Humanities

Loud and Proud

Protesting racism and imperialism through hard-core music

Los Crudos slam danced its way onto the Chicago punk rock scene in the 1990s, brandishing the same mix of loud, fast and angry songs that made household names of groups such as Black Flag and the Sex Pistols. But there were two key differences: The outfit sang almost entirely in Spanish, and almost always about politics.

In “Asesinos,” for example, Los Crudos—Spanish for “those who are crude, coarse or raw”—railed against the disappearances of radical youth during military dictatorships in Latin America. In other numbers banged out in three chords or less, the band attacked antiimmigration laws and US imperialism.

As a hard-driving, Spanish-speaking Latino punk band, Los Crudos served English major Adam Buchanan’s investigation of a phenomenon emerging at the same time on the other side of the country: the Latino punk rock scene in Los Angeles.

“Instead of recreating the punk scene they saw from white musicians,” he said, “(the Latino groups) created Latino punk for themselves.”

For his final research project in an English course on race, culture and incarceration, Buchanan examined the growth of Latino punk in East LA in the 1990s. He found the medium to be an effective way for young Latinos to enter the political conversation—with a passionate voice that society couldn’t tune out.

Latino punk was largely overlooked by the mainstream and Latino press, so Buchanan had little in the way of newspaper and magazine articles for gathering basic background on the genre.

Nor were the bands themselves much help. They often self-produced their CDs, so they didn’t have a record company chronicling their histories and discographies. Most “official” band documents were simply photocopied flyers that the bands scribbled out to promote shows.

Buchanan had to get creative for his research.

He laid a foundation for his project by reading up on Southern California in the 1980s the political climate, race relations, He laid a foundation for his project by reading up on Southern California in the 1980s—the political climate, race relations, the crackdown on drugs. He studied the history of activism among Los Angeles’ Latinos, African Americans and Asians in the 1960s and ’70s.

From books and papers that touched on different aspects of Latino punk, Buchanan developed a mosaic of the music—its history in East Los Angeles, the role of other minorities in the genre and the importance that performances played as a means of discourse on political issues.

He got a sense for the culture of the time from a documentary that a band produced about its tour. He collected more context from features on punk music by radio news programs. He interviewed a friend who grew up in East Los Angeles and was a fan of many of the bands.

And he watched a lot of videos. From concerts on YouTube, Buchanan got a real
feel for the shows, though they were of little use for deciphering lyrics—the blistering pace of the songs made the words mostly unintelligible. For those, he tracked down copies of lyric sheets that bands often included with their CDs, which he translated through his personal knowledge of Spanish.

Buchanan found that Latino punk—both the music and the high-energy shows provided a rallying point for a Latino youth population that existed on society’s margins. The music was essentially “a collective voice to protest and air their frustrations,” he wrote in his paper.

Nor was there much subtlety to the bands’ methods for making a statement. Many groups stopped their shows between songs to hold extended conversations with audiences about current events.

Buchanan traced an evolution in the content and the reach of the music, as well.

Earlier songs focused on drug laws and conflicts with law enforcement, but shifted over time to immigration and citizenship issues. Most surprising for the young researcher, perhaps, was the success of this little-known genre in reaching people—the music and its message spread not just across California and the US West, but into Central America.

What started out as the exclusive domain of young white men—punk rock—became the perfect vehicle for Latinos to express their own anger and frustration. The issues Latino rockers screamed about may have been different, but the underlying emotions were the same.

Said Buchanan, “With any type of music—pop music, rock, hip-hop—you can find smaller groups of people that have been able to take this large form and make it their own.”

—Jim Murez

Photo caption: The band Los Crudos inspired English major Adam Buchanan to examine punk rock as a vehicle of political expression for Latinos in Los Angeles.

Photo credit: CC WBEZ BY-NC-2.0