Video - Episode 3: Borderlands

Episode 3: Borderlands

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Mexican American music charts the struggles, joys and aspirations of millions of immigrants; and it's in the Borderlands, stretching two thousand miles along the U.S./Mexican border, that much of it evolved.

Our story begins with the seventeen year-old Richard Valenzuela, who crossed the tracks, changed his name and became an all-American super-star: Ritchie Valens. His first hit was La Bamba. Though he died in a plane crash beside Buddy Holly, Valens inspired many Mexican-American bands, like Sam The Sham, to enter the national pop charts. That was a time when Mexican-Americans had to anglicise their names to succeed. But come the mid-'60s, Chicano Pride developed and "we didn't have to say I'm sorry anymore".

Carlos Santana adds: "We were questioning authority, the war in Vietnam, and believing we could make a difference". Santana leads us back to the Borderlands (where he once played beside his Mariachi father in the brothels of Tijuana) and where Little Jo Hernandez's song Las Nubes became an anthem of the immigrant farm workers toiling in the fields of Texas.

Ballads like Las Nubes have played a political role in the Borderlands for a century or more. There were corridos about wars, criminals and lovers. And new, hybrid music forms evolved there too, like Norteno, whose greatest exponent is accordionist Flaco Jimenez. Flaco describes the hard realities of borderland musicians' lives. Some turned to mainstream Country Music to find success. Freddie Fender played the low-life bars, did a stint in jail and got to number one with Before The Next Teardrop Falls. "We were showing how American we had become".

Throughout the '70s, a new Chicano Renaissance had impacted on Mexican-American bands across America. Los Lobos were the sons of factory workers in Los Angeles. They and a Borderland girl called Linda Ronstadt explain for us, in words and music, why they turned their backs on rock stardom to make Mexican-inspired records. And Border girl Selena Quintanilla (shot dead just as she reached crossover stardom) became an icon: a Mexican-American who had made it to the top on her own terms.

Many have followed. Perhaps the "biggest band that mainstream America has never even heard of" is Los Tigres Del Norte. They sing traditional-style Border ballads, in Spanish, that sell tens of millions of copies. They were themselves illegals once, and their albums recount personal stories which reflect a centuries old common experience:

"Crossing over borders

Defending my honour

To give my children a better future".

A BBC/WGBH Co-Production
Executive Producer: Mark Cooper
BBC Series Producer: Jeremy Marre
Director: John J Valdez