Music as a cultural identity: a case study of Latino

musicians negotiating tradition and innovation in

northwest Ohio
ISABEL BARBARA O’HAGIN
Central Michigan University, USA
DAVID HARNISH
Bowling Green State University, OH, USA

Abstract
This study, based on recent field research, explores Latino music culture in Toledo, Ohio, and
presents strategies for incorporating the music into the classroom. In the ethnographic
project, three professors – music educator, ethnomusicologist, folklorist – interviewed many
musicians, bands and community leaders. Musicians were regenerating Mexican-American
traditions, especially that of the folk conjunto ensemble, while developing strategies to
innovate the sound and meet the changing aesthetics of a populist youth market and
emerging pan-Latino identity. In addition to reconstructing traditional culture, musicians
and community leaders were interested in crafting a positive image for both cultural
outsiders and insiders and reaching out to the greater Toledo community. The authors
highlight the musical lives of the artists, suggest that musicians can play a role in shaping
culturally sensitive class curricula, and advocate that educators and students engage directly
in fieldwork projects to better grasp the meaning of music in peoples’ lives.

Key words
agency, classroom, community, curriculum, fieldwork, multicultural, strategy, Tejano

El grito (the shout) comes over the loudspeakers thundering over the crowd: ‘Come on,
now! Let’s hear it from all you crazy Mexicans out there! Let me hear you shout!’ The crowd
roars back and with that introduction the young Tejano band begins to play a snappy
corrido as the dancers begin to move counter-clockwise in a circular pattern. The ‘dance
floor’ is a portable wooden floor under a large tent brought in for the Perrysburg Heights
Mexican-American Festival. The festival-goers are mostly Latinos representing new and older
generations. Young people are dressed casually with jeans and t-shirts, and many older men
are wearing cowboy hats, western shirts, jeans and the ubiquitous carved leather belt with
huge buckle – typical ranchero caballero outfit. Throughout the night, the festivities con-
tinue and, as band after band plays, the dancers do not give up. Young and old come to the

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 O’Hagin & Harnish Cultural identity 57

dance floor as the music changes from salsa and rap-influenced Tex-Mex sounds to the more
traditional conjunto style. The latter music, a bit more sedate and less busy, seems to bring
out the older people along with the young to the dance floor. This is a family event replete
with carnival-like activities, food, music and souvenirs – sombreros, t-shirts, CDs, and
buttons declaring ‘Mexican wit’n attitude’.
Latino culture is often considered collective (Rothstein-Fisch, Greenfield, & Trumbull
1999), with strong family and community involvement in festivals, concerts, rituals and
other celebrations. Most Latinos at such events in Toledo, Ohio, respond that they like to
have a good time enjoying the music and dance with family and friends. Music, used to
construct and maintain community, helps to articulate cultural values and define ethnicity;
on occasion it may be used to erect boundaries (Stokes, 1994). The example above shows
how music within an event can manifest shared values, participant identity and a sense of
‘Latino-ness’.
Our study was prompted by a need to better understand the Latino musical culture
around us, and, as educators and researchers, we perceived a need to better educate the
public and school institutions that encounter Latino communities. Three individuals – Lucy
Long (folklorist), David Harnish (ethnomusicologist) and Isabel Barbara O’Hagin (music
educator) – examined the role the musical arts play in celebrating heritage, preserving oral
and musical traditions, constructing identity and affecting personal life cycles. Based on our
experiences, we advocate that teacher educators collaborate with ethnomusicologists in
venturing into the field to further deepen our understanding of distinct musical cultures. By
combining our expertise and revealing our unique perspectives, we stand to increase our
knowledge and understanding of different ways of being in the world.
One way to better develop multicultural music programs in our schools is to improve our
teacher education programs at the university level. Coursework in multicultural music
education should not only be aimed to represent the student body, but also to educate and
sensitize our students who will be future teachers (practically speaking, we all end up being
teachers in some form). In music education, simply exposing students to world music subject
matter does not necessarily improve the situation, because that alone does not increase their
multicultural understanding and tolerance (see Fung, 1994). As a solution, we, along with
Daniel (1984), submit that teachers produce much better results if they and/or their students
go into the field to directly experience multicultural music in context. Studies show that
teachers whose multicultural training is experiential in nature are more willing and better
prepared to teach from a multicultural perspective (see Daniel, 1984; O’Hagin & Harnish,
2003). We believe that students and teacher training programs should be culturally sensitive
and consider the situatedness of music and the cultural values of the group under
discussion, and advocate the development of a program reconceptualization to positively
affect and prepare our students to teach and perform in a globalized society. Studies such
as ours can serve as models for fieldwork led by university professors and their students.
In our ethnography, we sought to identify the varieties of Latino musics in northwest
Ohio within their sociocultural contexts, and focused upon a cross-section of musical styles,
contemporary musicians and their audiences representing Latino culture in the city of
Toledo, Ohio, and surrounding areas.1 The result is an ethnography that addresses histories,
context and style, and the creative agency of particular musicians, and then makes
suggestions on steps to develop multicultural music programs based on local culture.
The problems raised in our study were similar to those posed by Sancho-Velázquez (1994)
in her work on music cultures in Los Angeles that explores substantive musical meaning and
expression of a people within personal life cycles and public festivals. She asked, ‘What are
the musics made in Los Angeles saying and why are the people making the music they are
making?’ Sancho-Velázquez (1994, p. 48) posits that a cross-cultural aesthetic, based on a

