49 Congreso Internacional del Americanistas (ICA) |
|
Quito Ecuador7-11 julio 1997 |
Rubén Urbizagastegui y Paul Almeida
Del Analisis De La Musica Nativa En Contexto Ritual A La Comprension De Procesos Socioculturales: Una Discusion Etnomusicologica A Partir De Casos Americanos
Cutumay Camones : Popular Insurgency And Music In El Salvador
Por: Rubén Urbizagastegui and Paul Almeida
Introduction:
This paper is part of a larger research project that examines the extent to which popular music transmitted the collective action frame and strategies of the mass/insurgent movement in El Salvador between 1970-1990. The word popular in El Salvador denotes the social classes that constitute the numerical majority in Salvadoran society: the peasantry, the working-class, the urban poor, and the lower middle-class. In accord with this definition, popular music means music performed for (and produced by) the popular classes.popular in El Salvador is emphasized here to dispel any confusion with the notion of popular music in the USA, which is synonymous with commercial music produced by the multi-billion dollar entertainment industry. In the context of successive military (and civilian-military) governments and internationally notorious human rights abuses (Americas Watch 1982; Arnson 1993), music served as far more than simple entertainment in El Salvador. Popular music in El Salvador provided a means of conveying oral history and mobilizing broad sectors of society (e.g., teachers, peasants, urban workers, students, and church) to denounce the repressive military regime and appeal for political democratization and national liberation.
The musical outpouring under study here was largely the result of musicians and other artists forming a popular cultural movement in the mid-1970's (Kirk 1984; Trabanino 1993). Between 1970-1990 there were approximately 40 popular protest musical groups operating inside and outside of El Salvador. Some of the music was recorded clandestinely with simple technical equipment in the National University of El Salvador (ASTAC Interview 1996), while other groups were able to secure professional recording contracts through international solidarity organizations in Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba, Canada, USA and Europe. To date, there have been few systematic analyses of the lyrical content of this cultural movement or interpretations of its sociological import (see Kirk 1984, Marroquin 1985, Herrera 1988).
A case study of the Salvadoran popular musical group Cutumay Camones demonstrates the importance of music in national liberation struggles, and in the Salvadoran struggle in particular. An interpretive form of content analysis is applied to the four recordings Cutumay Camones produced (38 songs) in 1982, 1984, 1987 and 1988 to explore the multidimensional nature of popular protest music in the Salvadoran national liberation struggle.
Import of Culture
in Social Movements
Recent social movement research points to the neglect of a serious analysis of culture in protest movements (McAdam 1994). Popular music provides an avenue into addressing this theoretical lacuna. Historical studies of Western European political history have documented the importance of music in mobilizing and legitimating mass movements. For example, popular translations of opera and other elite musical forms played a pivotal role in unifying popular movements in Italy and France in the politically tumultuous years between 1780-1852 (Miller 1989).
This case study analysis of music during the Salvadoran insurgency involves a wide array of theory and literature to consider, including: ethnomusicology, and theories of communication, ideology, social movements, and imperialism. In this paper we analyze the ideological and communicative dimensions of popular music in relation to social movements. In particular, we are interested in the theoretical work on the cultural framing of social movements and match how well the experience of popular music in El Salvador fits this kind of perspective. The idea of a cultural frame has been developed as a synthesis of Erving Goffman and Antonio Gramsci by social movement researchers such as David Snow, Robert Benford, Sydney Tarrow and William Gamson. Most of the empirical studies on cultural frames have involved social movements in Western Europe and the USA.
Cultural framing involves a process whereby social movements bracket out and shape the social world in a manner consonant with movement goals. In order for a movement to be potent and viable it must have a cultural frame (Snow et al. 1986, Snow and Benford 1988). Movements create ideologies that punctuate shared injustices and accentuate experiences of oppression in a fashion consistent with widespread cultural beliefs. This serves a number of purposes: it reinforces beliefs and solidarity among already committed movement members, evokes further sympathy from potential supporters, and makes appeals to the broader society that the situation is truly unjust and must be changed (Moore 1991). Examples of cultural frames include civil rights in the African American liberation struggle in the 1950s and 1960s in the USA, and autonomy and workerism in the 1960s Italian protest wave (Tarrow 1989). In El Salvador insurgents framed their movement in terms of national liberation.
In order to carry out a frame, a movement has to conjure up historic events, shared experiences, martyrs, as well as vilify oppressive groups and social structures (e.g., the oligarchy, the national guard, and neo-colonialism/imperialism). Also worth noting is that cultural frames need some kind of institutional support to subsist and reproduce. In El Salvador the church played a pivotal role during the 1970s providing resources, moral sanctioning, and an autonomous public sphere to denounce the military and oligarchy. For example, the Catholic Church Radio YSAX played protest music throughout the late 1970s (Kirk 1984, Lopez Vigil 1994, Cuellar Interview 1996, Arreaza-Camero 1995). Usually researchers refer to movement documents and press, public demonstrations, statements by leaders, and mass media presentation as the way in which the cultural frame is actually embodied and conveyed to a broader public. It is our contention that culture, in the form of popular music, played a focal role in elaborating and disseminating the cultural frame of the mass movement in El Salvador between 1970 and 1992, in effect, strengthening the movement as a whole.
Besides framing work, popular music may also be used to communicate the tactical repertoire of a social movement. For instance, the lyrical content of songs may emphasize the importance of labor strikes or building neighborhood barricades. In third world rural regions with high illiteracy, popular music (and oral communication in general) may serve as a more powerful educator of movement strategy than written material. Also, popular protest music can be used to incorporate more people into the movement by making direct pleas for integration (Moore 1991). The expression of tactics and mobilization in popular protest music indicates that music serves more than ideological purposes - it reflects concrete strategic and political needs.
Popular protest music also performs a critical diversionary function in our case, in terms of boosting morale and entertaining the popular army (González 1994). The Salvadoran national liberation movement had 14,000 combatants in its ranks. In the Department of Morazan, the campesino musical group Los Torogoces played in soccer fields with audiences as high as 2,000 combatants dancing to its ranchera rhythms (Santiago Interview 1996). Popular music has traditionally provided inexpensive entertainment to the working and peasant classes of Latin American who can ill-afford the luxury of a night club or other elite recreational privileges.
The concepts of framing, communication of tactics and mobilization fit into a broader theory of music and social isomorphism. Here music is seen as anchored in an actually existing social structure (Lewis 1983). In our case, we are examining music in relation to social movements. The social structure is defined in terms of the balance of political forces in El Salvador at any one point in time (Ellacuría 1991, Manuat 1989). Therefore, the period in which the music was recorded and distributed should reflect the prevailing political situation that the social movement confronts. Framing, mobilization and tactics, and social isomorphism are the central sociological dimensions of popular protest music explored in this paper.
There exists as well social psychological dimensions of music in social movements. As the Durkheimian sociological tradition suggests, music can serve as a powerful force for group identification and solidarity, especially when experienced collectively in group rituals (Lewis 1987, Elterman 1989). Though important in our case, this dimension is beyond the scope of the present study, which would necessitate direct participant observation in order to adequately measure. A final interesting sociological realm of music to explore in social movements is the role of the musicians themselves. This approach places emphasis on cultural producers as a distinct social class fraction and investigates the degree to which they align with a social movement and how that in turn strengthens movement efficacy. Artists constitute a unique social grouping because of their ability to communicate and manipulate culturally relevant symbols that resonate with the larger population.
