Beyond the Screams

Latino Punkeros Contest Nativist Discourses

by
Patricia Zavella

In debates about migration from Mexico, popular culture, especially music, can be an
important political space for expressing feelings and thoughts about nativist discourses.
Ann Cvetkovichs notion of archives of feelings is helpful for understanding political
texts that address the plight of Mexicans in music. Performances become reflexive spaces
that foster agency by allowing for a critique of politics from outside of and within Latino
communities. Interviews with participants in the Latino punk scene and an interpretation
of the documentary film Beyond the Screams/Ms all de los gritos show how punk
lyrics, musical performances, and representations become interpretive sites when
performed in public. The texts and performances discussed here create powerful
transnational archives of feelings that contest official stories about the subordination of
Mexicans and all Latinos.
En los debates sobre la migracin mexicana, la cultura popular, especialmente la
msica, puede convertirse en un importante espacio poltico para expresar sentimientos
y pensamientos acerca de los discursos nativistas. La nocin de archivos de sentimientos
(archives of feelings) propuesta por Ann Cvetkovich resulta til para entender los textos
polticos que se ocupan, musicalmente, de la difcil situacin de los mexicanos. Las
actuaciones se convierten en espacios de reflexin que promueven la agencia al presentar
una crtica poltica desde fuera y dentro de las comunidades latinas. Entrevistas con los
participantes en la escena punk latina y una interpretacin de la pelcula documental
Beyond the Screams/Ms all de los gritos muestran cmo las letras de canciones
punk, las actuaciones musicales y sus representaciones se convierten en sitios de
interpretacin cuando se realizan pblicamente. Los textos y actuaciones aqu discutidos
crean archivos transnacionales de sentimiento que refutan las historias oficiales sobre la
subordinacin de los mexicanos y todos los latinos.
Keywords:
Punks, Contestation, Cultural citizenship, Transnationalism, Archives of feelings

In the debates about migration from Mexico, popular culture, especially

music, can be an important political space for expressing feelings and thoughts
about nativist discourses. Paying attention to performance, George Lipsitz
(1994: 3) argues, calls for an understanding of how people make meaning for
themselves, how they have already begun to engage in grass-roots theorizing
about complicated realities, and why and when that theorizing might lead to
substantive change for the better. I discuss here the meanings embedded in
Patricia Zavella is a professor in the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies at the
University of California, Santa Cruz.
LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue XXX, Vol. XX No. X, Month XXXX xx-xx
DOI: 10.1177/0094582X11428061
2011 Latin American Perspectives

1
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2LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

Latino punk lyrics, musical performances, and representations, which when

they are public become interpretive sites that foster community formation.
Benedict Anderson has theorized the formation of communities that become
imagined through a system of production in which technology facilitates
communication as a means of bridging diversity. Music is a significant venue
for understanding migrants lives in that it relies less on literacy than on
access to affordable technology. In reflecting on a particular musical genre
here, I take Andersons (1991: 6, emphasis mine) suggestion seriously:
Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but
by the style in which they are imagined.
Attempting to understand political texts that address of plight of Mexicans
in music, I draw on Ann Cvetkovichs (2003: 7) notion of archives of feelings:
cultural texts as repositories of feelings and emotions which are encoded not
only in the content of the texts themselves but in the practices that surround
their production and reception. I show how the production and reception of
particular texts in a global context of inequality in which Mexicans are
racialized and objectified generate transnational archives of feelings in relation
to migration from Mexico. Further, I illustrate how texts construct cultural
memory, a field of contested meanings associated with trauma that is shaped
outside of formal historical discourse. In contrast to personal memory, cultural
memory reflects upon the power relations that affect social categories and
social identities (Sturken, 1997: 1, 3). In an effort to draw attention to the plight
of migrants, cultural activists produce technologies of memory, social practices
that present alternative histories from the point of view of the subjects through
music and representations.1 These works on behalf of subordinated social
groups help form counterpublics that, according to Fraser (1993: 14), invent
and circulate counter discourses so as to formulate oppositional interpretations
of their identities, interests, and needs.
Performances are key because terms of cultural engagement, whether
antagonistic or affiliative, are produced performatively (Bhabha, 1994: 2).
Because performances are always situated within social systems, they elucidate power relations and illustrate the messy entanglements that constitute
hemispheric relations (Taylor, 2003: 272274). Performances transform the
relationship between the performers and the audience, which become, according to Paul Gilroy (quoted in Bhabha, 1994: 30), dialogic rituals so that spectators acquire the active role of participants in collective processes which are
sometimes cathartic and which may symbolize or even create a community.
Thus, audience memberswhether U.S. citizens of varied ethno-racial heritages, authorized residents, or undocumented migrantswho may have little
in common materially or socially find that the consumption of certain types of
popular culture enables them to feel a sense of cultural citizenship, a process
of self-making and contesting being-made in relation to nation-states regimes
of surveillance, discipline, and control. Cultural citizenship has transnational
dimensions as subjects claim the right to perform different identities, languages, or traditions from other cultures in public regardless of their legal
status, and cultural expressions become the basis for coalition building and
agitation for social justice (Rosaldo and Flores, 1997: 57). Counterhegemonic
cultural expressions, however, do not represent unitary subjects, nor are they
consistently resistant. Artistic works may contain tensions or silences in
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Zavella / BEYOND THE SCREAMS 3