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58 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MUSIC EDUCATION 24(1)

hermeneutic perspective, aims at interpreting the different ways of being in the world
through music, in addition to providing an understanding of the worlds these musics are
inventing. Rather than pre-fashioned questionnaires, which might restrict meaningful
discourse, we fostered free-flowing dialogue for the qualitative study. We asked musicians
about their histories and influences, their perceptions of their public performances and the
effects of music-making in their lives, while posing the following questions within the
dialogue:
1. What type of music was being played and why was that given music played in that
given context at that given time?
2. Who was playing and what audience was listening?
3. Who or what institution made decisions regarding music style, context and audience?
4. What was the relationship of today’s (current) Latino music to more traditional forms?
5. What role did the music play in preserving traditions and cultural values? Or in
supporting or challenging social order or community norms?
6. What are the musics in Toledo saying? What does this music (your music) mean to you?

Ethnographic approach
We chose qualitative methods for this study in order to examine the musicians’ perceptions
of their world, and believed that interview design seemed most appropriate to grasp how
participants understood and interpreted their musico-cultural experiences. We met with,
formally interviewed and grew to know the musicians of 12 different Latino bands, some of
whom also performed as soloists. One young female soloist interviewed, for example,
performed in a contemporary karaoke style, accompanied by a recorded soundtrack.
Another approach was to observe musico-cultural events in the greater Toledo area
following a yearly cycle (Table 1). We attended and recorded numerous performances in
varied settings to observe demographics, repertoires and performer–audience dynamics.
Through these procedures – observations and interviews of musicians and cultural leaders,
along with additional interviews with disc jockeys, activists, city officials, club owners and
Latino newspaper editors – we formed a larger portraiture of what constitutes the musical
scene among Latino musicians and their role in the Toledo community. Videotapes and field
notes served as our primary data sources. To flesh out findings, all interview videotapes were
accurately transcribed by the three researchers and one research assistant. We independently
reviewed the transcripts and developed the framework to identify emerging categories
congruent with the research questions and supplied by the data. We reviewed commercial
recordings of local bands, which provided extensive data for determining style.
As advocated by Behar (1996), we added our own perceptions of the cultural milieu
based on our observations of events and interactions with musicians. In addition, our
commentary and reports were cross-checked by local cultural leaders. Owing to space
limitations, the narrow scope of this study, the ever-changing musical landscapes, and the
large numbers of musicians in the greater Toledo area, not all Latino bands or musicians are
cited in this paper. We apologize for omissions. However, the individuals discussed below
form a representative sample of the musicians in the area, and reports indicate that the
issues presented are similar to those within Latino communities across the region.
The ethnography of the music community began with a series of interviews with Maria
Rodriquez-Winter, the director of a neighborhood Latino arts organization, the Sofia
Quintero Arts Center. Ms Rodriquez-Winter and the Sofia Quintero Arts Center helped to

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Table 1 Monthly regularly recurring events

