The Many Meanings of Mendoza

I was very pleased to read Jane Becker’s chapters this week.  Throughout the semester, I have been working to articulate exactly how the theoretical lens of folk and folklore fit into my own research, particularly how Lydia Mendoza and her music came to be viewed as a representative for certain ideas and groups of people.  I have also been evaluating how her name, image and symbol have been used by different groups – some American presidents, some Mexican-American academics, some Chicano activists, and some aficionados of ranchera or border Tejana music – and how each of these groups has highlighted different aspects of her life history and music to support the message they wished to convey.   I have also struggled to understand how Lydia Mendoza could be interpreted as "folk" when her records sold in the millions throughout the Americas, and her music blasted across Spanish-language radio through the U.S. and northern Mexico ... in spaces dedicated to the commercialization of Mendoza, her music, and other products.   While many of the readings have helped me conceptualize these ideas, Becker packaged it all quite nicely for my purposes.

Much of my research explores the battle between two highly publicized interpretations of Lydia Mendoza's legacy: the first, that of Lydia Mendoza as a political, national symbol of unity and inclusion (as Presidents Carter and Clinton saw her); or second, Lydia Mendoza as the symbol of hope and perseverance for a marginalized and struggling Mexican-American/Chicana network of activists, academics and political actors.   These are interesting to explore, but the most compelling part of my research is the interpretation of Lydia Mendoza that continues to live in the minds and hearts of individuals – bracero workers, their families and descendents in Oaxaca, Mexico, or border dwellers who live much further north, dotted along either side of the political boundary between nations.  Individuals in these groups still argue over whether Lydia Mendoza was a U.S. or a Mexican citizen and to which musical trajectory – Tex-Mex or Mexican ranchera – she best belongs.   

As Becker affirms, the tug-of-war over Lydia Mendoza’s influence and identity has more to do with current tensions and struggles for identity in the border region and Mexico than it does about her actual lived past and repertoire.  I will continue to digest and work with these ideas, but Becker has given me a vocabulary and a theoretical framework to discuss how Lydia Mendoza can serve simultaneously as a local symbol of resistance for a marginalized folk and as a national icon of democratic inclusion, and just why her identity is fought over so fervently by people whose lives are deeply invested in establishing a legitimate space for their own ambiguous and still marginalized border identity. 

Kelley Merriam Castro