relation to differences among Latinos that cultural activists negotiate in the

process of producing or performing them. Cultural citizenship, then, is contingent and complements other struggles for social or juridico-political citizenship rights. Musicians must contend with the Latino sense of estrangement in
the United States that is captured in the statement No soy de aqu ni de all
(I am from neither here nor there). When performances become reflexive
spaces, they foster agency by allowing for a critique of politics from outside of
and within Latino communities. I argue that the texts and performances discussed here create powerful transnational archives of feelings that contest
official stories about the subordination of Mexicans and all Latinos.
Of the many cultural activists whose work is relevant, I have chosen the
Chicago-based 1990s punk band known as Los Crudos because it focused on
immigration, deliberately reached out to all Latinos, and created discursive
political space through cultural practices familiar to Latina/o audiences: Latin
American and Latina/o protest music. My analysis is based on interviews
with Martin Sorrondeguy, Los Crudoss bandleader, Cecilia Brennan, and Jos
Palafox and on an interpretation of Sorrondeguys documentary film Beyond
the Screams/Ms all de los gritos (1998). Brennan, a housing-rights advocate,
was a regular participant in the Latino punk scene, formed the band Ceci y
Los Sesos, and later played the jarana for Candela, an all-female jarocho group
in Los Angeles. Palafox, a drummer, performed with the band Yaphet Kotto in
the San Francisco Bay Area.
LATINA/O PUNKEROS
The punk performance aesthetic celebrates hard-core, a rock music style
that Sorrondeguy described as really fast, more aggressive and abrasive than
rhythmic.2 In the punk scene, participants value freedom of expression unfettered by convention. Some punks mark their bodies with colored, stylized hair
(such as mohawks) or shaved heads, tattoos, piercings, heavy boots, chains,
and casual clothing. Others, especially vegans, pursue a minimalist aesthetic
and refuse to wear any leather.3 The punk ethos of self-presentation can be so
strong that participants may be criticized for inappropriate appearance or
actions. By the 1990s more women began organizing their own bands, national
conventions, and zines, protesting the way they were being squeezed out of
the punk scene, which was sometimes seen as violent, racist, homophobic,
nihilistic, or male-centered.4 Participants in this scene, then, had to negotiate
their acceptance, and not fitting in had serious consequences.
Punks embrace the ethic of do-it-yourself (DIY), which disavows materialism and consumerism and the individualist fame of rock stars. They often
produce their own music, sometimes on vinyl records rather than compact
discs, and they produce their own T-shirts and memorabilia for limited distribution.5 Rather than lose artistic and financial control by marketing their
products through intermediaries, they distribute them through the Internet,
by bartering, or by selling at greatly reduced cost directly to the audience at
performances. This DIY approach reflects the fact that Latino punks are marginalized economically and have limited access to production and distribution facilities. Indeed, Pacini Hernandez, Fernndez-LHoeste, and Zolov
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4LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