Month Event

January Various New Year’s Day celebrations featuring music groups

El Día de los Reyes (Three Wise Men Celebration sponsored by Puerto Rican
club Taino Puertorriqueño)
April Hispanic Awareness Month
Pascua (Easter)
Latino Issues Conference at Bowling Green State University
Baile Latino, Toledo Hispanic Youth Alliance
May Cinco de Mayo (5 May)
Día de las Madres (Mother’s Day)
June LatinoFest
Día de los Padres (Father’s Day)
The Northwest Ohio Fajita Cook-off
July South of the Border Mexican-American Festival
August Fiesta Mexicana (MACA – Mexican-American Cultural Association)
St Peter and St Paul Parish Festival
St Vincent de Paul Parish Festival
September Pachanga Festival
Día de Independencia (Mexican Independence Day)
Hispanic Heritage Month (15 September–15 October, Toledo City Council
Resolution)
Latino-themed county fairs
October Latino Family Festival
St Mary’s Church and School Fall Festival
November Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead)
Día de los Acciónes de Gracias (Thanksgiving Day)
December Feliz Navidad
12 Days of Christmas
Feast Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe

legitimize our project to the local community. We could then document public events such
as festivals, and select private occasions such as a quinceañera, a coming of age religious
ceremony for young Latina women as they turn 15 (Table 2). Performances, both formal and
informal, included events ranging from city-wide festivals to more intimate family
gatherings; interviews were held at festivals, community events, shopping malls, offices and
in homes.

The Toledo context

After meeting with Maria, we explored the history of Latinos in the Toledo area to better
comprehend their story. Toledo, situated in northwestern Ohio, has had its share of powerful
leaders. The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), which oversees farm workers

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Table 2 Music in public festivals and personal rituals

Public festivities, US inspired Personal life cycle rites
Independence Day Día de las Madres (Mother’s Day)
Día de los Acciónes de Gracias (Thanksgiving) Día de los Padres (Father’s Day)
Quinceañeras (girl’s fifteenth birthday)
Locally developed Anniversaries
LatinoFest Baptisms
The Northwest Ohio Mexican-American Festival First Communions
St Peter and St Paul Parish Festival Birthdays
Mexican-American Cultural Association Weddings
El Día de los Reyes (Puerto Rican)
The Northwest Ohio Fajita Cook-off

Mexican/international
Cinco de Mayo, (5 May)
Día de Independencia (Independence Day)

Religious/community
(Christmas, Easter)
Feast Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe
El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead)

throughout the Midwest and most of the eastern United States, was established here in
1967 and its founder (and musician activist), Baldemar Velásquez, is still president. Latino
representation in city government positions exceeds its respective population percentage,
and a number of individuals have emerged to initiate or further neighborhood betterment
clubs, arts and culture centers, and civic Latino organizations. In addition, several fine Latino
musicians settled in Toledo and helped define and shape the notions of ‘Latino music’ in the
area.
The 2000 census indicates 17,141 Hispanic/Latino people in Toledo, about 5.5 percent of
the overall population. Though this constitutes a low percentage of the population, younger
Latinos rate higher (6.8%) and the community is growing. The early Latino community,
nearly all of whom were migrant workers or recently settled families still engaged in
agricultural work, was so small that major events had to be celebrated in peoples’ homes,
sometimes in nearby Michigan. As the community expanded and new people arrived, the
Latino presence became both more prominent and more diffuse. Yet Latinos in Toledo have
had to adjust to living out the Latino experience in the Midwest, unique from the life
experiences of Latinos in the southwest, where sheer numbers guarantee a stronger voice in
their communities. One key difference is that their continuous presence only dates from the
early 20th century; they therefore share neither a ‘collective memory of US conquest or the
concomitant loss of ancestral lands’ nor a borderlands meaning (Valdes, 2000, p. 116).
While decades ago Latinos often went to larger events in Michigan, today most feel that the
Toledo community is big enough and embraces enough Latino cultural elements to feel like
home; in fact, we met many musicians who have never lived anywhere else.
Most descendants of the first Latinos nearly 100 years ago still live in northwest Ohio.
Others came to the area for migrant work (see O’Hagin & Harnish, 2001) and later would
‘transition out’ of farm working to settle in Toledo or nearby towns. Many and possibly most
Latinos today still have family or roots in Texas, and the great majority of migrant workers

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are similarly connected to Texas. Some musical events, particularly those sponsored by FLOC,
are intended to welcome and provide a community for these workers. It is thus not
surprising that Tejano (Texas-Mexican) music styles are now, and always have been, the most
popular among local Latinos.

