Skip to main content

Believe

Support Provided By
Louie Perez
Louie Perez

So here's the question on my mind now, Los Lobos, Lysa Flores, and Alice Bag, great East L.A. Chicano rockers or great American rockers?

The question's mostly irrelevant if you've seen any of them live or rocked out to their music. But it's a question worth asking as Mexican Americans can't see the day, to paraphrase Shakespeare, when the clouds of anti-Mexican rhetoric that have lour'd upon this house will be buried deep in the bosom of the ocean. Will increased Mexican American assimilation bring an end to the discontent? It doesn't appear to be close to passing as it has for other ethnic groups. Irving Berlin, great American songwriter or great Jewish songwriter? Scorcese, great American director or great Italian American director?

The process is happening in fits and starts mostly in the big cities where Mexicans have immigrated generations ago. Los Lobos is contributing to the process. I saw the band last year at UCLA's Royce Hall for a concert to support their album of Disney songs. The entire first set was devoted to songs from that album. The novelty of the pre-eminent Chicano band covering "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" and "Heigh-Ho" wore off real fast. I didn't understand what I was watching. In an interview this week Los Lobos guitarist Louie Perez told me the album was an effort to give those iconic American songs a Chicano rock twist. It's interesting given that the band inserted the name and rhythm of a traditional Mexican song "La Bamba" into the American lexicon and songbook.

Now Louie Perez is working with L.A.'s About Productions on a play with music based on the Los Lobos song "Evangeline."

Los Lobos 'Evangeline' 1985

"'Evangeline' in three minutes tells the story of a girl coming of age, has dreams, aspirations, the proverbial young girl who comes out to Hollywood to become a movie star. So we took that loose narrative, that loose story, and created this story of a young girl, young Chicana, growing up in East Los Angeles in the 60s, which we all know is a very transformative decade," Perez told me in an interview this week.

The play is called "Evangeline, The Queen of Make-Believe" and is expected to open, Perez said, in 2013. It explores the tug of war between the teen's traditional culture at home and the mainstream pop scene she searches out by night, Perez said, much like the place his older sister found herself in growing up in East L.A.

"Chicanos, Mexicanos, Mexican Americans, whatever you want to call them this week, we didn't live in a vaccum. We grew up watching Carl Reiner sitcoms, Green Acres, Dick Van Dyke, we watched Dick Cavett, the Joey Bishop Show and all the cool music that was going on. My sister would take the bus all the way to Hollywood to pick up The Beatles monthly that used to be available as an import from the UK at a newsstand on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Quiensabe."

Partial postcard for KPCC's 'Civil Rights and Go Go Boots' Community Forum
Partial postcard for KPCC's 'Civil Rights and Go Go Boots' Community Forum.   

It's a story about the push and pull between tradition [Fiddler on the Roof intonation here] and assimilation and the gradual blending and coexistence of the two, all with the backdrop of the Chicano civil rights movement of the 1960s and the groovy music of the time. I'll be talking about the play's ideas with Perez, and academics Victor Viesca, Josh Kun, and Alma Martinez at a staged reading of the play tomorrow night at KPCC in Pasadena.

I asked Louie Perez during our chat what he thought about the current anti-Mexican rhetoric. He didn't lash out at the deadly violence against Mexican immigrants in various corners of the country. He didn't talk about the Dream Act or immigration reform or the substandard education most Mexican American youth are getting these days. He did say that after 9-11, when the terrorist acts prompted candle light vigils across the U.S., including ones where he lived in south Orange County, he saw a group of young guys in a pick up truck near his house waving the American flag. He had an uneasy feeling that the mood of the country could turn very quickly and that racism would walk in the front door with a patriotic mask. He also talked about his father, a car painter in East L.A. who was a decorated veteran of World War Two.

Louie Perez said that after the KPCC forum Los Lobos are packing their bags and heading to Australia and Denmark for a series of concerts. These are places where people probably don't know the first thing about Chicanos. I bet you that to people there Los Lobos are just another great rock and roll band from the United States.

Support Provided By
Read More
Gray industrial towers and stacks rise up from behind the pitched roofs of warehouse buildings against a gray-blue sky, with a row of yellow-gold barrels with black lids lined up in the foreground to the right of a portable toilet.

California Isn't on Track To Meet Its Climate Change Mandates. It's Not Even Close.

According to the annual California Green Innovation Index released by Next 10 last week, California is off track from meeting its climate goals for the year 2030, as well as reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.
A row of cows stands in individual cages along a line of light-colored enclosures, placed along a dirt path under a blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds.

A Battle Is Underway Over California’s Lucrative Dairy Biogas Market

California is considering changes to a program that has incentivized dairy biogas, to transform methane emissions into a source of natural gas. Neighbors are pushing for an end to the subsidies because of its impact on air quality and possible water pollution.
A Black woman with long, black brains wears a black Chicago Bulls windbreaker jacket with red and white stripes as she stands at the top of a short staircase in a housing complex and rests her left hand on the metal railing. She smiles slightly while looking directly at the camera.

Los Angeles County Is Testing AI's Ability To Prevent Homelessness

In order to prevent people from becoming homeless before it happens, Los Angeles County officials are using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to predict who in the county is most likely to lose their housing. They would then step in to help those people with their rent, utility bills, car payments and more so they don't become unhoused.