The DNC Misses a Beat

For three short days this past August, Chicago danced ‘til dawn at the Democratic National Convention, where Kamala Harris and Tim Walz were elected as the party’s 2024 Presidential ticket. It was not the first time that the Windy City had hosted the event, yet it was quite novel in one significant way: the music Democrats put front and center during their festivities. This year, during the roll call, representatives from each state were accompanied by a particular tune while voicing their support for candidates Harris and Walz. Delegates in attendance were regaled with an eclectic mix of songs: everything from Aretha Franklin (Maryland), to John Denver (West Virginia), to Katy Perry (Nebraska). Some of the selections made sense prima facie (Lynyrd Skynyrd’s rock classic “Sweet Home Alabama” played for the Heart of Dixie) while others (Wyoming’s choice of the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling”) left convention-goers scratching their heads.

What should we understand as the connection between politics, people, and places? Can popular songs be trusted to represent us? While the Republican National Convention leaned solely and sadly on the screams of Kid Rock, the DNC marshaled the energies of musicians Pink, Jason Isbell, John Legend, Sheila E, and Stevie Wonder. No matter who one votes for in November, it seems unquestionable that the Democrats win the musical vote. This point is only underscored by the fact that Donald Trump continues to be handed cease-and-desist orders by all sorts of recording artists. For the musically-minded, the DNC offered an innovation.

Dj Cassidy at day two of the Democratic National Convention on August 20, 2024. Win McNamee/Getty Images.

Yet, we would be remiss if we did not also mention some of the actual policies detailed by the Democrats. Most notably, the Democrats’ hard swing right on the issue of immigration did not  go unnoticed. In terms of the perennial issue of immigration reform, was categorically not the same old song for Democrats. The significant waves of Venezuelan and Central American migrants at the U.S. border during recent years have fundamentally changed the timbre of the  debate. What would it mean to elaborate a truer soundtrack that actually spoke to the issue of immigration to the United States? What songs would be simultaneously edgier and more politically aware? Of course, we would be remiss not to mention pop songs, sung in English, about the experience of immigration writ large: Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes,” Sting’s “Englishman in New York” and Bob Dylan’s “Across the Borderline” are but a few of the many offerings. Even the briefest survey of Spanish-language music from Latinos suggests that immigration has been central to this particular community’s songwriting for upwards of 70 years. What songs simultaneously invoke the places, the politics, and specific historical periods of Latinx communities affected by immigration policies—both in the U.S. and beyond?

The following serves to briefly sketch out the contours of immigration through Spanish-language songs. Beyond constituting merely hype music, I would argue that these songs incarnate the promises and pitfalls of peoples in movement: their hopes and dreams, their travels and travails.

First Tunes from Latinx Migrants

Pedro Infante was, along with Jorge Negrete and Javier Solís, a renowned actor and singer from Mexico’s Golden Age of Cinema. The actor and singer recorded over 366 songs and assumed 55 leading roles before his tragically early death in a plane crash. He was only 39 years old.

Infante’s “Canto del Bracero” is a languid and lonely corrido sung by a day laborer far from home in Mexico. Bereft of any form of identification, devoid of both friends and associates that can help facilitate crossing the border legally, the singer warns others that the trip across the U.S.-Mexico border may not be worth it: “Si tú piensas ir, deténte.” In the United States, the singer faces “descriminación”—pronounced with a countryside vernacular typical of campesinos. The sound of a country and western slide guitar wafts through the song, providing a sluggish despondency: we can imagine a laborer at the end of a dusty day in the fields, lamenting his lack of financial security, legal protection, and love.

Pedro Infante. Source: Wikimedia Commons

When Infante recorded the song in 1955, the Bracero Program—a bilateral agreement that granted millions of agricultural workers from Mexico temporary visas to the United States—had been in operation for more than 10 years. The accord had originally been a way to keep factories floors in motion and U.S. production booming even while North American men were shipped overseas to fight in World War II. However, even after the end of WWII, the economic benefits of cheap labor were hard to pass up. In this environment, not only did documented migration from Mexico thrive; undocumented migration did as well. Of course, we should mention that legal labor in no way suggests that working conditions were pleasant.

Listening to the song today, we should remember that the desire for cheap labor, performed primarily by people of color, is no way new to North America. “Canto de Bracero” is the lament of a journeyman, a hired hand, someone who has been beaten down by long distance loves and countryside drudgery.

Globalized Labor, World Sounds

The late 1990s and early 2000s were a crucial period for the borderlands region of the southwestern United States. The North American Free Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA) passage of in 1994 marked a significant shift in trade relations between the United States, Mexico and Canada, ultimately facilitating the flow of goods by loosening trade restrictions. This new economic relationship allowed the United States to dominate the Mexican market, leading to disruptions in Mexico’s labor force and an increase in migration to the United States from Latin America.

