta would say.
Even in Canada, where I now live, I still feel the formative power of music like Violeta Parra’s “Gracias a la vida” and rejoice in being transported back to my earlier years, when my social consciousness first was born.
FULL PLAYLIST
Gumercindo Palacios
Lágrimas de Thelma
Los Guaraguao
Tío Juan
Casa de Cartón
Agustín Lara
Oración Caribe
Mercédez Soza & León Gieco
Sólo le pido a Dios
Corito
En Egipto esclavo fui
Los Tigres Del Norte
Tres veces mojado
Los mojados
La jaula de oro
Bad Bunny
Estamos bien
Violeta Parra
Gracias a la vida
