A Note About the Cover

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The cover for this issue, designed by Bill Longhauser, incorporates images of a young Eva Ybarra from her personal collection. Ybarra is a San Antonio musician and conjunto leader who is featured in the traveling exhibit entitled “American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music,” sponsored by Seattle’s Experience Music Project|Science Fiction Museum and guest curated by Marisol Berríos Miranda, Shannon Dudley, and Michelle Habell-Pallán (see the event review in this issue). Eva is, according to Habell-Pallán, what Deborah Vargas calls a “‘dissonant diva,’ who turns Tex-Mex music on its head. Eva has been playing accordion since she was a child and blows the socks off of many contemporary conjunto players, but she’s less esteemed because of her gender and musical style. I love this image because images of girl Tejana/Chicana musicians are so rare. There’s also an aspect of 1950s ‘Americana’ in there as well in the cowboy shirt she’s wearing, gender-bending for its time. This image captures the spirit of American Sabor in the sense that the exhibit upends received narratives of pop music in the United States” (email communication).

We are grateful to Eva for allowing us to reproduce her photos. But getting to this point was an adventure in and of itself. Thanks to Michelle, who first brought the images to my attention, and to EMP’s Jasen Emmons, who supplied high-resolution versions of the photos. Thanks are also due to Belina Menchaca at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts center in San Antonio, who put us in contact with Eva. One difficulty we encountered, however, was getting a signed permission form. Eva did not have access to email or a fax machine, and given our production schedule, snail mail would have been too slow. And so Michelle contacted friend and colleague Marie “Keta” Miranda of the University of Texas, San Antonio, whose graduate student, Omar Mendoza, drove to Eva’s house to collect the necessary signature. Thanks Keta and Omar!