Popular music has been studied in other contemporary social movements. In the California farm worker movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, popular Chicano theater in the form of El Teatro Campesino had an enormous influence on the struggle. The actors sang corridos during skits dramatizing the plight of farm workers (Broyles-Gonzalez 1993). In Hawaii during the 1960s and 70s, the anti-colonial Renaissance movement challenged U.S. cultural hegemony on the islands through musical artists invocation of traditional rhythms and dress (Lewis 1987). In Grenada, revolutionary renditions of Calypso in the 1970s played a role in ousting the Gary dictatorship through providing a public place for the opposition to congregate (e.g., the We Tent) and denounce authorities (McLean 1986). And most importantly for El Salvador, the democratically-elected Unidad Popular government in Chile came to power in 1970 with the full support of nueva canción musicians (Morris 1986), while musicians in Nicaragua broadcasted protest songs against the Somoza regime over the clandestine Radio Sandino in the late 1970s. One facet all these struggles have in common is that cultural producers came to the aid of (or integrated into) the movement. This leads to larger questions of the factors causing social movement efficacy. Since the rise of working-class movements in the 19th century to new social movements of the late twentieth century, thinkers have grappled with the questions of class consciousness, subjective capacity, cognitive liberation and group identity. In short, what brings people to consensus and motivates them to engage in sustained collective action? People live in an institutional environment, and only by articulating social grievances that resonate with movement supporters and potential supporters - consistent within the boundaries and traditions of the extant cultural system - can a movement aspire to gain adherents and legitimate itself. This is partly the task of cultural producers, and in our case musicians. In El Salvador the majority of cultural producers appears to side with the insurgent forces.
Historical
Background
The 1970s in El Salvador were bracketed on one end by the Soccer War with Honduras in 1969 and at the other end by the precipitation of full civil war in early 1981. In this period the mass movement formed in reaction to the confluence of internal and external processes: (1) fraudulent national elections (1972, 1974 and 1977); (2) increased military repression; (3) increased social and economic displacement; and (4) a new cycle of national liberation struggles in the Third World. Popular musical groups also worked along with the mass movement as early as 1970. Musical performers from Chile (e.g., Violeta Parra, Victor Jara, Inti Illimani , Quilapayún ), Mexico (e.g., Ampara Ochoa, Gabino Palomares, Oscar Chavez), Argentina (e.g., Mercedes Sosa, Facundo Cabral, and Atahualpa Yupanqui ), Nicaragua (e.g., Mejía Godoy brothers), Cuba (e.g., Silvio Rodriguez, Pablo Milanés, Pablo Cuadra , Grupo Manguare ) and Venezuela (e.g., Los Guaraguao ) Los Guaraguao today continues to have widespread appeal with the Salvadoran popular classes. Most streetside kiosks in San Salvador carry a copy of the groups Casas de Cartón cassette. During the 1970s the military regime prohibited the playing of Los Guaraguao in public. The story of this group and its influence on Central American protest music has yet to be written. had an enormous influence on popular music and culture in El Salvador during this period (Marroquin 1985: 30-31, Trabanino 1993, Banda Tepeuani 1983).
After witnessing electoral fraud by the military government during national presidential elections in 1972, a period of mass organizing commenced. Unión Nacional Opositora (UNO). The UNO candidates actually won the presidency and vice-presidency, but the military government turned off electrical power during the tabulation of votes; when power was restored the military declared itself the victor. This sent a potent signal to many on the Salvadoran left that formal political participation was not the most appropriate path to resolving social and economic grievances. Cienfuegos (1993) recognizes a conjunction of objective conditions signaled by a crisis in the oligarchy which polarized into two antagonistic groups: reformists and terratenientes (large land owners); and subjective conditions expressed in the ascendency of a popular mass movement along with the emergence of a new inteligencia derived from the dialectical education instituted in the universities. In 1974, FAPU (the United Popular Action Front) came into existence through the support of Christian Base communities who were inspired by the emerging liberation theology. In 1975 the Popular Revolutionary Bloc (BPR) was formed, and in 1977 Ligas Populares - 28 de Febrero was established (LP-28) after a government massacre of students. These three organizations represented hundreds of thousands of Salvadoran peasants, urban workers, students, teachers, intellectuals and artists . Each of these three popular organizations worked independently of one another until 1980.
These mass organizations embodied the popular movement of El Salvador during the 1970s. After formal political access had been eclipsed by the duplicitous national elections of 1972 and 1977, the popular organizations set out on a strategy of mass mobilization and public demonstration as an alternative to the institutionalized corruption of the Salvadoran political system. By 1977 both the opposition coalition UNO and the BPR had their own cultural organizations. In 1976 UNO organized el Movimiento de Músicos y Cantores Populares Asociados (MUCAPAS) as a group of artists to promote the 1977 elections (Trabanino 1993: 13, Banda Tepeuani 1983). Popular protest and folkloric musical groups such as Mahucutah , Grupo Sol , Vahido Indio and Simiente (the latter two forming Banda Tepeauni in 1977), formed an integral part of MUCAPAS. The extraparliamentary BPR formed el Movimiento Cultural Popular (MCP) in 1977 (Kirk 1984). The MCP consisted of theatre groups, clowns, puppeteers, muralists, choirs, and musicians. El Grupo Yolocamba I Ta was the most active and influential protest music group in the MCP and in El Salvador in the late 1970s. Observers and movement insiders contend that these two cultural movements together comprised one of the largest political mobilizations of artists in Latin American history (KPFK 1981, Espinosa Interview 1996).
By 1979 the mass organizations were holding three demonstrations a week (Zamora 1991). Besides demanding political democracy, the popular organizations agitated for: a living wage for campesinos, better living conditions for urban slum-dwellers, and higher wages for public school teachers, to name a few. The long-term objective of the popular movement was to take political power or share a negotiated power through mobilizing a broad cross-section of Salvadoran society. This confrontational strategy had immense human consequences in the context of organizing under the nose of a military dictatorship . protection racket during this period while Baloyra (1982) prefers the term reactionary despotism. Throughout the 1970s hundreds of militants in the popular movement were tortured or lost their lives through open assassination during street demonstrations and land occupations or via the activity of clandestine death squads (Armstrong and Shenk 1982). Paradoxically, in the mid-to-late 1970s, this state-sponsored violence only strengthened the popular movement. For instance, the BPR quickly saw its base of support rise from 40,000 members in 1975 to 100,000 by 1980.
In addition to electoral fraud, the popular organizations gained much support from the newly displaced sectors of the Salvadoran population: peasants and the urban poor. Between 1960 and 1970 El Salvadors landless peasantry grew from 16 percent to 40 percent (Byrne 1994). The displacement was caused primarily by the further extension of export commercial agriculture. Many of the newly marginalized peasants migrated to the swelling shantytowns ( tugurios ) on the outskirts of San Salvador. The rural and urban poor combined constituted the mass base of the popular organizations, especially the BPR.
