Onda Latina

The KUT Longhorn Radio Network Presents: Mexican American Experience Collection

Audio recordings including interviews, music, and informational programs related to the Mexican American community and their concerns in the series "The Mexican American Experience" and "A esta hora conversamos" from the Longhorn Radio Network, 1976-1982.

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PROGRAM INFO

Title:
Amparo Ochoa: La Nueva Cancion And Political Currents In Mexico
Program #
1981-11
Theme:
Culture

Series:
Music, Politics
Host:
Linda Fregoso
Guest:
Amparo Ochoa
Date:
Jan 30, 1981

Amparo Ochoa: La Nueva Cancion and Political Currents in Mexico

Amparo Ochoa discusses her particular style of folk music, its influences and the message she seeks to convey to her audience. Ochoa is part of a larger trend of folk singers, mostly university students, who became popular during the counterculture era of the 1960s in Latin America. Their music, which usually incorporated indigenous instruments and protests social injustice, often faced severe repression. Ochoa, who is from Sinaloa, sings about historic social struggles in Mexico. Her music blends political songs with traditional Mexican styles and she discusses how her music expresses her own interpretation of what she sees and hears around her, both in terms of music and politics. However, her music does not typically have an overt political message because, Ochoa explains, she seeks to attract as broad an audience as possible.

She also discusses the Mexican government’s support for music and culture. She explains that she has never experienced repression or censorship. To the contrary, the government has provided several opportunities for her to play to international audiences.

Fregoso then discusses the particular brand of protest Ochoa espouses and notes that most of her songs are about the Mexican Revolution of 1910. She sings about the political struggles revolutionaries fought for, and in so doing glorifies a history the government accepts and promotes. Although Ochoa is concerned with social protest, she does not believe it is her role to raise people’s consciousness. Rather, she tries to create music that is complex enough that the social message is not necessarily obvious and must be sought out.

KEYWORDS

1968
Amparo Ochoa
Chile
Corridos
Counterculture
Cultural Influence
Daniel Garcia
Daniel Viglietti
Folk Music
Higher Education
Inti Illiman
Joan Baez
Jorge Saldaña
La Nueva Cancion
Latin America
Mexican Government
Mexican Revolution
Mexico
Music Festivals
Music History
Pancho Villa
Partido Revolucionario Institucional
Protest music
Ranchera
Repression
Sinaloa
Socially Conscious Art
the 60s
Transnationalism
UNAM
University Students
Victor Jara
Violeta Parra
Youth culture
 

Center for Mexican American Studies | Department of History | The Benson Latin American Collection

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