“We” Folk – Post by Kelley Merriam Castro
The study of folklore clearly revolves around politics of identity and the national “we.” From the derogatory racist and sexist comments encountered by Doug Enders in his otherwise intensely convivial experience with Bluegrass musicians[i], to the academic discourse debating materials “worthy” of study in Kirsshenblatt-Gimblett[ii], the study of folklore finds itself battling the question of who “we” are as a people and a nation, what defines “us”, and what aspects of our so might best be left unexamined or ignored. Keeping to this, Jane Becker equates the term “folk” with the concept of a romanticized vision of national identity based on a common sense of national cultural roots (19). Exploring a century of folk studies and displays, she identifies three main foci of interest for twentieth-century observers of folk culture in the United States: the Native American, whose culture was studied in the late-19th and early-20th century under the assumption that it was rapidly disappearing; European American, whose folk traditions were sought after in isolated rural areas to obtain a sense of historical national (Anglo-Saxon) self in a changing industrial world; and immigrant folk life–a celebration of modern diversity from immigrants of “distant” lands, which the display curators of the time identified as European.
Within these three distinctions of folk culture, I question where border and transnational communities, particularly Mexican-American communities in the United States, fit in. Becker introduces us to the term gemenischoff, meaning an “organic community” that incorporates face-to-face interaction, contrasting this to geselschaft, or an artificial, industrialized community. A true transnational community (I use the definition provided by Glick-Schiller[iii]) involves an organic community tied together by history and birth, yet divided by political lines. Transnational communities offer an additional complication to the question of what constitutes “folk,” and reveal an important distinction: people identified as “folk” are always marginal, never mainstream.
A prime example lies in the comparison between Houston-born, permanent U.S. resident Lydia Mendoza and Mexican-born, permanent Mexican resident Lola Beltran. Both women sang traditional Mexican ranchera style music, both women topped the charts throughout Latin America in the 1950s and 60s. Yet Lola Beltran became known as Lola la Grande (Lola the Great), entering a central place in the hearts of Mexican listeners, while Lydia Mendoza sang at folk life festivals as an representation of Mexican-ness (Mexicanidad) as an ethnic other in the United States. The two singers experienced similar numbers of record sales and similar fame among the Americas, yet Lydia Mendoza recorded numerous “folk” records while Lola Beltran, singing much of the same music, helped foment a national musical identity in Mexico. This observation makes it clear that the definition of “folk” music lies as much in the opinion of the surrounding society as it does the content and form of the music itself, and that the study of folklore can tell us as much about the society defining the lore as “folk” and “quaint” as much as it can about the subject of study itself.
[i] Thomas, Jeannie, and Doug Enders. “Bluegrass and ‘White Trash”: A Case Study Concerning the Name “Folklore” and Class Bias.” Journal of Folklore Research, 37:1 (Jan-April, 2000) pp. 23-52.
[ii] Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. “Mistaken Identities,” the Journal of American Folklore 101:400 (Apr.-June, 1988), pp. 140-155.
[iii] Glick Schiller, Nina., et. Al “Transnationalism: A new Analytic Framework for Understanding Migration”
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