Northward Bound

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In Northward Bound Maria Herrera-Sobek argues that the folk song is a viable and important document chronicling the history of Chicanos/as in the United States. She traces Mexican emigration to the United States from 1848 to 1991 through the lyrics of Mexican ballads (corridos) and contemporary popular songs (canciones). These autobiographical songs, presented both in their original Spanish and in English translations, reflect the relationship between individual experience and the history-making process. Over a century of Chicano history unfolds in the more than 150 folk songs Herrera-Sobek has gathered: the exploits of folk hero Joaquin Murieta during the gold rush era, lives of cowboys and outlaws, the Mexican Revolution, the Roaring Twenties and subsequent depression, racial tensions between Anglos and Mexicans. The subject of labor figures largely as well: the construction of the railroad, the bracero experience of workers drawn to the United States for the Farm Labor Supply Program, the quest for the "mica" or green card, border patrol brutality and border-crossing strategies, the towering figure of Cesar Chavez, primary organizer of the United Farm Workers of America. Herrera-Sobek has also included folk songs that reflect Mexicanos' and Chicanos' responses to female acculturation in the United States. Northward Bound fits another piece into the diverse mosaic of Central and North American history.