Music of Motherhood by Martha Joy Rose

Author:Martha Joy Rose
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Demeter Press
Published: 2017-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

9.

Que Vivan Las Mamas

Las Cafeteras, Zapatista Activism, and New Expressions of Chicana Motherhood

DAVID EICHERT

What does it mean to be a mother along the border between Mexico and the United States? Mexican and Mexican American mothers have long found themselves politically and socially marginalized by their societies because they fall outside of established power dynamics. This systematic disenfranchisement is nothing new: during colonization, for example, the Spanish imposed the strict castas system, which ranked people in the Spanish colonies by race and “purity of blood,” thus disenfranchising Indigenous and mixed blood (mestizo) mothers. Patriarchal norms reinforce a system of uncompromising gender roles that continue to define the role of a mother as very limited and powerless. Violence and poverty, endemic to many communities in Northern Mexico, disproportionately impact mothers while racist politicians in the United States often blame immigrant mothers from Mexico for many of their country’s political ills. Moreover, Mexican American mothers continue to face legal and societal barriers in the United States, regardless of citizenship or education levels.

In response to these systemic challenges, the Chicana feminist movement (as well as the larger Chicano Movement) has fought since the 1960s against harmful cultural forces in an effort to improve the lives of Mexicans on both sides of the border. Musicians in particular have played an important role in the creation of a Chicano and Chicana (often simplified to Chican@) identity. They have combined traditional Mexican instruments and styles with modern musical genres to address a wide range of social, political, and economic problems faced by the Mexican community (Alvarez and Widener 227). Although this Chican@ tradition of creating songs about social issues is not new, a recent group from East Los Angeles called Las Cafeteras brings a fresh and unexplored perspective to the issues faced by many Mexicans and Mexican Americans. In particular, many of the band’s songs explore the challenges faced by Mexican mothers on both sides of the border by asserting a strong transnational solidarity against the forces that marginalize these women.

This chapter examines the music of Las Cafeteras and its messages about transborder Chicana motherhood. Furthermore, special attention will be given to how the band challenges existing power dynamics of gender-based violence and economic limitations and how they envision through music an ideal world that recognizes the political potency of the Chicana mother.

BACKGROUND

The musicians of Las Cafeteras started making music in 2005. The various members of the group, which now features two women and four men, first met while taking music classes at the Eastside Cafe in El Sereno (the easternmost neighbourhood of Los Angeles). The group decided to write music promoting an idealized sense of community inspired by Chican@ activism, and eventually released its first album, It’s Time, in 2012 (Gutierrez). The group’s name comes from the Eastside Cafe, but it is feminized to show the band’s commitment to making music about gender equality (Phillips; Romero).

Las Cafeteras’s choice to use traditional Mexican musical styles to convey a political message is nothing new. Chican@ musicians have been

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