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CHAPTER 1
Beautiful Politics of Music
The Fight for Trova as the Classical Music of a Cosmopolitan Yucatán
As I describe throughout this book, the Yucatán Peninsula and the Yucatán state have a long story of regional pride that sometimes borders on regional separatism from the Mexican Republic. Regional identity is understood as based on objective cultural and structural differences from the rest of Mexico, including History (with a capital H), gastronomy, music, literature, theater, everyday customs, forms of politeness, and a very peculiar dialect of Spanish that incorporates elements from the Yucatec Maya. Between 2001 and 2006 I lived through a major crisis in the Yucatecan trova world, which marked my fieldwork and the lives of all trovadores and trovadoras in the state: Governor Patricio Patrón Laviada had come to power at the end of 2000 with a new agenda for music in Yucatán. He intended to make classical music the main recipient of his government's support, dismantling existing orchestras to bring in more professional musicians, trained at the best music schools in the world. In this chapter I describe how trova music was the target of adverse politics and managed to emerge triumphant to recoup the main stages of the city of Mérida and the state of Yucatán.
Inside the Trova World
My husband and I had arrived in Yucatán in January 2000 to take up positions as professors and researchers at the Autonomous University of Yucatán. To be hired as such at a Mexican university it is necessary to present a research project and several teaching syllabi at an open competition. We had presented in two parts what we saw as a joint project to study tourism in Yucatán and intended to focus part of our efforts on the Mundo Maya (Maya World) theme park. I would study music and tourism and Igor would study food and tourism. The park was expected to be built in the area of Valladolid, my hometown, and we intended to do most of our fieldwork there. The state of Yucatán was experiencing particularly good economic times then. Victor Cervera Pacheco, the state's governor between 1995 and 2001, had opened the state to maquiladora factories, which were set up out in the countryside, and had allowed investors, from Yucatán and beyond, to take advantage of long-established cultural practices. For example, the raising of hogs in family's backyards became the first rung in a system that integrated home production into an infrastructure of processing, distributing, and selling pork, thus combining family household economic strategies with commercial interests. There was money flowing to the countryside, although the working conditions of people employed there were not always optimal, the prices producers were paid for their goods were not always fair, and the salaries at the maquiladoras were not high. However, the maquiladoras (most of them producing clothing) had provided employment to hundreds of rural women, and the other initiatives had ensured a constant flow of cash into rural areas. Also, Cervera Pacheco allowed entrepreneurs from Mexico and abroad to bring their franchises to Mérida and to some of the larger villages. Until more or less 1980, Yucatecan industry was traditionally owned and run by Yucatecans. This started to change in the 1980s, and then, in the 1990s, most Yucatecan cement, clothing, beer, cookies and crackers, and steel and water tank factories were purchased by national and international franchises. Cervera Pacheco and the municipal governments helped the larger firms achieve a comprehensive takeover of the regional economy by making it possible for peasants to sell quickly those ejido lands outside the established borders of the cities and municipalities (which had been protected as collective property up to then. See chapter 3). The Cervera Pacheco administration not only made possible the transformation of ejidos into private lands but also made sure that once the new franchise factories and stores were installed they were immediately provided with good access roads and streets and with all public services.
The service industry expanded rapidly. The north of Mérida became a true luxury-driven island, and the cities of Yucatán grew quickly beyond their former borders. People from urban and rural areas from around the country came to look for work in Yucatán. At one point in 2001 I heard on the radio a bureaucrat saying that on average four hundred people were arriving daily in Yucatán from outside the state. This may not sound like too many people; after all, between 1990 and 2000 the population of Yucatán grew only by 295,300 inhabitants. However, all the newly arrived had to find housing and compete in the local job market with Yucatecans. The fact that Yucatecans up to then were often portrayed in the mass media as backward and as members of some underdeveloped "Yucatecan Republic" had the effect that the newcomers sometimes saw themselves as culturally superior to the Yucatecans. Many of the local employers, having recently relocated to Yucatán to take over their jobs at the new local branches of national and transnational corporations, also held this view. The result was a surge of Yucatecan pride that bordered on xenophobia against all non-Yucatecans. Spots on the local radio stations asked the newcomers to "respect our culture and make it theirs." Owners and managers of local restaurants refused to alter their dishes and removed most cheese and milk products from the food prepared at their establishments because, other than queso relleno, which is prepared with edam cheese, so-called "traditional" Yucatecan food includes practically no dairy (see Ayora-Diaz 2012). The Yucatecan flag appeared for sale in different sizes and on posters and stickers. Local hotels everywhere in Yucatán raised the Yucatecan flag on their roofs, next to the flag of Mexico. Local music shows began to feature more Yucatecan trova and jarana and less of the music from other parts of Mexico or from abroad. T-shirts and baseball caps bore the Yucatecan flag or had long legends in Yucatecan Spanish using Hispanicized Maya words.
