Luis Díaz-Santana Garza

Between Norteño and Tejano Conjunto analyzes the origin, evolution, and dissemination of the norteño and tejano conjunto. This group represents a marginalized local identity that was transformed primarily into an identity of the northeast. It then gave way to the whole of northern México and the American Southwest, and was later assimilated internationally as a mainstream genre. This book provides a long-term historic vision of conjunto and the various musical forms it uses, such as polka, corrido, or canción (song), and, more recently, bolero and cumbia, as well as its transformations and contributions to other musical cultures.

Between Norteño and Tejano Conjunto:Music, Tradition and Culture at the U. S.-Mexico Border analyzes the origin, evolution, and dissemination of norteño and tejano conjunto. These musical forms represent a marginalized local identity in parts of Mexico and the American Southwest that evolved into an acclaimed form of U. S.-Mexico border identity, later becoming an international mainstream genre. This book provides a long-term historic vision of conjunto and its various musical forms such as the polka, the corrido or canción, the bolero, and the cumbia. It also analyzes its transformations and contributions to other musical cultures in terms of how it articulates meanings, organizes our sense of time and memory, and contributes to the social construction of individual identities on the border. Despite not having been spread directly by either of the two nation-states where it proliferated, the regional-transnational music of accordion and bajo sexto has been one of the leading symbols of Mexican and Chicano identity since the mid-twentieth century.