Northward Bound

"... provides a valuable service of not only gathering and presenting from 5,000 song texts a wide variety of ballads with full translation but also placing them all in a succinct historical context extending from the Mexican War to the present." --Journal of American Ethnic History

"... [a] stunning achievement, not only because it is an intelligent and comprehensive study of Mexican immigrant ballads, but because analysis gives way to, steps aside respectfully for, a multitude of immigrants who sing their experiences of crossing the border into the U.S. with astonishing clarity and historical perspicacity." --Western Folklore

"Herrera-Sobek's folk-song collection is impressive, as are her English translations--crisp and unstilted." --MultiCultural Review

"[Herrera-Sobek's] well-written book provides historians, ethnomusicologists, sociologists, and other scholars with a case study that demonstrates how valuable song lyrics can be in their studies. Strongly recommended to humanists and social scientists." --Choice

"Supported with photographs, full documentation and other scholarly devices, this is a solid work on an unusual topic." --Sing Out!

Northward Bound traces Mexican emigration to the United States from 1848 to 1991 through the lyrics of Mexican ballads (corridos) and contemporary popular songs (canciones). These autobiographical songs reflect the relationship between individual experience and the history-making process.

In Northward Bound Maria Herrera-Sobek argues that the folk song is a viable and important document chronicling the history of Chicanos/as in the United States. She traces Mexican emigration to the United States from 1848 to 1991 through the lyrics of Mexican ballads (corridos) and contemporary popular songs (canciones). These autobiographical songs, presented both in their original Spanish and in English translations, reflect the relationship between individual experience and the history-making process. Over a century of Chicano history unfolds in the more than 150 folk songs Herrera-Sobek has gathered: the exploits of folk hero Joaquin Murieta during the gold rush era; lives of cowboys and outlaws; the Mexican Revolution; the Roaring Twenties and subsequent depression; racial tensions between Anglos and Mexicans. The subject of labor figures largely as well: the construction of the railroad; the bracero experience of workers drawn to the United States for the Farm Labor Supply Program; the quest for the "mica" or green card; border patrol brutality and border-crossing strategies; the towering figure of Cesar Chavez, primary organizer of the United Farm Workers of America. Herrera-Sobek has also included folk songs that reflect Mexicanos' and Chicanos' responses to female acculturation in the United States. Northward Bound fits another piece into the diverse mosaic of Central and North American history.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 311-325) and index.

María Herrera-Sobek, Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California, Irvine, is the author of several books, including The Mexican Corrido: A Feminist Analysis; The Bracero Experience: Elitelore versus Folklore, and Beyond Stereotypes; The Critical Analysis of Chicana Literature.

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part One. 1848-1964

One Cowboys and Outlaws

Two Working and Traveling on the Railroad

Three Revolution and Hard Times

Four Of Migrants and Renegades

Five Repatriation and Deportation

Six The Bracero Program

Part Two. After 1964

Seven Songs of Protest

Eight Border-Crossing Strategies

Nine Racial Tension

Ten Poverty, Petroleum, and Amnesty

Eleven Love

Twelve Acculturation and Assimilation

Thirteen Death

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Index