During the 1970s left-wing political-military organizations with links to the popular movement also began operating clandestinely in El Salvador. The two most prominent being the Popular Liberation Forces - Farabundo Marti (FPL) and the Peoples Revolutionary Army (ERP). The FPL was a splinter group of the Salvadoran Communist Party (PCS) that formed in 1970 after doctrinal disagreements over El Salvadors involvement in the Soccer War with Honduras. The ERP formed in 1971, and was led by left-wing Christian Democrats. The political-military organizations initiated sporadic urban and rural guerrilla activity during the 1970s. As the repression of the 1970s dragged on, the popular movement, political-military organizations and electoral opposition became more unified.
The political environment within El Salvador does not suffice in explaining the growth of a mass movement within the country during the 1970s. The 1970s on a global, geo-political scale were stamped by a new round of national liberation struggles against colonialism and neo-colonialism. In Africa anti-colonial struggles were successfully waged in Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea Bissau against Portugal; as well as in Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe against white settler minorities. In Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were up in arms.
Most importantly, at the regional level in Latin America, socialism was voted into power through mass organizing in Chile. Cuba was at its economic zenith, neighboring Nicaragua was in insurgency against the Somoza dictatorship, while Argentina and Uruguay had clandestine left organizations that were brutally crushed. This does not exhaust the list of countries with sizable left-wing movements during the 1970s in Latin America. Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Colombia, Honduras, and Paraguay also experienced a rise in national liberation and pro-democracy movements in this period. In addition, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Panama experienced nationalist military governments that also inspired this wave of popular protest. The multiple strategies of these anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggles diffused throughout the third world. In short, the 1970s (and early 80s) marked the final national liberation cycle of insurgency in the twentieth century in which El Salvador was conditioned by, as well as contributed to, its potent efficacy.
In October of 1979, young army officers launched a successful coup d'etat ousting the Humberto Romero dictatorship in El Salvador. This was in part inspired by the US embassy and moderate army officials in El Salvador in the hopes of heading off another Nicaragua which three months prior had experienced a popular revolution. The new ruling military junta integrated some civilian representatives of the opposition political parties (e.g., Social Democrats, Communists and Christian Democrats) into the new government and promised land reform. However, within the first few months of its existence military repression increased (Stanley 1996). The progressive civilians resigned from the junta and put their full energy into uniting the different opposition forces that now constituted the popular movement.
The power of the popular movement manifested itself on January 22, 1980 when the mass organizations, united under one umbrella, held a massive march commemorating the 48th anniversary of La Matanza . La Matanza refers to the brutal repression of a failed peasant and Indian insurgency led by Farabundo Marti in 1932. News of the planned insurgency reached the authorities before it had fully taken shape. The army subsequently murdered an estimated 30,000 people in three weeks, mostly Indian peasants. This tragedy was occluded from official Salvadoran history until research was published on the subject in the late 1960s. The event also serves as a key reference point for the popular movement in the 1970s as witnessed in popular protest music. This mass demonstration was held in the capital with an estimated 200,000 marchers (Stanley 1996) in a city with only one million inhabitants. Though this displayed the overwhelming support the popular movement held with the Salvadoran populace, the military was quick to respond to this open confrontation and challenge to its legitimacy. During the march, the army opened fire from positions on buildings above, killing 40 and injuring over 100 demonstrators. This event ended mass demonstrations as a tactic of the popular movement (with the exception of Monseñor Romeros funeral procession in late March and a national strike in June) until the mid-to-late 1980s. Following the January 22 march, the military and its closely-linked private security apparatus (e.g., ORDEN) unleashed a three year reign of terror directed against the popular movement (including artists), unprecedented in its violence since La Matanza of 1932. Between 1980 and 1982 the government killed an estimated 1,000 persons a month - nearly 1 percent of the national population (Armstrong and Shenk 1982, Americas Watch 1982, Stanley 1996). This marked the transition to full-blown civil war.
The intensified violence and repression brought on by the military either killed popular movement militants, sent them into exile, or pushed them into the expanding guerrilla armies. By the end of 1980 the unarmed popular opposition ceased to exist while the diverse guerrilla army factions united under one political-military organization: the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and its political wing the Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR), composed of vestiges of the popular organizations. The first major military operation of the FMLN/FDR involved a general insurrection on January 10, 1981, days before Ronald Reagan took executive power in Washington. In military terms the insurrection did not achieve its objectives, mass civilian support failed to materialize in the capital and the rebels retreated into the countryside. For the next eleven years the FMLN fought a protracted guerrilla war against the US-backed Salvadoran civilian-military government. By the mid 1980s the FMLN controlled nearly one-third of the countryside. However, increased U.S. funding forced the FMLN to breakdown into smaller units as the Salvadoran armed forces employed modern counterinsurgency strategies, especially aerial surveillance and bombardment. In November 1989, the FMLN launched its second general insurgency in which it fought the government to a military standstill for three weeks. This led to the peace agreement implemented in 1992, subsequently ending the twelve year war.
El Grupo
Cutumay Camones
In May of 1982, in the context of this political violence, the musical group Cutumay Camones was officially formed by a directive from the Peoples Revolutionary Party (ERP), one of the five parties that constituted the FMLN (Paco Interview 1996). Apparently, in 1981 one of the founding members, Eduardo, witnessed the performance of Yolocamba I Ta in the National Municipal Theatre in Lima, Peru (Espinosa Interview 1996). This event partially gave Eduardo the incentive to form a similar musical group. At the time, the ERP was in need of cultural ambassadors to represent the national liberation movement in the international community and build ties of solidarity. Other parties in the FMLN/FDR had long established cultural ambassadors for their respective parties (e.g., Yolocamba I Ta with the BPR/FDR and Banda Tepeauni with UNO). Los Torogoces de Morazan was formed to sustain morale among combatants within El Salvador and work for Radio Venceremos (González 1994). Cutumay divided its time between domestic performances and international tours.
Cutumay Camones takes its indigenous Nahuatl name from a canton in Santa Ana in western El Salvador in which the FMLN initiated one of its first uprisings in January of 1981 with a battalion of 101 combatants. The Salvadoran army received word of the guerrilla columns arrival in advance. When the battalion entered Cutumay Camones the army was already strategically positioned, surrounding the guerrilla force with substantially more soldiers and firepower. In the ensuing confrontation 97 of the original 101 guerrillas were killed. Electing this battle as the name for the musical ensemble pays tribute to those who have given their lives for the national liberation movement.
The group originally consisted of three persons (Eduardo, Gabino, and Ricardo) and two months later another two members integrated into the group (Paco and Israel). By 1984 another member integrated into the group (Lolo). Later the group was to consist of five core permanent members, four men (Lolo, Paco, Ricardo, Eduardo) and one woman (Teresa). It is interesting to note that they used nomes de guerre , for reasons of personal security. The group perceived itself as a collective and attributed the composition and arrangement of songs to Colectivo Musical Cutumay Camones as opposed to individual members ( Cutumay Camones 1983a).