There were many music and art events in the city every day. Before starting to frequent the gatherings locally known as groups of bohemians (groups of friends who come together periodically, wherein each member performs their favorite songs or poetry) and the trova shows, I was convinced that the Yucatecan trova events were mainly staged for the benefit of the many tourists visiting Yucatán. First the bohemian groups and then the Yucatecan trova shows began to make me shift perspective and give less weight to the tourism angle: Most groups of bohemians were practically closed to other locals and to foreigners, unless they came invited by members of the group, and their meetings were held so far away from any of the places frequented by tourists that no connection between them and the tourist market was possible. Also, at the trova shows, sometimes tourists were asked to identify themselves in order to receive a special salutation from the master of ceremonies, and they were always in the minority. Having grown up with a dislike for trova music, because it seemed to expel "our music" (that is, the music my generation liked) from local performance stages, I became puzzled and decided to study not just Yucatecan music in general but trova music in particular, which in 2000 and 2001 was always said to express "the soul of Yucatecans."
My aunt Gloria was well known as a cultural promoter in the city of Mérida. I grew up listening to her and her friends Luis Sarzo, Luis Perez Sabido, Eduardo Arana, Brígido A. Redondo, and Enna Rosa Ricalde and her sister, the poet Nilda, discuss poetry, theater, and music in Yucatán. My aunt was a member of many civic organizations and clubs (see chapter 4), including the League of Social Action (Liga de Acción Social), Sowers of Friendship (Sembradores de Amistad), a Panamerican Roundtable (Mesa Redonda Panamericana), and the Coffee Talks Club (Club Charlas de Café). She was frequently invited to speak about her favorite subjects, these being Mother's Day and the League of Social Action; the poetry of the Yucatecan Rosario Sansores in the songs of Latin American composers; the computation of numbers and the calendar among the Maya; and the life and works of writer José Peón Contreras. She often invited me to accompany her to her talks, and I went whenever I could. She was also a member of more than one group of bohemians. Yoly Gómez, the leader of one of these groups, had met me somewhere else and then told her to bring me along; it was through Yoly's group that I first attended the meetings of the bohemians. Also, Gloria was a good friend of Rosario Cáceres Baqueiro, the founder and honorary president of the Museum of the Yucatecan Song and her fellow member in a Panamerican Roundtable Society. Through Gloria I either had already met or came to meet many of the public personalities who were important in Yucatán's expressive culture scenes. Besides, my friend Maria Elí Sosa Cáceres had become one of the pianists of the local symphony orchestra, was teaching at the Jacinto Cuevas School of Music, and knew most of the culture authorities in town. Ward Goodenough, David Schneider, Roger Keesing, Maurice Godelier, and other anthropologists discussed in the 1970s and 1980s the ways and functions of kinship activation (Keesing, personal communication 1990). Upon returning to Yucatán I went through a process of network reactivation, which helped me establish yet new ties that would prove crucial during my research. When I started my fieldwork I sometimes remembered Roger Keesing's classes at McGill University in which he talked about kinship relations' activation, wondering whether the process I was undergoing was similar to what he and Godelier had found in the Pacific, because in Yucatán it is very common to call the friends of your parents and your parents' siblings "uncle" and "aunt."
The construction of the World of the Maya Park was canceled, and I was finding that tourism and Yucatecan trova were not necessarily related. I contemplated becoming a trovadora. The opportunity soon presented itself. At a gathering on the premises of the social club Sowers of Friendship my aunt Gloria was being given a medal for her dedication to voluntary service in favor of the city. There I met Rosario Cáceres Baqueiro. This encounter changed my ideas about what to do next. My father, Eduardo Vargas Vargas, besides being a dentist and a dedicated tennis player, was also a cultural promoter. When I was an adolescent, in the 1980s, he had served at the Bureau of Culture of the Valladolid municipality and organized concerts, educational tours, and dance shows. At another point my mother helped organize art exhibits at the municipal offices. After that, my parents became culture consultants for several municipal administrations in Valladolid, and this led me to have some familiarity with the workings of the state of Yucatán and the municipal governments' Institutes of Culture (sometimes called Departments of Culture or Culture Bureaus [Oficinas], depending on the preferences of the given governor or municipal president). I had thought of knocking on the Culture Institute's doors, but Doña Charito had a better proposal for me: to join the rondalla (guitar choir) she was trying to put together at the Museum of the Yucatecan Song, a civic organization of which she was the founder and the honorary president.
