Mina Yang explores the Chicano movement in Los Angeles through its musical and political roots. She starts by giving historical context on immigrant life and the cultural pastiche Los Angeles, unpacking two contrasting mythic narratives of Mexican American life. One myth is that of the mission, where "music permeated every aspect of life, endowing everyday vents with magic and gaiety." (102) The music that accompanies this myth is filled with lyrics of romantic heartbreak and sorrow. The other myth, much more real, is that which accompanies the musical "corrido." Rather than lament heartbreak, lyrics of corridos "dwell on the details that flesh out the immigrant's misery with excruciating realism." (106) Yang proves music an integral part of Mexican American culture, and important element of their identity -- "defined ethnically by what they were not." (107) As civil rights movements picked up nationally and locally, Mexican American appropriated music as a political form. Los Angeles became a hub for the Chicano subculture, entrenched in both political activism and a musical style that borrowed elements from all of the minorities of east Los Angeles. This subculture came to define a generation of Mexican Americans and "gave the Chicano generation its first taste of independence from Anglo and African musicians and recordings, even if [their] sounds reflected the mixed heritage of Mexican American culture." (114)
Questions:
How did the Chicano subculture break the binary of black and white? If, as Hebidge suggests, subculture presents a binary between the mainstream and the independent, what aspects of Chicano subculture allowed it to turn the strict lines into a gradient? Was it because this subculture was "self-enclosed?" (114) Also, what role did Los Angeles geography play in giving this musical subculture a very unique political association?
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