Another characteristic of this group is that at the time of formation none of them were musicians except for Eduardo. All the members were from campesino, working-class or lower middle-class backgrounds (Paco Interview1996). Because the members needed to be trained in music they joined together in Managua as their home base, where Cutumays first musical presentation was given in La Casa del Maestro - an organization supported by the Nicaraguan Ministry of Education. Their first songs performed live were Vamos Ganando La Paz, El Machete Encachimbado, and Cuando . Vamos Ganando La Paz and Cuando have their origin in a group of Salvadoran refugee children whom Cutumay heard singing in Managua (Teresa Interview 1996).
Cutumay views its role as two-fold: (1) recover lost cultural traditions; and (2) use popular music as an instrument in the struggle for Salvadoran national liberation. The insert of Cutumays second album elaborates this point.
Cutumay Camones has undertaken the serious task of rescuing the cultural roots of the Salvadoran people and helping create the new song of the national liberation struggle of El Salvador... Cutumay Camones struggle has been one of recovering the cultural heritage and traditions of El Salvador which have been lost or destroyed over centuries of exploitation and repression...[and to] maintain what still exists ( Cutumay Camones 1985).
Cutumay partially achieves its cultural objectives by employing traditional rhythms (e.g., cumbia and ranchera ) and instruments (e.g., marimba, accordion, and guitarrón ).
Interpretive
Content Analysis
Cutumays first recording, Vamos Ganando La Paz , was recorded at the end of 1982 in Mexico. The Radio Venceremos Collective distributed Vamos Ganando La Paz beginning in the spring of 1983. The recording contains ten songs with a variety of themes. However, the theme of justifying the transition from a movement of the masses to armed resistance penetrates many of the songs. The first song, with the same name as the title of the recording, was an important guiding slogan for the FMLN throughout the war. Following Marxist political theory that politics is another form of war, the FMLN strategized that to reach a lasting social peace the only alternative for peasants and the working-class resided in a popular war of liberation. In 1982, when Cutumay recorded this piece, the FMLN had already spent two years in the mountains as a united military force. The Salvadoran opposition contended that the oligarchy had denied a democratic space for the popular classes on too many occasions. Thus, they gave the opposition no other alternative but a war to obtain a lasting peace. The title of the recording was also a political position of the FMLN/FDR which in 1982 offered a dialog with the Salvadoran government and United Sates, and in 1983 called for a negotiated peace - both overtures fell on deaf ears. A portion of the title song below expresses this sentiment.
We are winning peace, which has always been denied
to the exploited people by the criminal dictatorship
We are winning peace!
We are winning peace with Bolivar and Sandino
And a homeland blooming with Farabundo Marti
We are winning peace!
Another important piece on Vamos Ganado La Paz is the song Cuando. Each new stanza begins with When (Cuando), then proceeding to give the political and social conditions that have caused the organized left in El Salvador to take up arms:
When the history of the homeland
is made with the blood
of thousands of massacred brothers and sisters...
When prison bars and torture
are given for the violation of aspiring for freedom
while the assasins walk freely through the streets
the fist of all the people in arms
is the only alternative for justicia and freedom...
This music describes again the effort of the opposition to create democratic space and dialog with the hegemonic oligarchy and how the oligarchy responded with massacre, prison, torture, and the formation of death squads to eliminate popular resistance. The Salvadoran state is described as holding fraudulent elections while the assassins walk freely through the streets. As mentioned above, between 1980-1983 the Salvadoran military killed 30-50,000 people or one percent of the population.
Cutumay offers an autobiographical sketch in the song Santa Ana . The song is both an homage to the 97 combatants who fell January 17, 1981 in the Canton of Cutumay Camones in the department of Santa Ana, and a call for the people of Santa Ana ( Santanecos) to integrate themselves into the national liberation struggle. Santa Ana is a one of the major coffee growing regions in El Salvador in which the FMLN hoped to control and needed the collaboration of the local population.
Santa Ana which butterfly,
exploited and oppressed
today flies through your fields
searching for freedom
Santaneco our martyrs are calling
you to the struggle
Cutumay Camones lives in the popular struggle
Cutumay Camones lives in the popular struggle ...
Other important songs on Vamos Ganando La Paz include No, No, No, a la intervención, Radio Venceremos , and el Machete Encachimbado. No, No, No, a la intervención directs its message at the United States and its miltary escalation on the isthmus, including the construction of military bases in Honduras (Cutumay Camones 1983b). The song makes allusions to Vietnam as the possible consequence for intervening in the Salvadoran political crisis. Radio Venceremos is a kind of advertisement (including hours of operation) for one of the two FMLN clandestine radio stations. Radio Venceremos was the most important means of communicating the music of Cutumay Camones within the country. El Machete Encachimbado (told in the first person) plays on the contradiction between the plight of a semi-proletarianized campesino who has just lost his job on a hacienda, but I have my machete, as sharp as I am hungry. The machete is the indispensable tool of the Salvadoran campesino in everyday life, while it has also been used as a weapon in the popular peasant uprisings of 1833 and 1932 (Cutumay Camones interview 1983b).
Cutumays first recording, then, marks a particular historical juncture in the Salvadoran struggle. By the early 1980s in El Salvador the unarmed popular opposition had been completely repressed. Individuals in the popular classes faced a grave dilemma: risk the return to private life, collaborate with the military junta, go into exile, or join the guerrilla army. In this context, Vamos Ganando La Paz justifies the need for armed struggle as well as invites Salvadorans to join the rebellion. The recording intends also to inform the international community about the Salvadoran national liberation struggle.
In Cutumay's second album, Por Eso Luchamos, the conditions causing the war fade more into the background (except for the title song). Recorded in 1984 and distributed in 1985, the politico-military conflict had changed in El Salvador since the first recording. The title of the album again offers insight into the purpose of the recording and the lyrical content. Cutumay has two audiences in mind in this recording: international solidarity groups and the popular classes of El Salvador. International sympathizers are informed of the history of the struggle while homage is paid to those who have given their lives for the struggle. Also, recent military victories are publicized in this recording, strengthening morale of participants and supporters at home.
The FMLN had established sizable zones of popular control in the countryside by the mid-1980s (Dept. of Social Sciences Universidad de El Salvador 1987). The FMLN controlled much of Morazán and Chalatenango departments in Northern and Eastern El Salvador. With these new developments, Cutumay uses their second album to link recent victories to the earlier struggle as well as eulogize the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for these achievements. Cutumay (1985) describes the origin of the title song in the record jacket insert: The words of this song are based on a solemn oath issued by the General Command of the FMLN in the Eastern Front Francisco Sanchez at the end of a meeting in which the historic document of July 1983, Why is the FMLN fighting? was proclaimed. Cutumay arranged the direct message of this document into a musical piece:
We do not forget the children
Who die every day
Throughout the width and breadth of our land
We do not forget the suffering
In the burned-out slums
Of working class families
In search for their daily bread
We do not forget the sadness
Of our beloved people
Illiterate and barefoot
Thirsty for liberty
Chorus:
Raise the banners
It is time to struggle
There is no force that can hold back
The peace of tomorrow
The homeland is aflame,
Resplendent like a new sun
From the weapons in your hands
Liberty will arise
We do not forget the agony
Of our peasants
Without land and who daily eat
Tortillas with salt
We do not forget the crushing
Of women's dignity
In the factories or as maids
In the houses of the rich
We do not forget those assassinated
In the streets and in the countryside
The disappeared and tortured
All creators of peace
Chorus
Spoken:
In the name of this homeland
Bloody but insurgent and dignified
We will not accept the imperialist blackmail
Our weapons, a guarantee
For a future of peace
Liberty and democracy
Will never be laid down, never!