Musical styles and local responses

Conjunto (group, ensemble) bands constitute the majority of Latino music ensembles in
Toledo (Harnish, Long, & O’Hagin, 2002). These ensembles are ethnically rural Mexican
(Peña, 1985) and have spread with migrant workers throughout the country; they form the
‘roots’ of Tejano music. Conjunto bands took shape about 100 years ago when the button
accordion – introduced by Germans in the 1860s – and the bajo sexto – a 12-string rhythm
and bass Spanish guitar – were combined (Burr, 1999). The ensemble was popularized in
the 1930s and established a distinctive repertoire and style in the 1950s. In the latter
decade, a double bass was sometimes added along with a drummer, and the instruments
went electric by the end of the 1950s to amplify and modernize the sound. Except for neo-
traditional groups featuring only accordion and bajo sexto, the conjunto ensemble today
generally features accordion, bajo sexto, electric bass (and sometimes electric guitar) and
trap drum set. The bajo sexto is still used in most but not all Tejano bands in the Toledo area.
Conjunto music highlights the accordion and largely consists of happy dance music using
polka and ranchera (sentimental song) forms; it has always been a working-man’s music.
From the 1930s, conjunto was contrasted with orquesta or orquesta tejana, a big band line-
up combining the influences of Mexican and Latin musics with big band jazz in establishing
a very versatile orchestra (Peña, 1999). The urban orquesta tejana reflected the biculturalism
of the wealthier and upward-mobile Latinos in Texas, and created a polarity with the folk
and more ethnically Mexican conjunto. The orquestas later shrank in size, paralleling the
decline of big bands. In the late 1950s, conjunto and orquesta styles were blended together
by a number of artists to forge a fresh and nascent Tejano sound. The flexibility in this
synthesis allowed for later influences from country, rock or pop to be added, thus laying the
groundwork for Tejano to be periodically reinvented and updated by such superstars as
Selena (1971–95). The orquesta style was influential to many Toledo artists, such as senior
musician Alfredo Estrada who played in such bands in Texas and helped bring the style to
Toledo. Conjunto and orquesta articulated ‘tradition’ and its associated values, and were
instrumental in reconstructing Tejano culture and Texas-Mexico in Ohio. These musics have
been primary ways to express and preserve culture.
By the 1990s, the cumbia, a dance form with origins in Columbia, was standard in Tejano
music. Cumbias are marked by trotting or shuffling rhythm, syncopations that enliven the
music and often a rapid tempo. Most recent nationally famous Tejano bands, such as the
Kumbia Kings, base their style on updated and lively cumbias. The pop and rhythm and blues
elements in Tejano music largely appear in these modern cumbias.
Many Toledo bands, such as Los Cuatro Vientos, Los Aztecas, Ruben Ramos y la Familia,
Grupo Dezeo, El Vizion, and Amanda Reyna y los Reyes de Ritmo perform updated cumbias
in performance. Not all bands have been receptive to cumbias: Los Cuatro Vientos, a family
favorite in Toledo with a smooth and traditional sound, prefers rancheras and polkas.
Spokesman Jimmy Bejarano Jr explained that they were compelled to make some additions
because ‘the younger generation likes cumbias.’ Most other groups in the area have been
influenced by American rock and popular music; this influence is sometimes notable in their
playing. The Tejano group, El Vizion, for instance, features loud and aggressive accordion
playing reminiscent of rock guitar playing. When we interviewed Ruben Ramos with his well-

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Table 3 Musicians/bands and styles

Musicians/bands Styles performed

Jesse Ponce/Sal y Pimienta Conjunto

Los Cuatro Vientos Conjunto
Grupo Dezeo Conjunto+
Alfredo Estrada (retired) Orquesta/mariachi
Jacob Estrada Conjunto+
Ruben Ramos Conjuno+
Yvonne Ramos Tejano, conjunto, pop, avant-garde
Amanda Reyna Conjunto+
Las Aztecas Conjunto, orquesta, salsa, banda
Baldemar Velásquez Conjunto, folk
El Vizion Conjunto+
Natalie B Tejano, pop
Juan Ramirez Flamenco