(2004) argue that the musical practices of most Latinos residing within the
United Statesas well as those in small Latin American countriesare virtually excluded from the U.S. and Latin American culture industry controlled by
conglomerates.
Michelle Habell-Palln (2004: 163) argues that the appeal of punk is twofold: The DIY (do-it-yourself) sensibility at the core of punk musical subcultures found resonance with the practices of rasquache, a Chicana/o cultural
practice of making do with limited resources. Rasquachismo is an aesthetic
sensibility that delineates the vernacular of the downtrodden, is irreverent
and spontaneous and draws from barrio stance and style and an outdoor theater tradition that relies on improvisation (Mesa-Bains, 1988). Habell-Palln
(2004: 163) suggests that punks critique of the status quoof poverty, sexuality, class inequality, and warspoke directly to working-class East Los
Angeles youth. I will show that punks multifaceted critiques extend far
beyond East Los Angeles and produce transnational imaginaries within the
punk scene.
The Latina/o punk scene began forming in the 1970s through contestation
over performers exclusion from mainstream punk, in which the performers
and audience members were predominantly white and often insensitive to
racial issues. Latina/o punks, as represented in Beyond the Screams/Ms all de
los gritos (Sorrondeguy, 1998), present didactic political messages that denounce
racism toward Mexican migrants and call for pan-Latino, multiracial political
solidarity among people of different generations so as to contest nativism and
the exploitation of Latinos in U.S. society.
The films writer, director, and producer, Martn Sorrondeguy, is a migrant
from Uruguay whose parents brought him to the United States when he was
two years old. His mother, an avowed socialist, left Uruguay before the coup
in 1973.6 As did many other Latin American migrants, his parents stressed the
maintenance of Uruguayan culture. Sorrondeguy grew up in a predominantly
Mexican barrio (Pilsen) in Chicago, where he did not feel excluded for being
ethnically different (Uruguayan): Actually, with the young kids in the neighborhood, we really bonded. I felt I was a part of as opposed to Where you
from? He recalls a life with other Uruguayans and Latin Americans performing the nueva cancin (new song)7 popularized by the1960s protest movements
in peoples homes and at one point hearing the renowned Los Olimareos
perform in a fellow Uruguayans basement.8 His mother had a huge influence
on his nascent politics: Early on, we would just talk shit about politicians all
the time. She hated Reagan. My mom was ripping on [George H. W.] Bush
early on, she was, like, This son of a bitch was involved in the CIA when they
came into Uruguay, and they practiced torture on Uruguayos. So it was really
a lot. And for me, going punk made too much sense. Sorrondeguy was
attracted to punk because it represented oppositional politics, particularly in
the display on the body. Yet, like other Latinos, he was in the minority among
punks. He admitted that when he first began frequenting punk performances
as a teenager he would think, I hope I dont get beat up tonight. He left the
punk scene over a political differencethey started charging so much for their
performances that disenfranchised youth could no longer afford to attend. In
addition, the increased visibility of skinhead violence at punk shows was distasteful to him.
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Zavella / BEYOND THE SCREAMS 5

NOT YOUR AVERAGE PUNK BAND

In 1991, Sorrondeguy and his friends formed the band Los Crudos. Its name
literally means those who are crude, coarse, raw, or hungover, but it was
chosen for more metaphorical reasons: Being hungover means we were so
inundated with everything that was happening in the neighborhood, we were
overwhelmed with it. So we felt we would compare it to a hangover, to being
hungover. We were just trying to see clearly. Sorrondeguy describes the
bands purpose: We were on this quest to find people who had similarities
and thought like us and were really into radical politics and coming together
and doing the bands together. And thats what sets us apart from the average
punk scene. It was important to stress that. Los Crudos included Jos Casas
on guitar, Juan Jimnez on bass, Ebro Virumbrales on drums, and Martn
Sorrondeguy, who performed vocals. The band collectively composed songs,
wrote lyrics, and performed until 1998.
Los Crudoss lyrics were bilingual, incorporating Spanish, English, and code
switching between the two. Grammatical errors in their lyrics clearly mark
them as speakers of Spanish as a second language. Tiempos de la miseria
(Times of Misery) expresses the bands political poetics in relation to Latinos:9
We all suffer from the same illness / Its called: the government / Enough of
people living in misery! There is not enough money to maintain a family / We
cant live like people, which people? The rich who are with the government and
the press / They tell us to buy! Buy! Buy! / They hide problems and dont show
the truth / They think if we dont see the problems/then the problems dont
exist / They can go to hell because they are liars / They cant hide the pain and
suffering / of everyone who works so they can survive.

By using Spanish, Los Crudos affirmed its value as a public language, disrupting the hegemony of English-language use.
Sorrondeguy recalls their first performance, a benefit in a basement:
We did a song called Las madres lloran (The Mothers Cry). It starts with this
scream in the beginning, and I just went into it and the whole place was just, like,
Huh! [makes face of astonishment]. And it was over after about a minute, and
there was this moment of silence, and everyone was going, Augh! Then
I started talking about what the songs are about. And an older guy was, like, Oh,
yeah? What are you going to do to change it? I said, What are you going to do
to change it? It became this back-and-forth: What are we going to do to change
it? And this dialogue just started from the get-go. It started taking more form
and shape as we went along. As we went on it became a really big part of what
we did with the band; there was probably more talking than there was playing.

Indeed, in a video provided by Cecilia Brennan of Los Crudoss tour in 1995,

Sorrondeguy talked about political issues such as Proposition 187, domestic
violence, and homophobia. Once he read a racist commentary about Mexicans, dated 1930, as a springboard for discussing the continuation of racism
and nativism in the 1990s. Members of the audience shouted out, Fuck
Wilson! (a reference to the then-governor of California, who was critical of
undocumented migrants who just keep coming). One of Los Crudoss
songs, Poco a Poco (Little by Little), speaks directly to the undocumented
and makes clear that they are part of Latina/o imagined community:
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6LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

Little by little / They wont let you forget / That they lost, the border is the
memento / Five generations and little by little / They are losing something more /
Little by little they strip you, little by little / Leaving you bare, almost nothing,
little by little / Your existence is a threat / The border scares them / because you
live in the face / of the assault that this government represents / Your blood is
our blood / Your enemy is our enemy / Your struggle is our struggle/ We are
all in the same war.

