Mexicana Counterculture

Twentieth century Latin America was a period of cultural renaissance: from the birth of the rock movement in Mexico to the rise of nueva canción in Chile, youth were finding new ways of expressing themselves within the confines of their governments. The dawn of cultural upheaval in Mexico was rock n’ roll, a movement inspired by US artists that defied traditional social values in favor of lax morality and propagated the raucous spirit of youth. Following rock n’ roll were rock, a period of more socially conscious music associated with psychedelia and irreverence, and La Onda, a wave of counterculture that expressed disillusionment towards a government denying free expression. Around the time of La Onda, a new movement rose to prominence in

The epitome of this exploration of commercial opportunities was Avándaro, a Mexican rock festival inspired by Woodstock that came to represent the success of Mexican rock culture and its inclusion within the global community (Zolov 210). While Mexican rock was performed on stages like Avándaro and in night clubs for hundreds of thousands of people, nueva trova waged a war on the commercialization of song and rejected the idolization of its performers, who often appeared in street clothes and performed in schools, factories and parks, even traveling to remote areas of the country (Benmayor 26). Rather than aiming for fame, artists spent time volunteering with literacy campaigns and singing to Cuban troops (Benmayor 26). In Mexico, the commercialization proved fatal for the authenticity of the movement. Because the Mexican government saw Avándaro as a gathering of drug addicts who defiled national symbols, they led a crackdown to repress the native rock movement largely destroying the record and photographs from this time period (Zolov 259). Because of this, the Mexican counterculture movement is characterized in terms of the US and British movements rather than in its own terms (Zolov 259). The identity of Mexican rock

Rock imported from outside the country was always considered to be “the real thing,” and much of Mexican rock n’ roll arose out of a desire to recreate these songs which were too costly for many to afford (Zolov 163). One of the goals of rock n’ roll was to present an image of a modern Mexico transformed from a rural to urban economy, a cosmopolitan nation (Zolov 29). Despite this, because the rebellious behavior associated with rock n’ roll originated from US culture, criticism of youth actions was expanded to become a broader critique of foreign mass media (Zolov 39). On the other hand, rock n’ roll wasn’t only projecting an image of disobedience, but that of youthful energy and vitality which was progressive and, again, served as a signal of Mexico’s emergence from poverty (Zolov 46). Though the US continued to be a heavy presence in the later years of the movement, with the advent of La Onda came a critical cultural consciousness wherein youth began to question the values lauded by the Western world as ideal (Zolov 167). Youth began to realize they needed to create something unique to them in the wake of such a dominant culture (Zolov 184). This blaspheming of rock for its imperialistic