Note Conjunto+ = some US influence

known daughter, Yvonne, the musicians of his band went through a diverse array of music
in the basement, including Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven!’. Ruben himself admitted
this influence but explained ‘it can make the music more exciting’. Accordion player Amanda
Reyna suggests that the new and virtuoso cumbias are contemporary products partially
inspired by American music.
Cumbias are a favorite for dancing and most audiences know the idiomatic steps of (to
the right) right, left, right, step, and (to the left) left, right, left, step, as they process in a
counter-clockwise circle. Though bands may perform rancheras, polkas, waltzes, corridos
(ballads), huapangos (fast-paced folk dances, favored by folkloric dance troupes in Toledo) or
boleros (sentimental ballads), the main style of Tejano music in the area is an electric band
playing modern cumbias with a sprinkling of other forms (Table 3). Cumbias and intersections
with American music represent the negotiation of modernist Latino movements by the Toledo
community and indicate that youth are linked (electronically, musically, spiritually and
politically) with Latinos in the southwest and throughout the United States.
Quite a few women (some teenagers) perform in a karaoke format at parties and events
throughout northwest Ohio; Natasha Salazar (professional name Natalie B) is one of the best
known. These women will invariably sing a few cumbias by Selena, often along with songs
in either English or Spanish by such artists as Christina Aguilera. The progress of women
performers in the area parallels advances made by Latinas throughout the country (see
Koegel, 2002, p. 99). One fascinating Latina is Yvonne Ramos, daughter of Tejano
bandleader Ruben Ramos. A classically trained pianist, she is singer, dancer and
choreographer, and has organized dance groups (for example, Las Chicas) and developed
avant-garde Latina performance art. She is an advocate for music in schools and believes
that all of her happiness and success in life comes from her studies in classical and Tejano
musics as a child. We discovered, however, that, unlike in the southwest and other parts of
the country, Latino music is not normally presented in local schools.
Three widespread Latino music styles rarely performed by local bands are Caribbean,
mariachi and banda. Most musicians are attracted to salsa, but only a few bands (for
example, Las Aztecas) have incorporated pieces; the style is also enjoyed in the community
and outside salsa/Caribbean bands are sometimes engaged for festivals. Apart from Alfredo
Estrada’s group that disbanded in the 1970s, mariachi bands have been lacking in the area.

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This is curious because these bands are requested for a number of religious and aesthetic
functions; again, families or festival organizers must look outside of northwest Ohio for
mariachi. Banda, a horn-driven Mexican ensemble style featuring an ‘oompah’ beat, fast
dancing and sometimes a techno sound only occasionally appears in Toledo. While
bandleader Ruben Ramos said that a few groups in Toledo have some banda material in their
repertoire (for example, Las Aztecas), we never witnessed banda from any local groups. The
style is much more popular in Detroit, where several groups are established.
The community strives to be inclusive of all Latino styles. Thus, while there are many
modern conjunto bands in the area, these do not overwhelm mariachi or salsa in
representation at community events. Another style sometimes presented is flamenco. Juan
Ramirez is a young local guitarist from South America specializing in flamenco guitar. He is
often invited to perform for Latino celebrations, including Cinco de Mayo (5 May), and has
trained a few students for future performances. This inclusiveness seems to be a deliberate
attempt to foster a pan-Latino, rather than strictly Mexican-American, identity in the public
arena, and it could be emulated in schools’ programs.