Reaching out to the undocumented was not a stretch, as Sorrondeguy recalls

it: At one point almost all of us were housing people who were coming over
[from Latin America]. A record producer decided to put together a compilation of punkeros in the early 1990s; however, he ran into a glitch when he
approached Los Crudos about participating, as Sorrondeguy explains:
I talked to him on the phone and I said, None of the bands in ChicagoLos
Crudos, Arma Contra Arma, Youth Against Fascismnone of us can be part
of your compilation because you want social security numbers and theres at
least one person in every band who doesnt have one, who is illegal. None
of the Chicago punk bands participated in the compilation in solidarity with
undocumented punkeros. In the liner notes for a CD that includes a Los Crudos discography (2002), one of the band members wears a T-shirt with the title
of one of its songs: Ilegal y que? (Im Undocumented and So What?), which
apparently was very popular. Thus, in defending the rights of undocumented
migrants, Los Crudos was defending fellow punkeros.
Sorrondeguy organized the first punk show in Pilsen, a benefit at Casa
Aztln, and the reception was positive: It wasnt just a punk audience, it was
a lot of neighborhood people. They did fundraisers for the Zapatistas with
other performers such as folkloric dance groups:
I started hearing all these stories from kids coming up to me saying things like
My mom wears your shirt all the time; she loves your shirt. Or one kid came
up to me and said, My grandfather hates your music, but he loves your lyrics;
hes into what you guys are doing. It felt good to hear that people in the community were responding to us.

He recalls the early 1990s as a time when identification had become nuanced
in response to increased migration from Latin America: In Chicago, a lot of
people would identify specifically by country first; theyll say, Im Mexicano
or Im from Uruguay, beforehand, the specific before they go umbrella with
Latino. However, nativist politics pushed them toward pan-Latino, crossgenerational collaboration, as Sorrondeguy narrates in his film: What started
happening politically in the U.S. pissed us off so muchand we were feeling
targeted, and we were feeling cornered as a communitythat we began to
write songs about it. He considered the solidarity between the undocumented and U.S.-born Latinos unprecedented: This was the first that I had
ever seen what I was calling generational Latinos, ones who have been living
in the U.S. for several generations, actually coming together with recent immigrated Latinos and Mexicanos and forming bands and really forming a scene
in the community.
There is debate about whether the Latino punk scene is a site of dialogue or
contestation among practitioners. Mike Amezcua (2004), for example, characterizes the punk scene as a progressive space for constant dialogue about the
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Zavella / BEYOND THE SCREAMS 7

politics of race and gender. Michelle Habell-Palln (2004: 168), however,

argues that sexism did exist in the punk scene and some women were told
outright that they did not belong because their clothing was too feminine.
However, Latinas found ways to contest sexism and created discursive spaces
where punkeras reimagined their worlds and constructed themselves as
empowered: The visual and sonic language of punk subculture allowed
them to express their private rage about restrictions placed on them and the
violence done to their bodies and their mothers bodies (Habell-Palln, 2004:
163165). Similarly, the Latina/o punk scene was not always safe for queers.
Sorrondeguy, an out gay Latino, recalled his negotiation of homophobia:
Certain things could be too overwhelming coming back at me. And theres
days youre willing to deal with it and days youre not. So he gauged when
he would talk about queer issues and sometimes received a favorable response.
Cecilia Brennan said that even though the Latino punk scene was predominantly male, she appreciated it for its cultural politics, in which women were
included.
Not all the participants at Latino punk performances appreciated the political messages. Indeed, while Sorrondeguy was explaining the meaning of a
song, kids would sometimes scream, Cut the shit and start the pit. The pit
was a circular dance in which occasionally someone dived from the stage into
the audience or floated, lifted above the heads of the audience and passed
around, signaling trust. According to Cecilia Brennan, The pit allows you to
express yourself in the scene. However, pits could be violent. Women often
chose not to float because their bodies would be groped, and floaters sometimes fell to the floor. The music inspired aggressive dancing, punching, or
bumping into the audience, who then pushed back. Sorrondeguy sometimes
had to stop the music because the pit became too violent or disparaging to
women. There was, however, a core of performers and audience members
who took the politics seriously and were engaged in intellectual exchange. For
example, liner notes on albums provided a variety of resources such as song
lyrics, translations from Spanish to English, reading lists, information about
other bands, web sites, and notes about influential political figures, all of
which, according to Brennan, were importance sources of information for
youth. Los Crudos found performance to be a cultural expression of politics
expressed in tandem with activism elsewhere. Brennan commented on the
advocacy that Los Crudos inspired: Music shaped our identity. As an art
form music allowed us to express our politics and gave us this powerful
cause. The cause included a new Latino identity in which the undocumented
and marginalized youth were welcome, according to Sorrondeguy: We took
it upon ourselves to redefine what Latino meant to us, what community
meant to us.... We became our own voice and never waited for acceptance.... We didnt need it (Green, n.d.).
Sorrondeguy founded a production company called Lengua Armada (Armed
Tongue) and wrote a song that explained its politics (Los Crudos, 2002):
Our tongues are armed / With words that put out fires / From racism and fascism and from hate / Tongues that spit out the truth / Armed tongues are enemies of this system / They give voice to the mute and sight to the blind / These
tongues are loaded with sharp / words that slice through the lies of the past /
and stupidities of the present / Armed tongues are enemies of this system.
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8LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