Despite the intention to prioritize trade over migration, NAFTA highlighted the impact of human elements in market dynamics. In addition to changes in trade policies, the United States under President Bill Clinton also implemented new security measures at the southern border. This included a shift towards a border policy focused on prevention through deterrence, which involved concentrating surveillance forces in urban areas such as El Paso and San Diego. The strategy aimed to stymie undocumented crossings by pushing migrants into the harsh desert regions of Arizona, effectively tantamount to a death sentence for thousands who risked the journey.

Thousands of miles away and in the jungles of Chiapas, NAFTA’s contentious passage also inspired Indigenous communities to take up arms against the Mexican authorities. Led by a pipe-smoking, balaclava-wearing academic who had rechristened himself Subcommander Marcos, the EZLN or Zapatista Army of National Liberation took to the internet hoping to garner worldwide support for the cause of socialism. 

 Manu Chao’s “Clandestino” debuted in October 1998, just four years after NAFTA came into effect and but two years after the San Andrés Accords granted Indigenous populations in Mexico greater autonomy and recognition. Manu Chao’s frothy mix of World Music, beeping samples, politically savvy lyrics emphasize the blight of immigrants in a globalized society. The song’s lyrics describe marginalized people various regions—Latin America, Europe, Africa—as being forced to live precariously, forever on the run, just in order to survive: “Soy una raya en el mar, fantasma en la ciudad.” Oaxacan artist Lila Downs reprised the song in 2019, only three years after the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President. Under his administration, migration at the southern border ceased to be a mere wedge issue for both primary political parties to garner votes. Rather, the perennially foul-mouthed salesman turned politician weaponized the legal system at the border against some of humanity’s most vulnerable.

Lila Downs. Source: Cal Performances.

Other Peoples, Other Places, and the Same Old Song 

Yet other songs from diverse Latinx voices serve to recount the political history of migration. Absolutely unforgettable, for example, is Los Tigres del Norte “Jaula de Oro” from 1984. The rollicking song does not mention authorities per se. Rather, the singer, having arrived ten years earlier to the United States asks his children if they would like to return to their country of origin, Mexico. They roundly reject the idea—and in English!

 The 1980’s Decade of Greed—when the stock market rose to unfathomable heights—created immense wealth for the United States, even while Latin America confronted a crushing debt crisis. In a bittersweet tone, the singer cannot imagine staying in, nor leaving, the United States “De que me sirve el dinero /Si estoy como prisionero /Dentro de esta gran nación” [What is the money worth if I’m just a prisoner in this great nation?].

 While the late 1970s and early 1980s meant a stalling economy for Mexico, other locales in Latin America—particularly, the Southern Cone region—faced the specter of right-leaning dictatorships. Chile had been ruled by Augusto Pinochet since September 11, 1973, when, with the help of a military junta, overthrew the leftist administration of socialist Salvador Allende.Under Pinochet, opposition parties were banned in Chile, trade unionists were arrested, and thousands of dissidents were “disappeared.” Many were forced to flee into exile to escape the oppressive regime. The nation next door, Argentina, similarly found itself controlled by a military junta from 1974 to 1983. The Argentine dictatorship waged a Guerra Sucia—a Dirty War—which saw security forces target political dissidents. Within this milieu, Chilean Julio Numhauser composed “Todo cambia” in 1982. Two years later, the iconic songstress of Nueva Canción movement, Mercedes Sosa, recorded the definitive version. “Todo cambia” the song tells us—“everything changes”—and even from afar, exiled from one’s own country, hope remains that dictatorships will fall: “Así como cambio yo /En estas tierras lejanas” [Just like I, too, change /In these faraway lands].

Los Tigres Del Norte. Courtesy of Fonovisa Records and Los Tigres del Norte.

Caribbean communities, too, have expressed their hopes and fears of migration via song. We would be remiss if we failed to mention one of Cuba’s greatest salseras, Celia Cruz, who lived in exile since soon after Fidel Castro’s rise to power in 1959. 2000 saw Cruz sing “Por si acaso no regreso”—“Just in Case I Don’t Return.” Cuba had lived almost a decade with the so-called “Special Period,” a time of dire scarcity as the island nation dealt with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The early 2000s also saw the ascent of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, whose oil-rich nation gave Castro’s Cuba one proverbial, and perhaps final, shot in the arm. Ultimately, the dictatorship was saved from itself. Castro was 74 but would live another 16 years. Cruz, in turn, had but three years left of life. “I had no choice but to leave” sings Cruz: “Tuve que marcharme.” “A tu suelo iba a volver /Pero el tiempo va pasando” [I planned on returning to your lands /But time is coming to an end].

These are songs of places, people, and politics that our times call for, especially if we are to elaborate different, more humanitarian immigration policies. I humbly include them here for all that want to listen.