KFAI,  was one of the first stations I heard in the U.S.  I also listened to classical Minnesota Public Radio (MPR). The concept of a public community radio station struck me as  beautiful and powerful. Now, every Thursday 8-10 pm, I explore the cultural history and traditions of our continent through folk music. I put in six hours a week preparing the show. I  explore a composer, a genre of music, a country, or political themes or historical events like, Music of Liberation Theology and Music from the Life and Times of Frida Kahlo. I am building solidarity with Latin America through music. 

—Gilberto Vázquez Valle

 

 

 

The US: The Place my Father went to Work 

I was born in Yurécuaro, in the State of Michoacán, Mexico. My father spent chunks of time in the US, starting when I was about four, until I was thirteen. At that time it was easy to come if you were sponsored by relatives, as he was. In Mexico he was a tailor.  In the US he did agricultural work in California until he found more lucrative jobs in the steel industry in Chicago. Today — even though I like that city and have relatives there — Chicago is a sad word for me. In my childhood it meant my father was going to leave us again.

 

An Obsession with Comic Books 

When I was little my father went around to all the barber shops and asked them not to let me in because they had comic books there and he thought I was reading way too many of them. There used to be a system where you could buy comics for a peso, or sit on a bench and read them for ten cents. I was so obsessed with the characters and the stories being told, that I stole money from my mother in order to rent them. One day she found me at the rental bench and asked me to come with her immediately. When she saw me pay for thirteen comics, she knew who had stolen her money. Back at home, I got such a monumental spanking that, many years after, it still mortified her to the point of tears.

The comic books I read avidly were made in Mexico: Chanoc, La Familia Burrón, El Payo, El Diamante Negro, Memín Pinguín,  and even, to my father’s mortification, Lágrimas, Risas y Amor. There were also many American comic books which never got my interest. They were probably translated in Spain. The dialogue always felt contrived. So I was oblivious to Superman, Batman, and Los Cuatro Fantásticos. There was, however, one  American comic for which I had a soft spot: El Hombre Araña (Spiderman).

 

Discovering Latin American Folk Music 

When I was fourteen I gained a new obsession. We had just moved to Guadalajara, a town of about two million people.  I discovered two radio stations, one run by the Department of Fine Arts, the other by the Universidad de Guadalajara, that played folk music. I’m immensely grateful to those stations. They enriched my life beyond measure. The music sounded strange yet familiar. In a primal, visceral way, I knew it was my own. It was like hearing an ancient tune, apparently long forgotten, but in actuality always present within me.

By the time I was eighteen, there were already a few places where Latin American folk music was played live. Some were small venues related to the local Department of Fine Arts the others were peñas (coffee houses) in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and other large cities.  Most of the performing groups were local and non-professional. Through college, I befriended Los Cachicamos. They performed in schools, peñas, labor union halls, festivals and public plazas. They played folk music from the Andes, Argentina and Mexico, and traveled to South America to get music and instruments. They would lend me recordings impossible to get in Guadalajara. They also brought back several charangos, a string instrument with five double strings, similar to a mandolin, fundamental in the Andean music tradition. The back of its box is made from the shell of a small furry armadillo that lives in that region.

My friends got their instruments directly from a legendary Bolivian charango maker, Sabino Orozco. His son — chosen to continue the  tradition, was named Clark Kent Orozco.

 

Latin American Continentalism At University of Minnesota

I went to college in Guadalajara,  at the Facultad de Ciencias Químicas of the Universidad de Guadalajara, which had a relationship with the University of Minnesota.  I first came to Minneapolis in the 1980s for some research projects and then to go to graduate school. I wasn’t part of a migrant stream like so many of my relatives. I had nothing of the experience that my uncles or father had.

I lived in Centennial Hall at the University. I felt isolated at first, but soon I found other Spanish speakers at the dorm, mostly Latin American. We’d congregate for dinner, taking over two or three tables in the cafeteria. The language drew us together. We exchanged culture, traditions, history. I was surprised at how easy and natural it was to develop a strong connection with Chileans, Argentinians, Uruguayans — people born and raised thousands of miles away from my hometown. 