Lengua Armada was the venue through which Los Crudos released its products and produced tours, charging fees just sufficient to recoup expenses
rather than make a profit.
Los Crudos did several tours around the world, including all three countries in North America as well as South America (Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and
Uruguay), Europe, and Japan. During the South American tour, thousands of
fans had heard of Los Crudos. According to Sorrondeguy, Bootlegging rules
in Mxico! There were kids who had twentieth-generation copies of our songs;
they knew the words; they knew all our songs already. He was gratified by
audiences appreciation: Well, the response is a little different in that, in some
of the songs, things that were talking about are directly related to people
there in certain places, so they take a lot of it more to heart and people really
get into it. For the most part we got a lot of support from people (quoted in
Green, n.d.). In countries outside the United States, the appeal of Los Crudos
was often its exile politics: Id meet Latino kids who were taken to Europe the
same time we left for the [United] States. There were Argentinosone parent
was murdered during the dictatorshipjust really heavy stuff. They were
relating to these songs. Los Crudos discovered the underground world of
Latin American migrants as well, which solidified its sense of purpose. For
example,
We played in London, in some bar, and there was one woman, a Mexicana with
braids, in the middle of the place. And she was shouting, rale, cabrones! (Hey,
dudes!). Shes, like, fuckn screaming and going nuts. We were all, Whats up?
Hang out and well talk after the show! And she was there, illegally, working,
and we connected with her. And for me it was, like, This is awesome; this is it;
this is what its about!

DOCUMENTING THE LATINA/O PUNK SCENE

Documentary films are artistic forms that show social worlds with their
own cultural logic or social norms. The essential documentary impulse
is... to catch life off camera, to film what was not planned to happen or
what would have happened whether some one was there to film it or not
(Menand, 2004: 90). Documentary filmmakers are often advocates for the subjects they represent on film and aim to arouse passion and support in the
audiences for their version of often-ignored human rights abuses or marginalized social worlds.
Beyond the Screams/Ms all de los gritos narrates the history of the Latina/o
punk scene, which flourished in the early 1990s.10 Sorrondeguy is an accomplished photographer. While completing a Masters in Fine Arts at the University of Illinois, Chicago, he decided to switch to video so that he could document Los Crudoss 1998 tour of Mexico and the United States for his thesis
and the project became much bigger: Im into documenting things; I just
wanted this to exist, for it to have its mark in history. This is really important,
and I think too many things just get lost. And I didnt want anyone else to
come and tell our story out of fear that they are not going to tell an accurate
story. Sorrondeguy places himself inside the film by having members of the
audience hold the camera while he performs (see Figure 1), and he provides
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Zavella / BEYOND THE SCREAMS 9

Figure 1. Martn Sorrondeguy in performance.

voice-over narration throughout. In the film, he explains that Los Crudos was
inspired by punk bands in Latin America: Around 1986 I heard for the first
time of bands coming out of Latin America, from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia,
Mxico. And hearing these songsthey were singing against poverty, against
this military dictatorship, and all of these issuesand for the first time I
started thinking about punk in this totally new way.11 This history disrupts
conventional wisdom that the spread of rock music was from north to south
in the Americas. The film suggests that in working-class urban barrios there
were few economic outlets other than exploitation in low-wage jobs or the
underground economy through gangs. In this milieu, punk became a way to
scream in rage, anguish, and desire in a poetics of social justice.
Sorrondeguy self-consciously saw himself situated in what George Lipsitz
(1994: 12) calls the dangerous crossroads between artistic expression and
marketing: For many musicians around the world, the popular has
become... an intersection between the undeniable saturation of commercial
culture in every area of human endeavor and the emergence of a new public
sphere that uses the circuits of commodity production and circulation to envision and activate new social relations. Sorrondeguy (2004) recalls his thinking when he started the film as follows:
I needed to keep close to that community that I come from and not steer away
from it, from what is important. But I wanted to invite other people to come into
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10LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

it and walk away and say, Wow, this is really interesting or This is something
that we should look at. It was a very strange space to be in; to make it for a
wider audience that would be true to the roots of that scene.

