A Town's Children Embrace an Old Tradition Adrian Florido - Fronteras Desk
go to original February 11, 2013

Over the winter holidays I traveled once again to the southern Mexican state of Veracruz. Since summer, I’ve been learning a traditional style of string music known as Son Jarocho.

It’s music that in the last decade or so has gained popularity among young Mexican-Americans in U.S. cities, in large part because of how it’s played. Jam sessions called fandangos begin in the evening and if all goes well, last until sunrise. The chords of small guitar-like instruments called jaranas are accompanied by the clack, clack, clack of hard-soled dancing shoes keeping the rhythm upon a wooden platform, and high-pitched voices singing improvised verses about love, nature, life and death.

Participants like myself find comfort in the ritual’s communal aspects. Fandangos can include 50 musicians or more all playing at once, or they can be as small as four or five people. Even the largest fandangos feel intimate, because they require that you listen closely to those around you. In the best fandangos, if you’re perceptive, you start to notice narratives emerging from the verse, friends or romantic interests singing to each other, rivals sizing each other up, usually in good fun. You don’t find this kind of community much in urban modern life.

I’ve filed a couple of reports about this music before: about the community of musicians in the San Diego-Tijuana region, and about a trip I took to Veracruz over the summer.

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