Musicians: tradition and innovation

The negotiation with the ‘traditional’ Latino music in Toledo, as with other Latino
communities, goes through the framework of a cyclical, regenerative process involving the
experiences of both reinterpretation and innovation (Loza, 1993, p. 51). Maquet’s (1994)
guiding principle of aesthetic anthropology states that beyond collective cultural patterns is
the specific character of the individual artist. It is individuals, who, through a series of
negotiations with their environment and community, make decisions to reconstruct culture
through agency. Below, we explore what Rice (2003) calls ‘subject-centered music ethno-
graphy’. This approach focuses not on ‘culture’ but rather on individuals and their personal
efforts to promote, to preserve and to innovate music culture in the modern world.
One of the leaders of conjunto music has been Jesse Ponce. Jesse came to the Toledo area
in 1979 from the heartland of Tejano music, San Antonio, Texas, with a rich life history of
performing the music over three decades with such luminaries as Flaco Jimenez. Like most
pioneering artists, his family was musical and his first band included his father and brothers.
A master of both bajo sexto and accordion, Jesse loves collaborating, sharing his knowledge
and tutoring younger musicians. He has served the community in several ways: by
performing at events for migrant workers, for church services and even for inmates at the
Toledo jail. Jesse feels an obligation to ‘keep alive’ what is ‘in his heart’, and never ‘to lose’
where he started: with the rancheras and polkas of conjunto music. This does not mean,
however, that he limits himself to such styles. He sometimes performs with a Caribbean
music band, plays the ubiquitous ‘La Bamba’ when he wants audiences to dance and
composes some pieces that sound like Carlos Santana. It is hard to overstate his importance
to the community. Celso Rodriquez, the editor of El Tiempo newspaper, called him ‘Saint
Jesse’ for his contributions (private communication). Jesse, a major representative of the
Latino community, would be a wonderful resource for a school program.
The FLOC and its president, Baldemar Velásquez, distinguish Toledo from other Latino
communities as a center for migrant farm workers and their advocacy. Baldemar, originally
a migrant worker from Texas, is a non-denominational minister, a folk musician and
songwriter and recipient of a McArthur (Genius) Award. He has dedicated his life to
organizing and assisting migrant farm workers, and many such workers transition out of
farm life in northwest Ohio, adding to the demography of Mexican descent Latinos. Though
he loves Tejano music and especially conjunto (owing to its working-man roots), he believes

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that ‘music is great, but that music tied to a cause is greater’. He experienced racial
oppression throughout much of his young life and became interested in the folk music of
the 1960s and the possibilities of social change through music. As a songwriter, his music
is in Spanish and English (‘for English-speaking friends’); it often borrows elements from
rancheras and corridos, speaks of farm worker struggles and calls for social justice. Folk
musician Pete Seeger taught him a ‘zipper’ approach to performing other songs, where you
‘zip some of the lyrics out, and zip in some more politicized lyrics’. One example Baldemar
mentioned was the country standard ‘Cryin’ My Eyes Out Over You’. His take on the song is
to change the meaning so that a farm owner, who has mistreated workers so that they have
left, is ‘cryin’ because his profits have fallen and he misses his workers. Baldemar performs
his music and zipper songs, and promotes these and conjunto music for use at migrant
celebrations and labor strikes. He has had a major impact on sociopolitical life in northwest
Ohio, and has been included in children’s books as a local hero in Ohio.
The one local band that has achieved fame beyond the area is Los Cuatro Vientos. This
band, headed by Jimmy Bejarano Sr and Jimmy Bejarano Jr, has won several polls as favorite
local band and has a following in the heart of conjunto country, San Antonio, where they
are regularly invited to the annual Tejano/Conjunto Festival. Their recordings sell both locally
and in Texas, and they hold a record for maintaining the number one position for 17 weeks
at a San Antonio Tejano radio station. The band is conservative by local standards, but has
added some cumbias to their repertoire to keep pace and is engaged for many performances
at family events and festivals (they do not play in bars or clubs).
Ruben Ramos of Ruben Ramos y la Familia says ‘we love to play, but we play for the
people’. Sensitive to audiences, he asserts that ‘you can play cumbias and salsa’ in Toledo,
but when you go to more rural local areas, ‘you better break out that squeeze box’, meaning
that rancheras and polkas are in order. His band is thus versatile, and he feels that a broad
repertoire is essential in getting engagements and adjusting to the context. La Familia has
won several Midwest Tejano Music awards (and daughter Yvonne has won twice as best
female vocalist) and has played at a large number of standard venues (festivals, weddings,
quinceañeras, baptisms, retirements, anniversaries, birthdays, and so forth) as well as
outside of the state. Ruben was born in Toledo, and admits to American music influencing
his band’s sound. He feels, however, that this has bettered the musicianship and versatility
of the band in adjusting to changes in modern Tejano music.
Amanda Reyna is a young (now seventeen) Latina accordion player and head of her own
band, Amanda Reyna y los Reyes de Ritmo. Though sometimes tutored by senior musicians
such as Jesse Ponce, she is self-taught and learned the instrument in only a few years. Being
a young female accordion player in a traditionally male instrumental arena has brought
amazement and encouragement; she had a following by the time she was a teenager. Like
other local youth, she is not fluent in Spanish and listens to rap and other American musics;
she identifies herself, however, as Latina and is ambitious about furthering her career.
Following the path of Los Cuatro Vientos, she wants to establish a reputation in San Antonio
and has now played in the city a few times. And, like Ruben Ramos, she has a keen ear for
updating her band and playing to her audience. In one interview, she stated:
I like cumbias because they are modern and up-to-date. As a band, we need to know our
audience. It depends often on the age of the audience – why we were hired. It might be
someone’s anniversary and we’ll need to play rancheras, older-styled songs. It’s my job to
learn the older repertoire. I constantly have to learn new songs. You might be at a party and
someone will request a certain song. I have to know these songs.