Chorus (Much louder than before)
It is clear in the above song that Cutumay is now framing the Salvadoran insurgency. Injustice is highlighted, who we are is punctuated, and the future direction of the struggle is drawn out. Economic, social and political injustices are tersely synthesized in the song, examples include: dying children, hunger, landlessness, torture and assassination. The chorus starkly conveys that the armed struggle continues as the only means to achieve national liberation. The juxtaposing of the everyday injustices (e.g., hunger and landlessness) with the more specific and contemporaneous political repression (e.g., torture and assassination) strikes a particularly powerful chord in this hymn. The line, " We do not forget the agony of our peasants without land and who daily eat tortillas with salt," points to the reality of land distribution in El Salvador and its social consequences, where 2 percent of the population owns 60 percent of the land (Barry 1987). The references to the "tortured," "disappeared," and "assassinated," bring to the foreground those who have been affected by the death squads and national guard over the last ten years.
The song sets a poignantly moral tone for the struggle in the sense that each new stanza introducing a tragedy begins with "we do not forget." The song commences quietly and terminates after a much louder chant of the chorus. Por Eso Luchamos also represents the multi-class nature of the struggle which includes allusions to slum dwellers, the working class, and displaced peasantry (i.e., the popular classes).
Out of the nine songs contained in the second album, one-third are "martyr" songs. In these martyr songs important figures in Salvadoran history are raised to the level of deities in the sense they have arisen from the dead or are immortal. One of the martyr songs, "Feliciano Ama," is about an Indian Cacique who in part led the 1932 uprising in western El Salvador and was later slain by the national guard. The national guard placed his eviscerated body in the town square of Izalco as a warning to other indigenous sympathizers. Cutumay attempts to recover a popular history in this song as well as educate the Salvadoran popular classes. Popular heroes such as Feliciano Ama were banned from the official history of the Salvadoran state. A portion of the song appears below:
Because they killed you, Ama
Feliciano comrade
When all is said and done
They never killed you
Just like they never shot
Anastacio comrade
Nor did the bullets ever hit
My papa Farabundo
Well, if you glance
Over there at the mountain
You'll see they've been growing
Aquinos in the canefields
Amas in the cornfields
Martis in the coffee groves
And through their lives
The dawn has set itself afire!
Feliciano Ama is immortalized in this song (along with Anastasio Aquino and Farabundo Marti) in a way that connects his death in 1932 to the contemporary movement. In fact, the FMLN named its western front after Feliciano Ama. In a sense, Feliciano Ama is resurrected through the current struggle.
Deifying Feliciano Ama has enormous benefits for the FMLN. Besides historically linking the current struggle to 1932, it identifies the national liberation struggle with the indigenous population - which is not a clearly defined cultural group in El Salvador after La Matanza.
The other two martyr songs on the album are eulogies to combatants that fell in battle in the 1970s and early 1980s. A common thread running through all three martyr songs has to do with the way the martyr is immortalized. The individual martyr becomes resurrected in the earth, soil, and crops hallowed by Salvadoran indigenous spirituality and folklore. Whole FMLN battalions (e.g., BRAZ) and zones of operation are named after these martyrs (Dept. of Social Sciences Universidad de El Salvador 1987). This results in the individual martyr's transformation into a huge military force.
Another important song, Las Milicias Populares , explains tactics employed by the FMLN to protect civilian populations from army incursions. The song goes a step beyond in that it celebrates and pays tribute to the work of the popular militias (Paco Interview 1996). Also, the song describes what the popular militias do as opposed to emphasizing incorporation . Finally, the last stanza mentions that the popular militias are active throughout the entire country, in all fourteen departments of El Salvador; this signifies the increasing organizational strength of the popular militias - which became a vital asset in supporting smaller FMLN units in the mid-1980s against counterinsurgency tactics (Paco Interview 1996). Especially noteworthy militias (e.g., Chalatenango) are given special recognition in the song:
Nowadays the streets of my town
Are controlled
By the battle-steeled compas
Who have formed the militias
Maria, Chepe, and Sebastian
Have gone off to join them.
Let's go, popular militia
To prepare the ambush
The convoy of military cargo is nearing
All the compañeros are ready
To set up the barricades
Place the mines
And blow up the trucks
Chorus:
That's us, the popular militias,
In the countryside and in the city
Thousands of men and women
Who've gone to join
We come from everywhere
From the popular masses
Defending the victories
Of the Revolution
The militias from San Miguel
From La Union and Usulatan
Orchestrate their blows decisively
With those from Cabanas and Morazan
Let's go, militia
To organize those at Ahuachapan
Santa Ana is ready to fight
With its own type of fierceness
Izalco and its '32
Will set off Sonsonate
Chalatenango-you don't even have to say it-
Always present in the fight
San Vicente and La Libertad
San Salvador, La Paz and Cuscatlan
United we will march with the FMLN!
Cutumay's third work, Patria Chiquita Mia, was recorded in Holland in 1987. The emphasis on peace in this recording is relevant in terms of peace talks initiated throughout Central America at this time. El Salvadors government allowed political refugees to repatriate for the first time since the war began as a direct result of the Contadora peace accord (Barry and Castro 1991). This recording includes seven songs with lyrics and one instrumental (which emphasizes the traditional marimba del arco ). One third of the songs on this album are about peace . The civil war had been raging for seven years with well-over 63,000 dead when the album was recorded (Dept. of Social Sciences Universidad de El Salvador 1987). In the songs "Peace is not a Gift" and "Cumbia of Peace" the message is directed at the tri-partite power structure that constitutes neo-colonialism in El Salvador: the military-civilian government, the oligarchy, and the United States government. Both songs clearly convey that there can be no peace without negotiating substantive socio-economic and political reforms which the FMLN views as the root cause of the conflict.
Patria Chiquita Mia has many themes in addition to a negotiated peace and dialogue. Cutumay also performs framing work in this album. In the song, "Workers and Peasants," Cutumay combines nature imagery with the everyday lives of its supporters -- urban workers and campesinos.
Workers and Peasants
The sun at birth
is like a new bud
that bursts into flower
to the land bathed with its warmth
there in the country the
little farms raise their heads,
they seem like little birds
extending their wings
There lives my brother
the poorest peasant
He that sows the seeds
of coffee and cotton,
he that delivers the earth
of corn and beans
with the strength he gives
the plow and hoe
chorus:
Workers and peasants
untiring fighters
constructors of my homeland
forgers of peace
united we form
the invincible vanguard
of this people so valiant
that is called El Salvador...