We had heated political debates about what was going on in Central America, and about US foreign policy towards Latin America. I was very critical of the United States government. I felt hypocritical coming and staying in the US to work at the University of Minnesota — a little like José Martí inside the entrails of the beast.All my education in Mexico was in public schools, Since I was a teenager, I was conscious of the moral responsibility I had towards working people of Mexico who paid for my education. But I also learned that the concept of nationality can be relative. There is another Mexico and another Latin America within the United States.

I made myself available to talk to groups about the role of the US in Central America. We would have events at the University — educational forums on what was happening. I wanted to give US students some historical background and a radically different perspective, to get them to question what they heard in the media. I decided one can be ideologically and morally congruent without having to be in a particular place.

 

La Raza Student Cultural Center at the University of Minnesota

In the early 90s, I met the late Guillermo Rojas, faculty in Chicano Studies, and he asked me to be a faculty/technical adviser for La Raza Student Cultural Center. It was going to be something temporary, just to clean up the place (there were accusations of financial mismanagement) and to reorganize it. The activist mission of La Raza’s creators in the 1970s, had disappeared and it was run by a cohort of students from wealthy families — people with whom I would never have had contact in other circumstances. They couldn’t care less about activism and social responsibility. For them, La Raza was a social club. Also fighting to regain control of La Raza, were a number of young women — determined, courageous, hard­-working, and politically aware. Most of them were of Mexican descent, frequently first-generation Americans and first-generation college students. They regained control of La Raza and it became a place for community, activism, consciousness, and a vibrant cultural center.

When the Zapatista uprising happened in Chiapas, Mexico, on January 1st 1994 — the same day that NAFTA was implemented — we began having educational and political events every week, focusing on the uprising and indigenous issues in Mexico and Latin America; the poverty, the discrimination, the cultural genocide still happening. Zapatista Sub­-Comandante Marcos sent communiques through the internet, and we were getting them a day after they were published in Mexico City, which was amazing at the time. La Raza became a sort of unofficial Zapatista Resource Center in town.

 

The significance of the Zapatista Uprising 

Many of the issues the Zapatistas were talking about, Ricardo Flores Magón had demanded in 1911, at the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. But on the positive side, for the first time the word neo-­liberalism was used to understand what was happening on a global level. That was meaningful and refreshing. The Zapatistas had a global view, connecting their uprising to the struggles of workers in Bangladesh, Chicago and elsewhere. 

The beauty, poetry and eloquence of Zapatista communiques were inspiring. I remember reading, “¿De qué nos van a perdonar?,” in a coffee shop in Dinkytown, and openly crying. Because of the Zapatista Movement, I saw many formerly apolitical young people in La Raza beginning to show an interest in the social and political movements in Latin America, and making connections with patterns of oppression and resistance in the US.  That was the richest moment of my experience in La Raza — seeing that awakening, not just in others, but in myself.

At that time, my immigration status was as an international student. I knew my legal status was vulnerable. So I framed all the events I was involved in as “academic.” I was invited to speak at some rallies in front of the Federal Building in Minneapolis and I had to decline.

 

Sharing Mexican Proverbs at  La Raza Youth 

When the energy around the Zapatista movement diminished, I still continued at La Raza, providing continuity as students came and went. There were many more first-generation Mexican American students in the late 1990s and their stories of immigrant struggle and resistance inspired me. Even though they spoke English among themselves, they enjoyed speaking Spanish to me. I have a fascination with Spanish language proverbs and know thousands of them. They would come to the office and ask me, “So, what’s the proverb of the day?” They enjoyed their wisdom, earthiness, sparkling quality and sense of humor. In spite of the age difference, we had a feeling of prodigal siblings reunited.

 

Bringing Latin American Folk Music to Minneapolis through KFAI radio

KFAI, the local community radio station, was one of the first stations I heard in the U.S.  I also listened to classical Minnesota Public Radio (MPR). The concept of a public community radio station struck me as  beautiful and powerful. One Saturday morning, while listening to KFAI, I  heard Las Mañanitas, the traditional Mexican song for birthdays and saint’s days. I was moved to tears.  Willy Dominguez’ show, “Sábados Alegres” —one of the longest running shows at KFAI, played Tex-­Mex music. Soon afterwards I found the Latin American music program of Rafael Varela, and an American folk music show — a new genre for me. 

