Sounds of Crossing

Alex E. ChÁvez is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame and produced the album Serrano de CorazÓn by Guillermo VelÁzquez y Los Leones de la Sierra de XichÚ.

"Chavez uses the songs of the borderlands to talk about immigration into the US and the culture that has sprung up around the border. He pulls in both history and current situations – and best of all, his own experiences as a Mexican academic and musician – to create a multidimensional, gorgeous book." - Alejandra Oliva (Remezcla) "Bold and engaging. . . . Teeming with moments of intimacy, and a genuine attention to humanity. . . . Courageous and timely. . . . Sounds of Crossing will be of interest not only to scholars across disciplines and musical genres, as it relates aurality and aesthetics to political and social life, but also to non-academic lovers of music. This is a book of humanity, and a book of stories." - Nandini Rupa Banerjee-Datta (Current Musicology) "Alex E. ChÁvez has made an important contribution in the fields of cultural anthropology, ethnomusicology, folklore, history, and immigration studies with his work, Sounds of Crossing. . . . A must read for those interested in the lives, experiences, and music of undocumented people in the United States." - José R. López Morín (Anthropos) "Few scholarly works have attempted to link the study of popular music and literary practices to the experience of international migration and fewer still have done so in as compelling a way as ChÁvez has done." - David Spener (Bulletin of Latin American Research) "Sounds of Crossing succeeds in introducing Huapango Arribeno to the world, articulately weaving between the daunting cliffs of anthropological theory and the lush valleys of sung poetry and anecdote, carrying the mellifluous sounds of Espanol and a vihuela on its back, greeting across space and time, singing the songs of the unheard." - Renata Yazzie (Linguistic Anthropology) "The rigor and depth of both the ethnographic and musical work in this text, and the joining of the two, is a rare find in contemporary ethnography." - Kristina M. Jacobsen (Anthropological Quarterly)

• Acknowledgments  xiIntroduction: American Border/Lands  11. Aurality and the Long American Century  342. Companions of the Calling  623. Verses and Flows at the Dawn of Neoliberal Mexico  1304. Regional Sounds: Mexican Texas and the Semiotics of Citizenship  1985. From Potosi to Tennessee: Clandestine Desires and the Poetic Border  2326. Huapango sin Fronteras: Mapping What Matters and Other Paths  278Conclusion: They Dreamed of Bridges  316Epilogue: "Born in the U.S.A."  327Appendix A: Musical Transcriptions  331Appendix B: Improvised Saludados  349Notes  361References  387Index  411