The Influence Of The Cartel On Mexican Culture

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The cartel is one of the world’s most successful groups of organized crime. They are also one of the deadliest. While such presence has resulted in a crackdown of organized crime in Mexico, the cartels have not shied away. In fact, their presence in Mexico has become greater than ever. By analyzing the cartels use of violence, culture and recruiting, one can see how open the cartel is to the public, allowing it to cement its presence in Mexico.
The cartels employ violence so frequently that murder has become normalized in Mexican culture. The amount of killing that is carried out by the cartels is so high that a day without a murder, in areas with heavy cartel activity, may seem strange. Grillo’s statement, describing the scene after a murder, …show more content…

Cartel activity has become so prevalent in some parts of Mexico that it has actually obtained its own sub-culture, coined narcocultura. Narcocultura is a combination of dress, music, dialect and many other cultural aspects that have rises from the cartel’s influence in Mexico. One aspect of narcocultura that has taken the country by storm is the soundtrack of cartels: corridos. Artists sing about killings, drug transactions, kidnaps, and many other aspects of the cartel. The popularity of theses songs is revealed by Grillo: “on the streets of Culiacan, market stalls sell hundreds of CDs whose covers show artists with Kalashnikovs, clad in cowboy hats, ski masks, or paramilitary uniforms” (177). The cartels’ influence is materialized through these records and reveals how engrained they are in society. There presence in Mexico is not hidden but out in the open. These records show the cartels’ ability to not only to infiltrate Mexican popular culture, but also how the population has become infatuated with narcocultura. It it has become a lifestyle that Mexican have attempted to replicate through singing, dress, and slang like cuerrno de chivo (goat’s horn). Through this culture, the cartel has created a pop-sensation that has helped spread their

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