Like no other Democratic candidate in this presidential campaign, Barack Obama has had an affinity for fan-launched viral videos, from a cutting spoof of Apple's famous 1984 ad to a star-studded singalong to a stump speech. But the most interesting Obama clip circulating online right now might be "Viva Obama!," a musical tribute cooked up by the Chicago-based marketing company Nueva Vista Media and performed by a California mariachi band. Aimed at Latino voters in Tuesday's Texas primary, the video features a Spanish-language testimonial to the junior senator from Illinois.
Translated into English, the song begins:
To the candidate who is Barack Obama
I sing this corrido with all my soul
He was born humble without pretension
He began in the streets of Chicago
Working to achieve a vision
To protect the working people
And bring us all together in this great nation
Viva Obama! Viva Obama!
The anthropologist Margaret Dorsey has listened to lots of lyrics like these—though this is the first time she's heard someone combine a corrido, a specific kind of ballad frequently used in South Texas political campaigns, with Mexican mariachi music. "This is insane," she laughs as she hears the song over the phone. "I can't wait to listen to it at home. It sounds like a wonderful example of cultural hybridity and innovation."
Dorsey has spent a lifetime surrounded by borderlands politics and borderlands music. The daughter of a now-retired Texas judge, she attended her first rally when she was five. More recently, she spent several years researching and writing Pachangas (2006), an intriguing study of the intersection between music, marketing, and politics along the Texas-Mexico border. It focuses on the pachanga, a local institution whose forms range from family barbeques with musical entertainment to choreographed commercial spectacles sponsored by Budweiser, Ace Hardware, and other multinational firms. She did her fieldwork in and near Hidalgo County, a rapidly growing border county that contains over 700,000 people.
Dorsey, 34, is now a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. I interviewed her in late February, just a few days before the Texas presidential primary. We began by exploring the deep roots of Obama's campaign corrido.
reason: When did the corrido originate as a form?
Margaret Dorsey: The corrido of the Texas-Mexico borderland area comes out of a context of intercultural contact and conflict, specifically between Anglo and Mexicano populations. Américo Paredes [author of With His Pistol in His Hand, the classic study of the subject] points to the time period around 1900 to 1920, when you see the real emergence and innovation of this form in the region.
reason: What is the literal translation of "corrido"?
Dorsey: Literally, correr means "to run"; it's about a flow. But the best translation in English is really "ballad," or "border ballad."
The quintessential corrido, the ur-text, is "El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez." Paredes found many, many iterations of this song. It's never exactly the same: People change the places a little, and they play with it. But it follows the corrido form in terms of its rhyme scheme. There is a corrido melody, and it follows that. And the text tells the story of an upright man fighting for the right cause against a system that is not upright.
This is important, too: A corrido is based in reality. It's a legend, but it's based on historical fact. It's extrapolated from this wonderful story of what happened to this fellow.
reason: And what did happen to him?
Dorsey: In a nutshell, it's the story of an upright Mexicano fighting the unjust rinches, or Texas Rangers. It's a very long story, but the short version is they come on his property and try to arrest his brother, a shooting match breaks out, people are killed, and then he flees and Rangers chase him all over the state. Once they meet up, Cortez is put in jail. He is tried in several counties in rural Texas, and finally President Lincoln's daughter intercedes to have him freed.
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D.A. Ridgely|3.3.08 @ 4:15PM|#
Thank you, Mr. Walker, that was very interesting, especially to a recent transplant to Texas like me.
|3.3.08 @ 4:18PM|#
I don't trust anthropologists named Margaret.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Rigoberto (el cubano)|3.3.08 @ 8:44PM|#
Obama: Le ronca los cojones.
Nike Dunk Low|8.11.11 @ 11:03PM|#
is good