There are the fragile little houses
of tin and cardboard
that if the wind respects them
it is because they have heart
There lives the worker
Marginal and exploited
he takes in his mind the journey
that makes him remember
the thousands and thousands of threads
that the machine chews
and converts into beautiful cloth
that his children will never wear
A similar message is projected in Cutumays musical version of Camaradas del Monte y la Ciudad, originally written as a poem by Nidia Diaz, an FMLN combatant, while imprisoned in the mid-1980s. Another song worth noting on Patria Chiquita is Pueblos Latinamericanos . In this song Cutumay places the Salvadoran conflict in the broader context of Latin America and the Caribbean in the common struggle against US imperialism. The invocation of "Mestiza America" versus the aggressive United States proves a useful tactic in playing up the commonalties between the diverse peoples of the Americas. The chorus emphasizes those countries nearest to the Salvadoran struggle in terms of their relationship to the USA (e.g., Cuba as the model of Latin American socialism, Nicaragua defending its recent popular triumph, and Guatemala fighting a protracted guerrilla war similar to the FMLN).
Again in this album, as in previous recordings, Cutumay has a song with the same name as the title. In this song Cutumay plays on the metaphor of the motherland and personifies El Salvador as a disheveled mother who will be given a new dress and hairdo in the future liberated society. The song was originally written as a poem by Marvin Galeas of the Radio Venceremos Collective. Galeas wrote the poem for his daughter in exile whom he had never met (Galeas Interview 1996). Cutumay later obtained a copy of the poem and arranged it to music. The chorus appears below:
Patria Chiquita Mia
Chorus:
My little motherland
My pretty little mama
You will see how pretty you will be
When you are free
Your hair nicely done and a new dress
Rosy cheeked
You will be beautiful, much grander
My little Motherland
At first glance the song appears blatantly patriarchal. At another level, however, El Salvador has experienced years of cataclysmic violence and destruction. Cutumay reaches here for a post-liberation aesthetic. Nicaragua, Nicaraguita (Galeas Interview 1996) .
The lyrical content of the final recording, recorded at the end of 1988, reflects the military exigencies of the plans for the 1989 insurrection. Twelve of the thirteen songs on the fourth recording make frequent references to the need to strengthen the guerrilla army and prepare for popular uprising. A cursory analysis of four songs from the final recording entitled, Llegó la Hora, demonstrates this. The lead song with the same title as the recording appears below.
Rise up poor class, the time has come
Take this thing seriously and liberate El Salvador
The homeland needs you with your fist and with your voice
Let's fire the guns and shout, Revolution
Chorus:
Look, the time has come
and you cannot be a spectator
the struggle is from the people and will not stop
until it achieves popular triumph
It is the peoples obligation to prepare the material
and to learn how to make popular armaments
Integrate yourself into the guerrilla, everyone can shoot
So we are ready for the final blow
The title of the song and recording alone relays a powerful message. The time has finally come and supporters of the insurgency need to know how to act appropriately; the song and the album offer general directions to this question. In the above song, there is much less framing work than direct appeals to the Salvadoran populace for integration into the insurgent forces. The song calls for the popular classes to rise up and join the guerrilla army. The song appears aimed at potential movement supporters. It is also clear that this is a national liberation struggle with its emphasis on identity with the Salvadoran territory, i.e., the homeland needs you. In the chorus Cutumay makes a moral demand that one cannot be a spectator. Explicit directions are also given in the recording on what the militias have to do such as fabricate popular arms (e.g., molotovs, casa-bobos , trampas ) and prepare war materials (e.g., drinks, medical supplies and food). Cutumay expresses confidence in the guerrilla in that they will continue the struggle until popular triumph. This confidence is backed by the acknowledgment that the guerrilla now have sufficient fire power and will fight back, which was an organizational weak-point of the FMLN in 1981.
Another song on Llegó la Hora expresses many similar themes, except in more detail. The title of this song, La Patria te Necesita, again repeats the appeal to nationalist sentiment and insists on peoples participation in the insurrection with the preparation and fabrication of instruments of war and storage of arms, food, and medicine. In addition, Cutumay notes the importance of tactical instructions and the identification of spies. In La Patria te Necesita Cutumay appears to reach out to a larger portion of the Salvadoran population.
The dictatorship is falling apart, the hour is arriving
All the people are united and prepared for victory
Today the homeland needs your combative fervor
and today this song invites you to present your voice
to plan how you will defend
each neighborhood and block with the best procedure
We ought to strengthen the Popular Committees
and singing these popular songs some will be able to learn
If you choose a good place to construct trenches and barricades
the national guard will not pass
Meanwhile, there are so many construction tools to gather
with excellent pipes and shovels we will begin the operation
Chorus:
The dictatorship is falling apart, the hour is arriving
All the people are united and prepared for victory
Today the homeland needs your combative fervor
and today this song invites you to present your voice
It is necessary to determine who will make the contact bombs
and the popular armament
In nice camouflaged holes these arms will be hidden
until the moment arrives that we use them
the popular medicines you will get from the expert compas and attend to the injured
basic grains, dried milk, water, and other foods need
to be stored wherever you can find space.
Chorus
Runners in the field is a very important tactic
house by house, the enemy doesnt miss a space
A good list of the spies has already been prepared
nobody should be without it
Chorus
The tone of the song implies that a consensus exists among the Salvadoran popular classes in that all the people are united. The question at this historical moment, then, is where one fits in the struggle. What emerges is a division of labor within the insurgent movement. "The dictatorship is falling apart," (though a civilian president resided in 1988-1989) and the popular classes must be in a position to take advantage of this political opportunity. People with varying skills can find a place for themselves at this political juncture by collecting construction materials, storing food, digging trenches, or constructing barricades. Similar to the role of Guitarra Armada in the Nicaraguan national liberation struggle, music serves here as a key means to diffuse and communicate the practical tactics of the insurgency. Guitarra Armada is a recording produced by the Nicaraguan Ministry of Culture in the 1980s. The album contains songs that were used in the 1970s by Sandinista militants in order to teach movement supporters how to defend themselves from the national guard.
Besides the militaristic nature of the cassette, Cutumay employs humor in the sarcastic song Don Simon. In this song the high-pitched voice of an old man makes fun of the physical characteristics of different combatants, directs the construction of popular weapons, while at the same time lifting morale. This work also pays homage to the veterans of the war. Don Simon himself is a veteran of the liberation struggle and now passes down his experience to a new generation. The use of the formal Don garners respect in the Spanish language, meaning a distinguished elder. Don Simon becomes a mentor to the younger combatants since he is now too old to fight.
Miren cipotes locos oiganme bien pues aqui va la leccion:
Alisten las palas y los botiquines
las mechas tallas clavos y adoquines
las piuchas las parras los palos y los balines
estacas labradas las pechetrines
abramos las zanjas pero cuidadito
y las barricadas con piedras llantas toda la majada
todo pa la insureccion
aunque nos duelan los huesos cheros
a hecharle huevos
Humor has been seen by other cultural researchers as a key weapon of resistance and catharsis by the working-class and oppressed groups in contrast to the propriety and authoritarianism of the ruling classes. Humor is often transmitted from generation-to-generation through an oral collective memory (Argueta in Dalton 1987, Broyles-Gonzalez 1993).
Los Helicopteros provides instructions on how to shoot-down a helicopter. These instructions are based on personal experience in surviving similar counterinsurgent aerial atacks. Examples such as Mozote and Arpatala where the FMLN pulled down helicopters in the past are provided in the song. When a fleet of helicopters arrives the guerrilla is forced into an unequal military confrontation.