At the end of 2001 I went with my guitar to the Museum of the Yucatecan Song and talked to the people who were organizing the guitar choir. One of them was Rosita Caballero, called "Maestra Rosita" by everyone, who had been asked by Doña Charito to be the choir's main director. She was an established performer and also one of the conductors of the Orquesta Típica Yukalpetén, an orchestra dedicated to playing Yucatecan music, founded in 1942 by Daniel Ayala Pérez. Ayala Pérez had been one of the most important symphonic composers of Yucatán, and the orchestra had won several national and international awards, including the National Award for the Sciences and Arts in 1999. Maestra Rosita had been a guitar teacher at the Institute of Fine Arts local school for many years, was a nationally renowned musician, and was one of the main archivists at the State Musical Archives, which were located in the Mejorada neighborhood at the time. The choir office coordinator, even if there was no actual office, was Angelita Uribe (Maestra Angelita), a well-known trova singer who had been married to trovador and music personality Juan Magaña y Alonso. Juan, his brother Rodolfo, and Angelita had worked for many years as Yucatecan trova musicians in Japan and returned in the 1990s. Juan passed away in 2001, but Rodolfo and Angelita were still close and continued to perform together. Angelita was also part of the staff of the state of Yucatán Musical Archives. Rodolfo (called "Maestro Rodolfo" by everyone) had been asked by Doña Charito and by Maestra Rosita to be the director artístico (stage manager).
I arrived at the beautiful Museum of the Yucatecan Song feeling excited and very optimistic. It was a bit intimidating to think that I could be playing under the gaze of all the famous composers and artists on the museum walls! There were other musicians there, awaiting their turn to play for Maestra Rosita and Maestra Angelita. I had been practicing the song "Novia Envidiada" as recorded by Maricarmen Pérez on a CD I had acquired at the bookstore of the Autonomous University of Yucatán specifically to learn a song for this moment, and when it was my turn I played and sang it for Maestra Rosita and Maestra Angelita. Maestra Rosita said, "No good. I don't think you can play here right now. We will talk later. Next!" I was completely disappointed but stayed and waited. Maestra Angelita signaled to me not to worry. Maestro Rodolfo was in the back of the room and did not make any comments or gestures. Another guitarist, a man who seemed to be over sixty, first was told he did not have the skills but was asked to sing a Mexican song. He had a very loud tenor voice and played a corrido. Maestra Rosita was pleased and said, "Yes, you will learn quickly." When the auditions were over, Maestra Rosita asked me to play something I really knew how to play, so I played one of my own songs. She said, "You do not seem to be good for Yucatecan music. If you want to play with the rondalla you will have to go to guitar school and then come back. Please talk to the guitar teacher next door. We are offering guitar classes here, and you will not play until you are ready." Maestra Angelita and Maestro Rodolfo told me that they had really liked my song but that "Novia envidiada" had been a disaster. They said that I should not worry because they believed that I could convince Maestra Rosita to let me in very soon, since my own music seemed so complex.
So, that same day I went to my first Yucatecan trova guitar lesson, which took place in a room adjacent to the one where the trials were being conducted. The instructor, Alejandro, was already teaching two other guitarists how to play Yucatecan clave. I sat to learn it, too. He told me that I seemed to pick up the rhythm easily. We played two songs after the lesson and then I went home. I took one more guitar lesson with Alejandro the following Saturday. He continued to teach us the rhythm of clave and several of its variations and told us clave and Yucatecan danza were very similar. We practiced the songs "Reina de reinas" and "Peregrina." The following Saturday Maestra Rosita told me to start playing with the group and learn as quickly as I could. She also told me again that I had to go to trova guitar school and put me with the women who were singing second voice. Fortunately for me, another guitarist everyone called Charlie decided to teach me how to play the basics. We stayed for an hour or so after the rehearsals, and he taught me how to play correctly each of the songs we were learning. He would explain things to me with great patience, count the rhythms for me, telling me where the accent beats were each time, and generally helped me master the trova songs. Also, I met Rosy and Cristina, two excellent young guitarists and singers who seemed to know all the songs. They soon convinced their teacher, Guty Lara Villanueva, to allow me into his advanced class with them. Guty was teaching twice a week the advanced Mexican guitar music course at the municipal art center La Ibérica, only a few blocks from the anthropology campus. I began to bring my guitar to work, teach and see students on campus, and then go to guitar classes at the Ibérica art center.
The Saturday rehearsals followed more or less the same pattern each time. During the first year Maestra Rosita told us,
Maestros, it is important that you interpret correctly what we are singing. First, you have to think about what the poem says. What was the author thinking? Who did he write it for? What does each word mean? So, we will first read the lyrics of each song and discuss them. We will then think of the rhythms. What is the purpose of each type of rhythm? How should we count it? How should we play it? What did the author do with that specific rhythm? It is not enough to read the score. You have to figure out why that rhythm goes with that particular song.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Beautiful Politics of Music"
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