Corridos in Migrant Memory
Reviewed by MarÃa Herrera-Sobek, University of California, Santa Barbara
[Review length: 1049 words • Review posted on December 12, 2007]
Martha I. Chew Sánchez’ book, Corridos in Migrant Memory, provides us with a brilliant, in-depth analysis of contemporary --mainly 1990-2003-- Mexican-immigration-themed corridos
or Mexican ballads. Her insider status, as a woman who grew up
listening to corridos within the confines of her family, relatives, and
friends in the New Mexican and Chihuahua geographic areas, allowed her
to enter the world of the corrido and explore its multiple perspectives
and multidimensionality. Thus her work encompasses ethnographic
interviews with composers, performers, and audiences of corridos,
literary analysis, and fieldwork both in the United States and Mexico.