In Minneapolis my Latin American friends were often surprised that I knew old folk songs from their countries. They would give me names of genres, groups and performers they thought would interest me. And tapes. My collection continued to grow. After a few years volunteering,  I applied for my own radio program, Encuentro. The show first aired on July 29, 2007.

Every Thursday, 8-10 pm, I explore the cultural history and traditions of our continent through folk music. I put in at least six hours a week preparing the show. My program is never improvised; it always has a defined order and structure, a theme or themes to explore for the day.  I usually explore a composer, a genre of music, a country, or political themes or historical events like, Liberation Theology and, The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo.

I think I would never be able to find space on a commercial Latino radio station for my program. Those stations are all about business, commercial interests and commercial music. My program, proudly, doesn’t fit that model. At first I was disappointed that the people calling in to my program were mostly white. I would have been happier hearing from Latin American communities from South Minneapolis, and youth like those I worked with in La Raza. It was with them that I witnessed first-­hand, the power and inextinguishable relevance of language, history, culture and traditions.

 

Changes on Lake Street in the 1990s

Before the mid-1990s, if I wanted to buy a hint of home, I had to go to West St. Paul. Options were very limited. It was rare to hear somebody speaking Spanish on the bus or street. Lake Street has historically, been an entry zone for immigrants. In the 1990s it was the front line, the border where demographic changes were most visible and tangible. Small Latino restaurants, stores and bakery shops started opening up.

Visiting those Mexican and Latino stores was a lesson in the perseverance of memory and traditions. I found the same brand of laundry detergent (Roma) and bar soap (Zote) that Mexican working-class families have used for generations; I found healing herbs and teas that, in Mexico are available only in a special store or market. I saw leche de burra soap — a product I heard about from my parents’ generation, but never actually saw until I found them on Lake Street in Minneapolis! The traditional Mexican refresco, “Jarritos” — especially the tamarind flavor — is easier to find in Minneapolis than in Mexico, where, in conventional stores, the only refrescos you can get are Coke, Pepsi and such. I see a measure of poetic justice in this.

And the food! Food is a living manifestation of memory and tradition. It is also a noble, fundamental thread that, along with language and music, provides an immediate and visceral link between immigrants and their country of birth, their family history, their ancestral memories. Food is also an economic savior. Selling cooked food is frequently how a struggling family can get back on its feet. It is a means available to immigrant families to aspire to a measure of independence — one of the precious few venues for upward mobility.

 

Surviving Assaults 

I don’t know how to drive. I walk, bike and use the bus. When I first moved out of the dorm, I lived in Marcy Holmes near the University Campus — a fairly transient neighborhood. Then I moved to Seward, where I have been ever since. I really like it, even though I have had some bad experiences. I was assaulted twice. Because of those incidents I have become much more watchful and alert of my surroundings. I do not think these assaults necessarily reflect Seward. It is just part of living in an urban place, within the inner city, especially when you walk alone at night. Both times, those who assaulted me were Native American youth. That is only incidental — a reflection of the growing impoverishment in Minneapolis and the ever-growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots throughout the US.

 

Rise in Disparities  and Racism in Minneapolis 

These observations are the perspective of one who has been riding the bus and walking in the city for more than 20 years. When I first came to Minneapolis, I wrote home saying that everyone here seemed to be well­-off. But I have seen a noticeable and continuing growth in poverty since then — more homeless people, for instance. I see it on the bus and in the streets: Everything from more clothes and shoes that are not appropriate for the weather, to obvious signs of poor health, especially in people’s teeth. Data and statistics confirm this anecdotal evidence.

I have also noticed an increase in the body language of sadness. In the early 1990s I used to travel by bus to go to Madison, Wisconsin. For me it was fun and convenient, but I saw that those who traveled by bus seemed to always be sad and down on their luck. Now I see the same sadness every day in the city buses and in the streets.

I also see more conflict, more tension. Twenty years ago it was the sort of conflict that normally happens within a crowded urban space. Now I see more signs of confrontation —in racial, social and economic terms. Of course, there has always been some grumbling about immigrants. But the resentment now seems to be greater, more openly belligerent and confrontational. I think that when I was assaulted, I was a victim of this growing poverty, exacerbated by a massive housing crisis, a recession, and ever-growing social and economic disparity. Before, at least there was a feeling of hope in a not-too-distant future. Now that is gone, and people are taking it out on each other.

