Roberto Avant-Mier, “Rock the Nation: Latin/o Identites and the Latin Rock Diaspora” (Continuum, 2010)

In Rock the Nation: Latin/o Identites and the Latin Rock Diaspora (Continuum, 2010), Roberto Avant-Mier challenges the traditional historical notion of rock and roll and rock being the result of the converging of white and African-American musics only. Instead, he argues, the history of rock is replete with Latin/o culture. Avant-Mier traces the Latin influence in rock back as far as any history of the rock will. Included in his story are the Mexico-based border radio stations listened to by many early blues, country and rock and roll artists, the zoot-suited pachuco culture popular among Latino/as in the 1940s and 1950s, the Latin/o influence on the classic garage rock of the 1960s, the birth of Mexican rock and its relation to Onda literature in the 1970s and eighties, the dearth of Latino/as in the global punk rock movement of the nineties and, finally, a discussion of Latin/o rock in the twenty-first century. Infused within Avant-Mier’s argument is the notion that Latin/o rock is much more than the participation of Mexican-Americans in American rock. It is a cultural movement that spans all of North and South American, calling into question traditional ideas about political and cultural borders. A serious understanding of rock en espanol or rock nacional forces a serious understanding of Latin/o cultures across borders.

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