The Corrido, The Narco Corrido, and The Migra Corrido on the Mexican US Border: From Cultural Resistance to State Ideology

Texas-Mexican corridos, central to the U.S. immigration experience, are a tradition told through ballad form about border conflict and crisis encountered by Mexican-origin people. The corrido is shaped by and shapes a socio-cultural reality, as a form of resistance to ongoing border conflict and state domination. The dialectic of music and migration entails how music is shaped by the migrant experience, and how that, in turn, shapes that experience. We frame music as non-static, transpiring across traditional social boundaries and constituting identities, institutions, and values. Corridos are understood as a reflexive establishment of identity centering around Mexican migration experience. We examine three main corrido forms: the original corrido, the narco corrido, and the migra corrido, discussing their relations to the border, Mexican identity, and social conditions of resistance to power. Tracing the development of the corrido, early 20th century corridos were a form of cultural resistance. The narco corrido, with references to Prohibition and drug laws, celebrates the drug smuggler as social bandit and hero. Finally, the newer U.S.-Mexican government mandated migra corrido serves as a US/Mexican government ISA, developed as a media-based response to increased US immigration. It appropriates but inverts the corrido’s critical nature as a cultural form.