These are a few of the individual Latinos in northwest Ohio who would be assets in the
educational environment. Educators are encouraged to seek out such dynamic figures.

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Discussion and implications

During our research as participant observers, patterns emerged from the social fabric of the
Toledo music scene. One noticeable aspect is the value placed on cultural traditions and the
emotional bond experienced within the community. We discovered that Latino musicians
and communities employ music as an avenue to maintain traditions and to celebrate culture
together. It is also art to engage the greater community. As Maria Rodriquez-Winters of the
Sofia Quintero Arts Center attests, ‘We get all kinds of different music and participation in
here because . . . we see it’s a very important tool to help other people understand our
culture.’ Joe Balderas, director of a folkloric dance troupe, concurs: ‘We especially like to
bring music and dance to areas, to people that know nothing about our culture. Some
people have only a “Taco Bell” image of us.’
Music also constructs Latino ethnicity and embraces not only those who are of Mexican
descent, but any individuals identifying themselves as Latino or Hispanic. Many young
Latinos confess that performing music and/or dance connects them to the audience and to
each other. Select statements from young performers include:

I like doing this! Some of my friends are in the group. I love to perform and I love seeing all
the groups.
It’s fun! You meet lots of people . . . like when you dance . . . you perform and make
people smile.

We observed that community celebrations unified not only the local Latinos, but also the
larger community. Musicians and community leaders spoke of a desire to share the culture
with everyone – seeking positive relationships and understanding from non-Latinos. The
inside circle acted to preserve and improve upon the cultural practices and traditions, but
not to the exclusion of the outside circle. This healthy exchange of ideas served to strengthen
the community and not to polarize it.
In a similar vein, music educators may want to further explore questions of identity (self,
group, ethnic, ascribed, situational; how students see/place themselves, how they believe
others see them) and the maintaining of cultural traditions and cultural contexts in the
Latino music community, because these together reveal the most positive steps in
developing a curriculum. Music educators could, for example, play a contemporary Tejano
‘remake’ of a traditional conjunto melody, then involve students in a comparative analysis
and a more in-depth investigation of the music using the extended facets model (developed
by Barrett, McCoy, & Veblen, 1997). The extended facets model assumes a problem-solving,
interdisciplinary approach to music study in its fuller sociocultural context, with students
doing their own research in seeking answers to the questions raised within the model. The
lesson could go beyond discussion and analysis, with students playing or singing the old and
new versions, perhaps creating their own versions. Students could seek out local musicians
and discover their take on the particular musical selection being studied, or explore music
forms or the roles of accordion fills, bajo sexto accompaniment, and off-beat drumming in
formulating a Tejano sound. Some educators believe that minority-based multicultural
education is divisive; yet, in Toledo, a public-based movement demonstrates the opposite
effect. We concur with Noddings (1992) as she advocates ‘genuine dialog with concrete
others’ in our struggle to understand and connect with other groups (p. 120). One of the
recommendations is to strengthen our parental and community relationships by inviting
them together to join the dialogue.
Another goal is to better understand contemporary Latino music styles. Musicians in this
study, both young and old, spoke about and demonstrated innovations within traditional