In the film, Latino punks are represented as thoughtful, if irreverent, and

energetic. In a series of titled sections, the film narrates different facets of the
Latino punk scene and often responds to major political developments. The
film takes care to present images and names of all the major Latino punk
bands. This democratic sensibility is seen in the credits, where the bands are
listed in alphabetical order. While many of the performers and audiences are
male, the film includes well-known women performers who have created
their own following. The film gives special thanks to Alice Amendariz (known
as Alice Bag) and other women performers in Los Angeles and presents
images of womens performances and personas. In one scene, a woman opens
a performance by blowing through a conch shell typically used by indigenous/
Chicanas and Chicanos to begin danza azteca performances, signaling that she
is performing spirituality and indigeneity within the punk scene.
One scene in the film illustrates the punk ethos of blurring the boundary
between the audience and the performers. During performances, members of
the audience stand right next to the band and often touch Sorrondeguy while
he sings. He hands the mike to members of the audience, who perform extended
riffs during songs. The film also presents the DIY ethic, as Sorrondeguy explains:
We have an enormous world; its a universal network that exists. And its this
DIY network, which is the most powerful thing that has come out of punk, I
think, ever. And I dont know of any other music scene or genre that runs the
way we do. It means having total control of what it is you are doing, what it is
you like, how you want to write it, how you want to put it out there and distribute it. Releasing our own records, making our own shirts, I mean, everything is
DIY, even down to the way that we book our shows
It is all done on our
terms and on our own.

....

The film suggests that punk artlithographs on T-shirts or murals and banners on public wallsis part of a Latino artistic renaissance.
Another scene illustrates how Sorrondeguy negotiates race with a multiracial audience and creates a collective identity. He tells the story of the birth of
Los Crudos, which, like other Latino punk bands, was excluded from the
white punk scene and wrote a song about it entitled Thats Right, Motherfuckers, Were That Spic Band. The audience we see on screen is clearly
diverse and young: there seem to be a lot of white men and some Asians as
well as Latinas and Latinos with women at the front. In his introduction of the
song, Sorrondeguy articulates the bands point of view: The kids that have
been coming to see us from this neighborhood since we started this band,
know us. And none of us feel less than anybody elsefor the way you were
born, the language we speak, the foods we eat, what we are about, our history,
our familiestheres no shame. He then explains why he is speaking in English: Its really important that these gringos understand what were about.
The audience laughs. Then he says, sta cancin les dedico a toda la gente de
este barrio (I dedicate this song to everyone from this neighborhood), signaling that this is a Latino space. The audience joins in while he performs,

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Zavella / BEYOND THE SCREAMS 11

screaming the refrain Bullshit! One young man who looks white climbs up
over the shoulders of others so that he can reach the mike and sings, Were
that spic band! This raises questions for the viewer: Why is that white guy
identifying himself as Latino? And how do those who are not Latino feel in
this Latino space? Clearly, this Latino punk performance is attractive because
of Los Crudoss efforts to be inclusive.12 This was an emotional moment for
Los Crudos and the audience, according to Jos Palafox, since it was their
goodbye show: Martn was really saying, Look, this isnt the end. I mean,
its sad just to think about it. This was an end of an era and what Los Crudos
meant to so many people and hes talking about it right on stage. Hes bringing closure in a way, and its in the film.
The importance of Spanish is a key point in the film, as Joe Carreo narrates:
When you do it in Spanish youre pricking up some ears that wouldnt have
been tuning in before
Latinos and Spanish-speaking people are used to
being targeted in other wayswhether it be violence, exploitation, or as demographic or marketing groups. But when you target them
to have a conversation with them, it lets them know You are not alone.

....

...

Jos Palafox elaborates on camera: Here there were these kids singing in
Spanish in... places where people are fearing the brown invasion, of, like,
these migrants coming in, and here are these kids not only singing radical
politics and saying things that were affecting their communities but they were
doing it in Spanish.
A key scene in the film is entitled Im Making My Future with the Border
Patrol, the title of a song by the band Revolucin X. With its mix of playfulness and bitter ironythe song includes the refrain Beating Mexicans is too
much funthis song has become something of an anthem for Latina/o punks.
The scene includes footage of Mexican migrant men being rounded up and
deported by the Border Patrol. There is footage of the infamous beating of
migrants by the Riverside police in 1996, which, in a very punk fashion,
Sorrondeguy lifted from a news clip, and a scene with a violent battle over
affirmative action in which the police pepper-sprayed the demonstrators.
Referring to the treatment of migrants, Sorrondeguy narrates: The general
xenophobia that was in the U.S.... It wasnt just a West Coast thing
wherever you were going you were being faced with these issues. And all of
a sudden there was a lot to sing about, a lot to write about, a lot to talk about.
Thus he includes all Latinos in the imagined community targeted as undocumented. Jos Palafox further drives home this point in the film: Its not just
art for arts sake. Its stuff that is really important to us and we need to build
a whole culture of resistance and punk rock, to me, hardcore is part of that.
Much like the beating of Rodney King, the Riverside beating was a flashpoint in U.S. immigration politics. It occurred only two years after the passage
of Proposition 187. In contrast to the prosecutors who framed the beating of
Rodney King as his being out of control and a danger to the police, Sorrondeguy frames the mistreatment of Mexican migrants as part of events such as
Proposition 187, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the Zapatista
uprising, suggesting that discrimination is based in structural inequalities and
is linked to organizing in Latin America.