 

A Rise in Activism  

In the 1990s, there were few signs of activism among new Latino immigrants. People went to work, and on a Saturday afternoon, perhaps to Mercado Central to eat some tacos, menudo or tamales with champurrado. People just stayed in their corner, making as little waves as possible. That has changed significantly, in response to the desperate immigration situation, the constant political backlash, lack of upward mobility, and limited, low-paying and frequently exploitative job market for people in our communities. Recent restrictions on driver’s licenses (since 2001), have brought into the streets many immigrants who, because of fear, would never have been active in the political process. People now have the boldness to be directly involved in different stages of political activism, even if it implies taking significant risks, including being deported.

In that sense, I’m hopeful. I see different community organizing efforts going on locally at different levels: grass-roots, faith-based, workers’ centers, etc., and the growing consciousness that comes with these efforts. I particularly admire the work done by CTUL (Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha) a local workers’ center that is doing amazing organizing among retail cleaning workers. These movements plant a seed for future generations. A tradition of consciousness and community organizing doesn’t happen overnight. It is nurtured.

One thing immigrants from Mexico know quite well is that they are valuable to both the US and Mexican economy. The US desperately needs the cheap, vulnerable labor and their remittances are absolutely essential for Mexico. There is power in that.

 

An Assertion of Immigrant Power: May 1st, 2006

Millions of Latino workers and their families throughout the United States rose up and marched through the streets —40,000 in the Twin Cities—who marched to the State Capitol wearing t-shirts that proclaimed:  “Undocumented and Unafraid.” May 1st, International Workers Day is, of course, rooted in the rich, proud, obscured and ignored, US labor history. It was celebrated in nearly every country in the world except the United States where it originated, until 2006, when the most marginalized exploited immigrants of this nation, rescued it, dignified it, and brought it back to its place of origin. Poetic justice.

 

Discovering Multi-Racial Solidarity 

I had my own stereotypes when I first came to the US, about the “average” white person. I did not know there were people here concerned and aware about US government policies, foreign and domestic, and committed to changing things as an act of solidarity. And that’s the key word. Not empty, self-gratifying charity, not condescending attitudes, but understanding and solidarity. I meet people all the time, many times young, who are active and committed to achieve and build a more just economic and political system; people who talk the talk and walk the walk, not out of empty romanticized notions. I think that Minneapolis is special in this way. It has a rich local history of solidarity movements. I see that tradition alive and moving forward.

Minneapolis Interview Project. 

Gilberto, age 9, with his baby goat. He did not know the animal would be dinner the next night. A special occasion: a visit from relatives living in the US. The dish was birria, traditionally made with goat meat. Now often made with beef.





Gilberto died on May 23, 2021, in Minneapolis. On his Facebook page, on KFAI radio, and at his Memorial, remembrances poured in for a man who was a storyteller, collector and sharer of dichos, a jokester, and a lover of good coffee and palak paneer from the Himalayan Restaurant on Lake Street. His whole life was dedicated to social justice, especially for working and undocumented people. His music friends reminded us that he was a world-class self-taught musicologist, with an encyclopedic knowledge of Latin American folk music that will be irreplaceable. Family and friends noted that he was an introvert, yet when he donned a Mexican wrestler mask he became as extroverted as El Santo.  He had a magic ability to charm children and was a beloved uncle to many who were related by blood, and others attached by love. Gilberto made the University of Minnesota — which can be a hostile place if you are not white — culturally welcoming for generations of Latinx students. 

He was a dear friend of mine. Like many of his friends, we shared dinners. When he came to our house he always brought flan, the best I have ever tasted. One of his friends said he could have made a living as a professional dinner guest because, despite shyness, he told magnificent stories. He and I taught a class together in 2017, at Metropolitan State University, in which we had the students walk two miles down Lake Street, pausing at Latinx Minnesota landmarks to hear Gilberto’s stories. I so admired the way he  took every opportunity to make cross-cultural connections that built solidarity, for example, comparing Latin American liberation theology to Black Christian social gospel in the US, and miners struggles in Northern Mexico to those in Northern Minnesota.

 Gilberto had a voice that could melt ice in a Minnesota winter.  

He is already sorely missed. 
 
AW-M 6/5/21