Se escucha ya el gran zumbido
del helicopetro llegar
escucheme bien compita
la instruccion que le voy a dar
puede que truene fuerte
como truena un ciclon
pero con cuetes y granadas
lo apearemos de un jalon.
No tires como M1 ni con M16
Tira con M60 con un palo con G3
Tirale siempre adelante
Nunca le apuntes a el
pues si le tiras derecho
la bala se va a perder
cuando venga en picada
ahi si apuntale bien
o cuando va en levantada
pues no lleva fuerza el tren
Si le pegas al piloto
ahi no más se va a caer
si la helice le rompes
rapidito ya vas a ver
The same military-type tactics are repeated in songs such as Los Fusilitos , M-16 (e.g., instructions on how to arm, aim, fire, clean and disarm this rifle), Hoy Nació el día del Pueblo , La Mechuda (description of a popular armament - a baseball bat with nails hidden under artificial hair to create chaos during the insurrection as well as popular protection from the national police), and nearly all the songs on Llegó la Hora . Radio Venceremos broadcasted Llegó la Hora throughout winter, spring, and summer of 1989 as a means to prepare its supporters for the November insurrection (Paco Interview 1996).
At the end of 1988 Cutumay formally disbanded after the recording of Llegó La Hora . Just as the political party created Cutumay in 1982, it was the decision of the political party to terminate the group with military exigencies outweighing the partys cultural needs. The individual members of Cutumay each had different roles to play in the November, 1989 insurrection: Teresa was sent to work with Radio Venceremos, Eduardo left to promote international solidarity, Paco integrated into the infantry of the San Miguel front where he suffered serious injuries in combat, Lolo and Israel (an early Cutumay member) fought in the Cojutepeque front (Cabañas Dept.), where Israel died in combat.
This interpretive analysis of songs selected from the four Cutumay recordings demonstrates the relevance of the three theoretical dimensions outlined above: framing, mobilization and tactics, and social isomorphism. Especially of interest in this section is how the emphasis of each of the four Cutumay recordings varies in terms consistent with changes in the political structure of El Salvador. In other words, the music of Cutumay appears isomorphic with the changing nature of the Salvadoran national liberation struggle. Table 1 below outlines this relationship.
Conclusion
A clear pattern emerges from the four Cutumay Camones recordings. The first album, Vamos Ganando La Paz , recorded in 1982 (and distributed in 1983), reflects the ideological exigencies of justifying armed insurgency as the only strategy remaining to achieve national liberation and political democratization. In Cutumay's second recording, Por Eso Luchamos , the dominant themes include homage to martyrs and conveying recent territorial victories. This mirrors the changing nature of the Salvadoran struggle in 1984 and 1985, where martyrs can be raised and real gains expressed to the populace. The dominant theme in the third album, Patria Chiquita Mia, is peace along with on going framing work. In 1987 the Organization of American States (OAS) was negotiating dialogues with warring factions in Central America. The Contadora Peace Plan affected El Salvador by allowing political refugees to return home. In this context, Cutumay expresses the need for a lasting peace in El Salvador based on substantive political and economic reforms.
Table 1: Shifting Political Structure and Cutumay Camones Themes
Period Period |
1981 - 1983 |
1984 - 1985 |
1985 - 1987 |
1988-1989 |
|
Political Structure |
-Massive
military repression of the civilian population
-FMLN launches insurgency -Immense increase in FMLN guerrilla armies - FMLN/FDR call for a negotiated peace (Government refuses) |
-FMLN
controls 1/3 of countryside
- FMLN units operating throughout the nation -Peace talks breakdown between Duarte and FMLN |
-63,000
deaths caused by war
-Modern counterinsurgency implemented by Salvadoran Army with U.S. funding - Peace talks in Central America (Contadora) |
- Preparation for Nov. 1989 insurgency, force government back into negotiations | |
Cutumay Camones
Themes |
Vamos Ganando La Paz
(1982/83)
-Integration into the popular militias and guerrilla army - Justification for armed resistance - Obtain peace through popular war |
Por
Eso Luchamos
(1984/85)
-Eulogize Martyrs -Convey territorial victories -Acknowledge popular militias |
Patria Chiquita Mia
(1987)
-Peace and Dialogue -Solidarity with Latin America -Future society |
Llegó la Hora
(1988/89)
-Integration and Mobilization into the popular militias and guerrilla army -Communicate tactical repertoire of the insurgency |
Most of the 13 songs in the final recording, Llegó la Hora , contain militaristic themes regarding integration into the FMLN and tactics to be employed in preparation for the November 1989 popular uprising. This complements and extends earlier insights that viewed Latin American protest music as an "ideological weapon" of the popular classes (Kirk 1984). We find that Llegó la Horas emphasis on practical political activity provides evidence that popular protest music also serves in communicating the movement's tactical repertoire as well as mobilization, educational, diversionary and morale boosting needs.
In summary, the main empirical findings in this brief analysis are: (1) Cutumay is involved in framing work by shaping and conveying the ideology of national liberation; (2) Music is more than ideology in the work of Cutumay Camones in that the group also calls for mobilization and diffuses the tactical repertoire of the insurgency; and (3) the music of Cutumay Camones, in terms of lyrical content, is situated in the changing nature of the political struggle in El Salvador. In other words, the shifting balance of political forces in El Salvador in our case covaries with the themes in the Cutumay Camones songs (see Table 1 above). All three findings lend preliminary support to the theories outlined above and demonstrate the multidimensional nature of music in a national liberation struggle.
Other questions, not directly addressed here, relate the themes of Cutumay Camones to the larger Salvadoran belief system. For instance, why does Cutumay rely so much on martyrs, is there something in Salvadoran Catholicism and indigenous spirituality that this reflects? Or rather, is martyrdom a fundamental component of the ideological apparatus of national liberation movements. Another social dimension to explore is the degree of influence that popular protest music actually had on Salvadorans, and the members of the popular organizations, insurgents, and popular militias in particular (i.e., how do we know the music is in the hearts and minds of the participants?). For example, many of the Cutumay Camones songs are cumbias , rancheras, sons, joropos and boleros where people can dance while being infused with the lyrical message. This makes a strong case that Salvadoran protest music is popular, where the music is made for the popular classes who can dance and participate in its performance.
Other progressive musical forms in Latin America such as Nueva Canción , are often not danceable and contain political and social commentary encoded in metaphor and abstract poetry, hence limiting the potential audience to students, intellectuals, and other artists. Preliminary evidence, based on in-depth interviews and conversations with Salvadoran liberation struggle participants, musicians and secondary sources (e.g., books and documentary film), suggests that popular protest music was meaningful in the every day lives of the participants. Protest songs were sung during street demonstrations and funeral processions. The FMLN's clandestine Radio Venceremos played protest music for an hour a day (the Catholic Church Radio played it in the late 1970s). Also, popular protest songs were sung as part of daily ceremonies in FMLN territorial strong-holds. In the FMLN-controlled region of Guazapa, each fallen combatant had a song written about him. The aforementioned areas of exploration are part of our future research agenda. Each step we take in tackling these other salient issues will bring us closer to the rich analysis this cultural movement deserves.
