WWII

WWII brought cultural change to Mexican-Americans who faced hostility and massive deportation in the years leading up to the war. Mexican-American participation in WWII is routinely overlooked even though it produced strong feelings from many communities within the U.S. Families were left incomplete when Mexican-Americans joined U.S. forces in the war. As a result corridistas began to express hope and concern for the important community members involved in the war. This is revealed explicitly throughout the corridos that surfaced during this historical period. Steven Loza notes in his Mexican American culture research that merely ten years after “Mexicans in Los Angeles had been subjected to repatriation” their numbers in the war effort were astounding (Loza, 38). These citizens were given little respect going into the war, yet continued to sacrifice and give support to their country’s effort.

A feeling of hope that began to sprout in the Mexican-American community during the war is well represented in the lyrics of a corrido entitled Las Islas Hawaiianas. Structured around this hopefulness are common formulaic tendencies found within in most corridos as well as a strong emotional core that sets up a statement the composers are attempting to present.

Las Islas Hawaiianas (The Hawaiian Islands)

Las Islas Hawaiianas is a passionate corrido describing the attack of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 eventually leading the U.S. into the war. With an unmistakable sympathetic tone this corrido describes the events that took place the day of Pearl Harbor and gives a vivid description of the loss felt by Americans that day.

Las Islas Hawaiianas begins somewhat formulaically with a statement of the date and location. The fact that this corrido is about a specific catastrophic event in history gives significance to the date, which is even followed by the time of the attack, included in the second stanza. The date, “el día siete de diciembre”, mentioned in three successive stanzas from the start, leads into the number of people killed in this attack forming a strong background for the gravity of this attack. It is interesting to note that the number of casualties reported in this song is slightly inflated by about 600 deaths. This isn’t a ridiculous exaggeration, yet it is a technique seen frequently in corridos involving the descriptions of a catastrophe or specific event.

Once the information concerning Pearl Harbor is established the corrido flows quickly into what can be considered the emotional core. However, the core is more a group of three stanzas beginning with the seventh. In these stanzas the composers include statements of sorrow for the civilians (“los pobrecitos civiles”). In addition there is sympathy for the family members that realize the looming departure of their loved ones.

While there is sadness for what has occurred at Pearl harbor as well as what will happen next as the U.S. enters war, the message of this corrido becomes clear in the end (stanza 12) when the composers state that the goal of this corrido is to teach patriotism (“Estos versos compusimos para enseñar el patriotismo”). The composers even mention a statement of good luck to General MacArthur in stanza 13 (“diciendo Buena fortuna a MacArthur General”). This signifies the idea that Pearl Harbor resulted in a larger sense of unity within the U.S. The effort and number of lives the Mexican Americans put into WWII is in part revealed through the patriotism in this corrido.

The Great Depression

The Great Depression proved to be a difficult time for Mexicans living in the United States. The shortage of jobs meant increased competition between those living in the U.S. and Mexicans were often pushed to the end of line for employment. Corridos of this time period and about the depression are concerning frustration and hardships sparked by economic conditions and a strong presence of intercultural conflict. These themes were widespread throughout the immigrant communities such as Los Angeles and appropriately fueled a growth in the music of Mexicans in the U.S. The “immigrant’s sense of victimization and injustice which was born of experiences north of the border” found its way into several corridos which gave accurate accounts of the hardships faced by Mexicans in the early 1930’s (Loza, 21).

Two specific corridos stand out in this period of history, each expressing separate aspects of life during the Great Depression. La Crisis expresses the difficulty of life for immigrants during the depression while Corrido de Juan Reyna is a detailed account of the trial and conviction of Juan Reyna resulting from a controversial conflict with obvious racial and intercultural implications.

La Crisis (The Crisis)

La Crisis is a corrido composed in 1932 describing the severe lack of resources available for Mexican immigrants after the crash of the stock market and the depression that followed. A traditional opening and closing (“Señores voy a cantar” and “Ya con ésta me despido”) establish the form of this corrido as well as the first person account of what immigrants are experiencing at this time.

It becomes clear throughout this corrido that the depression has produced a falsehood in the idea that the U.S. was a place for immigrants to come and build a life on prosperous job opportunities. In Philip Sonnichsen’s annotation of this corrido he points out the fact that the speaker in this corrido “doesn’t want to hear about the depression; he doesn’t want to even think about it” (Sonnichsen, 76). Instead, the simple necessities such as nourishment and shelter are what Mexican immigrants were forced to deal with at this time in history.

Two stanzas in this corrido stand out and represent a defined propositionality proving how deeply the depression has influenced life and how immigrants stand little chance in an economy that shows signs of extreme inequality.

In stanza five the composer points out the inability an immigrant during the depression has to support a wife (“Ya no hay muchos matrimonios pues La Crisis no los deja”). The fact that a man couldn’t even support a wife or family at this time illustrates the inadequate conditions immigrants faced.

In stanza eight we can see a directly political statement about exactly who the depression is affecting (“Todos busquemos dinero y le tenemos amor, pero el dinero le tiene Rockefeller y Henry Ford”). The propositionality in this stanza is directly addressing obvious inequalities in wealth during the depression. John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford are revealed in these lines as greedy individuals who know nothing of the suffering felt by the majority of people in the U.S. after the stock market crash. While Mexican immigrants struggled to live in this period, the composer realizes part of this struggle was due to unfair distribution of wealth that impeded any economic improvement for the poor.

Corrido de Juan Reyna

The Corrido de Juan Reyna recorded in 1930 is a prime example of the increased intercultural conflict of the years during the Great Depression. The persecution of Juan Reyna reveals how immigrants in the L.A. area were constantly in fear of harm by authorities and law enforcement figures. This corrido gained a wide audience in part because it was during a time marked by racial and ethnic tensions. Most importantly, the Corrido de Juan Reyna is yet another example of the corrido tradition becoming “an important vehicle for expressing the concerns of many immigrants who came to the area from Mexico” (Loza, 21).

Juan Reyna was convicted of murdering a Los Angeles policeman on May 11, 1930. Questions concerning whether Reyna was antagonized floated around the case, and even when the jury recommended clemency the judge gave Reyna a one-to-ten year sentence at the California State Penitentiary. All of Reyna’s legal costs were covered by a Mexican community of supporters and the case served as a chance for a large part of the Los Angeles populace to argue for equal rights that seemed exploited during the depression. Unfortunately, five months prior to Reyna’s release he committed suicide, which brought on the composition of a separate corrido entitled Suicidio de Juan Reyna.

Formulaically, this corrido fits a traditional mold, and begins with a recognizable opening (“Voy a cantar un corrido aunque con bastante pena”). Direct speech events are scarce throughout this corrido but the three times we see them they are either firm statements by Juan Reyna or in his defense (“Díganmen quíen son ustedes?”). For example in this first speech statement Juan Reyna questions the authority of police officers that are using force to pull Reyna from his car. This speech statement is not a boast as seen in others, yet it does establish Reyna’s self-respect. Instead of succumbing to the officers oppressing actions he responds with an inquiry that lets them know he should be treated as any other member of the community.

The most thematically significant section of this corrido is within the fifteenth and sixteenth stanzas. These stanzas emphasize that the mistreatment of Juan Reyna is relevant to a whole population of Mexicans (“Porque al insultar a Reyna, a México se insultó” and “Mandaron toda su ayuda como Buenos mexicanos, probando lo que nos duele, el maltrato a los paisanos”). Intercultural conflict is well represented in these important stanzas and further proves the hardships faced by Mexican Americans in this era of economic instability and constant persecution.