Social Protest Music in Latin America

This chapter provides a broad historical and geographical context for each of the songs analyzed in this text, locating each song in the regional developments within which it arose. The roots of the United States’ emergence as a world power are traced back to Manifest Destiny and followed through twentieth-century interventions in the sociopolitical map of Latin America. Next, the Mexican Revolution of 1910 is discussed as one of the first political manifestations of extreme social discontent and mobilization. The Cuban Revolution (1953–59) is described as perhaps the most influential political event of the twentieth century in Latin America, generating repercussions for the sociopolitical, historical, and cultural life of the continent. Specific events and movements in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, the United States, and Central America are detailed (1960s–80s). This abridged historical review helps explain why, in the second half of the twentieth century, Latin Americans and Chicanos were singing social protest songs from California to the Southern Cone and the Caribbean. Attempting to dispel the unfounded fear that social protest music was simply a tool for Marxist-Communist propaganda, it communicates the ideological and theological complexities that social protest music offers alongside the intricate histories of each song.