In El Salvador musical artists such as Cutumay Camones drew on traditional Central American instruments (e.g., marimba del arco and accordion) and rhythms (e.g., cumbia , bolero and ranchera ) in order to mobilize broad sectors of Salvadoran society against military repression and foreign political intervention. In addition, Salvadoran artists combined indigenous musical styles with lyrics that conveyed and projected Central American cultural and political history. The lyrical content includes eulogies and homages to fallen heroes and martyrs as well as references to specific political events that profoundly altered the trajectory of Salvadoran history. In this context, the role of popular protest music in El Salvador fits well with contemporary research on the cultural, ideological and tactical dimensions of social movement activity.
References
Americas Watch.1982. Report on Human Rights in El Salvador . New York: Vintage.
Armstrong, Robert and Janet Shenk.1982. El Salvador: The Face of Revolution. Boston:
South End Press.
Arnson, Cynthia.1993. El Salvador, Accountability and Human Rights: The Report of the United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador. New York: Americas Watch.
Arreaza-Camero, Emperatriz. 1995. Comunicación, derechos humanos y democracia:
el rol de radio venceremos en el proceso de democratización en El Salvador
(1981- 1994). Meeting of the Latin American Studies Association. Washington
D.C. September.
Asociación Salvadoreña Trabajadores de Arte y Cultura (ASTAC). 1996. Interview with
director in San Salvador by author. September.
Baloyra, Enrique. 1982. El Salvador in Transition . Chapel Hill. University of North
Carolina Press.
Banda Tepeauni. 1983. Interview with Colectivo Latinamericano. Managua. August 24.
Barry, Deborah and Rodolfo Castro.1991. Negotiations, The War and Esquipulas II,
in A. Sundaram and G. Gelber (eds.) A Decade of War:El Salvador Confronts
the Future. pp.102-27. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Barry, Tom.1987. Roots of Rebellion: Land and Hunger in Central America. Boston: South
End Press.
Broyles-Gonzales, Yolanda.1993. El Teatro Campesino: Theater in the Chicano
Movement. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Byrne, Hugh Gregory. 1994. The Problem of Revolution: A Study of Strategies of Insurgency
and Counter-Insurgency in El Salvadors Civil War, 1981-1991. UCLA: Dissertation Dept. of Political Science.
Cienfuegos, Fermán. 1993. Veredas de audacia . San Salvador: Arco Iris.
Cuellar, Guillermo. 1996. Interview with authors. San Salvador. September.
Cutumay Camones. 1983a. Vamos Ganando La Paz.. Morazan ( El Salvador):
Radio Venceremos .
1983b. Interview with Colectivo Latinamericano. Managua, Nicaragua. September 6.
1985 Por Eso Luchamos. Oakland: Paredon Records
Dalton, Roque.1987. Miguel Marmol. Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press.
Department of Social Sciences, Universidad de El Salvador.1987. An Analysis of
the Correlation of Forces in El Salvador, Latin American Perspectives 14(4): 426-52.
Ellacuría, Ignacio. 1991. Veinte años de historia en El Salvador (1969-1989) . Tomo II.
San Salvador: UCA Editores.
Elterman, Howard.1988. The Politics of Music and the Protest Song, Sociological
Viewpoints 4(1): 63-81.
Espinosa, Paulino. 1996. Interview with authors. San Salvador. September.
Galeas, Marvin. 1996. Interview with authors. San Salvador. September.
González, Iván 1994. Las Guitarras del fuego de ayer: Los Torogoces de Morazan.
San Salvador. Arco Iris.
Herrera, America Rodriguez. 1988. La Canción campesina y su contenido político en
El Salvador, 1980-1985. Magistrado en Ciencias Sociales. San Jose: Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica
Kirk, John M.1984.Revolutionary Music Salvadorean Style: Yolocamba I Ta, Literature
and Contemporary Revolutionary Culture 1 : 338-52.
KPFK 1981.. Canto Armado, Special Program on Salvadoran protest music.
Los Angeles.
Lewis, George.1987. Style in Revolt: Social Protest and the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance, International Social Science Review 62(4): 168-177.
_____.1983.The Meanings in the Music and the Musics in Me: Music as Symbolic Communication , Theory, Culture and Society 1(3): 133-141.
Lolo. 1996. Interview with authors. July.
Lopez Vigil, Jose Ignacio. 1994. Rebel Radio: The Story of El Salvadors Radio
Venceremos Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press.
McAdam, Doug.1994. Culture and Social Movements, in E. Larana, H. Johnston, and J.Gusfield (eds.) New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity. pp.36-57. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Manuat, Raúl Benítez, 1989. La teoría militar y la guerra civil en El Salvador. San Salvador:
UCA Editores.
Marroquin, Salvador Armando.1985. La Canción Contestataria Salvadoreña de los Años
1970-1983. Liceniado en Filosofia. Universidad Centro America - Jose Simeon
Cañas. San Salvador.
McLean, Molly.1986. Calypso and Grenada, Popular Music and Society 10(4): 87-100.
Miller, Marion. 1989 Popular and Elite Musical Cultures in a Revolutionary Context, History of European Ideas 11: 565-71.
Moore, William. 1991. Rebel Music: Appeals to Rebellion in Zimbabwe.
Political Communication and Persuasion 8:125-138.
Morris, Nancy.1986. Canto Porque es Necesario Cantar: The New Song Movement in
Chile, 1973-1983, Latin American Research Review 21(2): 117-136.
Paco. 1996. Interview with authors. El Salvador. September.
Santiago. 1996. (Former member of Radio Venceremos Collective). Interview with authors.
San Salvador. September.
Snow, David and E. Rochford, S. Worden, R. Benford. 1986. Frame Alignment
Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation, American Sociological Review 51: 464-481.
Snow, David and Robert Benford. 1992. Master Frames and Cycles of Protest, in A.
Morris and C. Mueller (eds.) Frontiers in Social Movement Theory . pp.133-55. New Haven: Yale University Press.
1988. Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Participant Mobilization, International
Social Movement Research 1:197-217.
Stanley, William 1996. The Protection Racket State: Elite Politics, Military Extortion, and
Civil War in El Salvador. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Tarrow, Sidney. 1994. Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1989. Democracy and Disorder . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Teresa. 1996. Interview with authors. El Salvador. September.
Trabanino, Erick. 1993. Con la Guitarra a Traves de las Montañas. San Salvador: Amadeus Arte
White, Alistair. 1973. El Salvador. New York: Praeger.
Zamora, Ruben. 1990. The Popular Movement in A. Sundaram and G. Gelber (eds.) A
Decade of War: El Salvador Confronts the Future. Pp. 182-195. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Discography:
Cutumay Camones. 1983a. Vamos Ganando La Paz. Morazan ( El Salvador):
Radio Venceremos. (Approximately 2,000 cassettes formally produced).
1985 Por Eso Luchamos. Oakland: Paredon Records. (Approximately 1,000 records
and 2,000 cassettes formally produced).
1987. Patria Chiquita Mia . Chicago: Flying Fish Records. (Approximately
1,000 cassettes formally produced).
1988. Llegó la Hora . (Little information on formal distribution).
Buscar en esta seccion :