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Marita Sturken (1997: 17) suggests that screening traumatic events in a public context provides a narrative that reframes them: Memory often takes the
form not of recollection but of cultural reenactment that serves important
needs for catharsis and healing. By situating the beatings of migrants in the
context of other protests, Sorrondeguy suggests that Latinas and Latinos reject
hegemonic discourses. Sturken continues: It is precisely the instability of
memory that allows for renewals and redemption without letting the tension
of the past in the present fade away. Thus, by framing the beating as part of
the consequences of colonialism, globalization, and nativism, Sorrondeguy
memorializes the victims. The film provides some healing of the trauma and
constructs solidarity, placing individual experience in cultural memory for
public comment and reflection.
The film ends with scenes of young Latino punks performing in garages,
the classical start for rock bands, leaving the viewers with the understanding
that new performers will join the scene, which is ongoing. Sorrondeguy narrates: For us, being punk didnt mean letting go. It meant listening to their
history and getting somewhere, to get to a new level.
Beyond the Screams/Ms all de los gritos has been well received. At the first
screening, at Roosevelt High School in East Los Angeles in 1999, according to
Sorrondeguy, one cholo youth said, You know, man, Im not into your punk
stuff and all that screaming, but your video is cool, man; you guys are down.
Seeing it cross over, and people having a better understanding of it, is really
interesting and cool. Jos Palafox says, I cannot overestimate the importance
of Los Crudos. I think they really helped out a lot of bands, a lot of kids that
would go to their shows, and they did it. Cecilia Brennan appreciated Los
Crudoss political contribution: They provided historical context in relation
to U.S. foreign policy and transnationalism to kids who did not have access
anywhere else. The DIY ethic has made the circulation of the film fairly widespread despite its limited institutional distribution. Sorrondeguy (2004)
explains: Ive met people who say, I saw your film in the Czech Republic,
and Im, like, Wow, howd it get there? And I dont know; its gone. Ive lost
track. The punks are great for bootlegging, so it just goes; it has a life of its
own, and Im thankful for that. The film received a First-Time Filmmaker
Award at the 2001 San Antonio Film Festival. It is still screened at film conferences and in college classes and the Latina/o punks continue to perform. At
the films debut at the university where I teach there was a full house and it
was received with rousing cheers.
One tension in the film is about whether to be open about gay sexuality
during performances. In one scene, the predominantly male fans are pushing
one another, confirming the view that punk can be masculinist and aggressive.
Sorrondeguy explains:
I didnt really touch on sexuality much in that film. But I almost view it like a
song. Do you sing everything in one song, or do you break it up? You write specific songs dealing with specific issues. And Los Crudos was really talking about
Latino/Chicano issues, politics, and there was a little queer stuff going on but I
think I saved a lot of the queer stuff for Xlimp wristX [his current band].

After Los Crudos broke up, Sorrondeguy formed another band, Harto (Fed
Up), that attempts to deliver a message in a new way about the 2004 roundups
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Zavella / BEYOND THE SCREAMS 13

of undocumented migrants, the womens murders in Jurez, and other issues

through performance art and music. He says, My dream band would be an
all Chicano/Latino queer punk bandwhat would that be like? It would be
the best thing: a drag, Chicano/Latino, political, hysterical, everything else all
rolled up in one. It would make people walk away and say, What the hell was
that? After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, Sorrondeguy focused on
the politics of gender and sexuality directly through music in an all-gay,
straight-edge band called Xlimp wristX, which, according to multiple web
sites, continues to perform.
Deborah Pacini Hernandez and her colleagues (2004: 20) argue that rock
has served as a vehicle for participatory action and a site for expressing a
political discourse or agency that is either too dangerous or impossible to
express through other means.... Rockers have assumed their right to
belong to the nation and thus to have their voices heard as citizens. While the
rock scene overall has much work to do in deconstructing racism, sexism, and
homophobia, Beyond the Screams/Ms all de los gritos represents the Latina/o
punk scene as a site of dialogue and negotiation of difference although it is
silent about queers. Sorrondeguy (2004) deploys a pan-Latino political perspective, mindful that this film represents his vision of the Latino punk scene:
Kids are talking about really important things; its not just Im young and
pissed and hate Mom and Dad. Theyre talking about a lot of stuff thats related
to those communities right now and its contemporary and very fresh. A lot of
the bands are addressing issues related to Jurez or to immigration. This is the
voice of the Chicano movement of the future.

