On the Street with Austin's Chicano Kids

These pages offer a retrospective on my time with the Texas Children’s Folklore Project, which set me in motion to document the verbal play of Chicano children in Austin, Texas. After a short overview of the field collection assembled there, I address its core elements in relation to techniques that enabled me to get the work done, a small set of events that stand out in my memory as exemplary, and a surmise of analytical themes emerging from my encounter with those lively youngsters and their repertories. My essay is supplemented by a selection of rhymes and songs performed by the children, in the form of audio files and corresponding transcriptions and (as needed) translations.