From Quebradita to Duranguense: Dance in Mexican American Youth Culture (review)

One has to wonder, in our field, will anyone besides ourselves read and hear values, beauties, politics, and creativities embedded in communities of dance and music—of place, body, beauty, and sound? As music and dances evolve, they often become more detailed, more elaborate, and more sophisticated, even as they acquire markets, achieve recognition from the media, evolve into and influence other music and dance forms, and then seemingly die away (although still performed by some). With many types of music and dance that grow into a movement as they evolve from prior forms, acquire new significance for a population, and spread and connect to other communities, it remains unclear exactly what their "value" is. Sydney Hutchinson, in From Quebradita to Duranguense, does an insightful and detailed exploration of one such movement, claiming, perhaps too broadly, but certainly with justification, the impact such dance movements have on individuals, local communities, and broader national identities.

Hutchinson sets herself a number of questions to address: the relationship between music, dance, and identity; the significance of lo ranchero to this dance/music community of Mexican American youth; the differences between communities within the "same" dance/music style; the relationship between seemingly affiliated music/dance community styles; and, finally, issues of historical connection, border culture, regional identities, and politics. This is a full plate of issues one cannot hope to answer in a 238-page book, nor perhaps in a lifetime of study; but folklorists and ethnomusicologists alike will credit Hutchinson's effort, value her detailed description, and draw on her insights that contribute to our collective effort to continue to work out such issues.

Some of the key issues raised have to do with genre and who defines it. Hutchinson clearly understands that various individuals and communities coalesce around a variable definition rather than agree on one standard. Quebradita, for example, gets defined by the recording industry as "regional Mexican" but is clearly related to banda music in the minds of most of Hutchinson's interviewees and has other connections to tejano and norteña music as well as swing, rap, and break dancing, techno, rock, country-western, hip-hop, and any number of Latin forms. It is seen by some as simply "very fast cumbia" (p. 35). At one point in her conclusion, Hutchinson suggests that the definition is individual: "There is no metronome marking that can determine the answer once and for all; one just has to know" (p. 207), making an analogy to the challenge of defining the origin of life at conception or at birth. She goes on to relate the more complex geographic and national identity issues involved, but here I would suggest the origin of life analogy is far too weak for such a complex array that this form seems to engage, of dress, identity, sexuality, urbanism, age (youth culture), community, lyric, rhythm, sonority, harmony, instrumentation, embodiments, moves, footwork, club scenes, and local/geographic/national politics (to name just a few from her own arguments). Rather, it would seem, Quebradita is/was a fluid, telling, and multiple moment of communitas that came and went, changed and moved, evolved and deconstructed. What is most valuable in Hutchinson is her detailed following of the variations and variability of the form across different groups, different cities (Tucson, Los Angeles, Chicago), and different criteria (historical, regional, national, market, political). As a scholar in a related musical complex, I do not expect her questions to be answered with finality. Rather, researchers will likely value Hutchinson's ability to create for the non-Quebradita aficionado, and non-Latin outsider, the sense of the diversity, complexity, and value in this form.

We—ethnomusicologists, folklorists, anthropologists, and aficionados—highly value the many facets of beauty, identity politics, community behavior, and the self-reflective and community-reflective aspects of dance and music, but mainstream politicians rarely recognize the valuable community creativity embedded in these artful...