By situating the Latina/o punk scene and his documentary film within the
Chicano movement, Sorrondeguy resignifies the representation of the Chicano
movement as ongoing, with punkeras and punkeros as key contributors to
political vitality. Further, he theorizes an expanded Mexicanidad that flourished
in the historical specificities of the 1990s and counters the tensions between
Mexicans and other Latinos (De Genova and Ramos-Zayas, 2003). Latina/o
punks are well aware that, from a nativist point of view, Latinos are often racialized as undocumented Mexicans. Thus performance of Latina/o punk music
becomes a site of struggle over representation in which activists contest the
treatment of Mexicans and, by extension, all Latinos, including the denigration
of their language and culture. The film presents narratives about painful events
and racism that the dominant culture would rather forget, turning individual
trauma into cultural memory. Los Crudoss technologies of memory are based
in pedagogy, the performance of songs, critique of social issues, framing of
political perspectives, and solicitation of audience responses that are deeply
meaningful to punkeras and punkeros. I argue that the texts, representations,
and performances discussed here create powerful archives of feelings that are
transnational, forging deliberate counterpublics in the United States that
denounce the deaths, mistreatment, and exploitation of migrants. Thus, in the
production of the film, in its circulation around the globe, and in its the text,
Beyond the Screams/Ms all de los gritos provides an archive for the expression of
rage against nativist politics and a desire for social justice. The film documents
a counterpublic that extends beyond the nation, reflecting the struggles of
Latino communities aqu that foster cultural citizenship with those from all.
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14LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

NOTES
1. According to Sturken (1997: 10), who draws from Foucault, technologies of memory are
not only contestatory but practices that people enact upon themselves. In this sense, the
embodiment of memory (and its perceived location in objects that act as substitutes for the body)
is an active process with which subjects engage in relation to social institutions and practices.
2. Punk is a variant of rockmass-media-diffused contemporary music that makes use of
electric or electronic instrumentation. The rock scene, a complex of cultural practices, including
fashion, hairstyle, dance, and that indefinable quality known as attitude, is derived from the
hybrid musical form rock n roll, which is performed by black, white, and Latino musicians and
characterized by Afro-American aesthetics and performance styles (Pacini Hernandez,
Fernndez-LHoeste, and Zolov, 2004: 45). The punk scene is divided by structures of class,
race, gender, and politics; the subcultures include Goth, industrial, straight-edge, Latina/o, black,
Republican, Christian, and a combination of punk and hip-hop. Hard-core contrasts with
other punk musical aesthetics such as bubble-gum punk, which is more melodic.
3. To counter punks excesses, some punks centered in Washington, DC, formed the
straight-edge movement, which forbids drinking, drugs, and one-night stands and insists on
vegetarianism. Initially it was perceived as an upper-middle-class white movement, and some
of its proponents were militant in their demands for conformity to straight-edge politics.
4. A series of all-female bands formed the movement Riot grrrl, self-described as girls and
boys who stamped out sexism and inequality wherever they saw it (Rosenberg and Garofalo,
1998).
5. For example, Ebullition #25, a joint release by Spitboy and Los Crudos, sold out after 6,000
copies (http://www.ebullition.com/catalog25.html (accessed August 26, 2008).
6. In 1973 a neofascist military coup brought political repression, impoverishment, and
social inequality to Uruguay, including the incarceration, disappearance, torture, and exile of
activists of the oppositional Tupamaro guerrilla movement. The military dictatorship remained
in power until 1985. In this context, the preservation, cultivation, and passing on of cultural
memory to youngsters cut off from it became the most important task of the times (Trigo, 2004:
135). In 2006, charges of aggravated homicide were filed against Juan Mara Bordaberry, who
was president during the neofascist regime. In 2010, Bordaberry was sentenced to 30 years in
prison and he died in 2011.
7. Nueva cancin is characterized by its stylized, urban rendition of folk genres and by socialist, nationalist, and populist lyrics intended to raise social and political awareness especially of
commercialized foreign influences (Trigo, 2004: 125; Pacini Hernandez, Fernndez-LHoeste, and
Zolov, 2004: 1011).
8. Los Olimareos is an Uruyaguan duo consisting of Braulio Lpez and Pepe Guerra that
has been performing for over 30 years. For an interview by Claudio Kleiman, see http://www.
pagina12web.com.ar/diario/espectaculos/6-41777-2004-10-2.html (accessed August 26, 2008).
9. All lyrics are from a lyric sheet that the band passed out at its performances and are used
here with permission. The translations are mine.
10. This film and the CD Discografa are available by contacting Martn Sorrondeguy at martincrudo@yahoo.com.
11. Performing rock music was sometimes considered a crime in Latin America and was
effectively banned for over a decade in Mexico beginning in 1971 (Pacini Hernandez, FernndezLHoeste, and Zolov, 2004: 2).
12. According to Cecilia Brennan, the singer is actually a Latino from El Salvador. However,
to many of the viewers with whom I have watched this film he looks white, and there are other
men who look white in the audience.

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Zavella / BEYOND THE SCREAMS 15

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