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musical forms, such as the blending of pop, salsa and conjunto styles. They spoke about
making these musical decisions to please their various audiences. So often scholars and
teachers have limited parameters and thinking about what music is or which musics really
matter.2 Music-making is informed by the specifics relating to its transmission: the who,
what, when, where and why. Students in music programs should be actively engaged in
making music and exploring music as a global phenomenon (Campbell, 2004).
We found that young people live in many musical worlds, moving from sphere to sphere
as the context demands and actively switching codes for different settings. Those we
encountered were ever mindful of their parents’ and grandparents’ musical preferences and
not only endured the traditional sounds of conjunto, ranchera and the orquesta valses, for
example, but also embraced them. On the other hand, most also sought out the current
Latino bands that mixed salsa, hip-hop, rap, banda and pop into the sound. Besides listening
to Latino musics, young Latinos, like other youth in the United States, keep up with the
latest contemporary musics in the rock, pop, county, rhythm & blues, hip-hop and jazz
worlds as their preferences indicate, living a bicultural existence. Educators, especially those
with high Latino populations, may want to design curricula and select repertoire keeping
these musical preferences in mind.
A progressive school music curriculum would reflect a socially responsible pedagogy that
leads learners to a better understanding of global musical practices and how people share
music together. Our dialogues with the Latino community revealed that little is done in the
local schools to reaffirm Latino cultural traditions, specifically in music and dance. Some
young people expressed concerns that their culture was not part of the school curriculum.3
Folklorico groups here function solely in the private arena and never in the public schools,
and local schools did not sponsor non-traditional musical ensembles featuring Latino
musics. Three interviewed musicians were eager to share their music-making with youth in
schools, including starting up Latino-based ensembles and apprenticeships. We found that
musicians were willing, but felt uncomfortable approaching venues of higher education and
so need to be invited. Here, ethnomusicologists and music educators can collaborate to
bring these parties together. Misunderstandings form barriers; it is our task to seek
openings. By doing so, we can move to embrace people from both sides as we move to an
environment of schools without walls.
Educators may want to foster such experiences for their students. Educators can
introduce authentic instructional videos and recordings, read appropriate literature
establishing a cultural context (for example, picture story-books on Latino themes for
younger children) and venture out of the classroom into the community. As mentioned
earlier, students should have opportunities to meet and interact with real musicians and
culture-bearers in their community as they learn about the traditional oral/aural techniques
of a particular music culture. Research shows a significant correlation between one’s music
preferences and one’s own cultural/ethnic background (see O’Hagin & Harnish, 2003). We
would encourage educators and researchers to establish long-term relationships with local
leaders and musicians that build reciprocal understandings moving us beyond the one-time
‘fiesta day’ approach. Strategies may include ways to involve community musicians in our
school programs (K-124 and beyond) moving toward inclusion of their voice in curricular
design. By doing so, we will begin to understand the meaning of music in people’s lives.
In this project, we formed a reciprocal partnership and moved from supposedly objective
researchers to vulnerable observers and participants (Behar, 1996). In addition to forming
friendships, both sides – academics and community musicians – crossed over into each
other’s worlds. We went into the barrios and neighborhood centers not only to observe, but
also sometimes to make music together. Such musical happenings often led to new musical
synchronisms such as Irish fiddle tunes jamming with upbeat conjunto, or jazz guitar

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 O’Hagin & Harnish Cultural identity 67

backing up the Tex-Mex sound. So we played and learned together. In the few years since
the project’s conclusion, some of these Latino musicians have been invited to perform for
the university community and we have a standing invitation to perform at the Sofia Quintero
Arts Center. The project provided opportunities for musicians to play together (creating new
musical fusions), to build professional networks bringing in new audiences, and to develop
lines of communication with Latino-based arts agencies in Toledo.
Conducting such field projects is also directly beneficial to university students, as they
encounter the personal connections musicians have to their music and to their audiences.
First-hand experience in the field offers the possibility for students to become vulnerable
observers, growing to understand how a music can permeate the inner life of the
community and connect to one’s identity as an individual and member of the body. In a
previous project on music and migrant farm workers (O’Hagin & Harnish, 2001), we
witnessed the life-changing and eye-opening transformations of our student assistants, who
emerged newly stimulated by the world of music around them. These experiences are
humanizing and nurture a cultural sensitivity that can later translate into the formulation of
dynamic music programs.
Latino music in northwest Ohio creates community, constructs Tejano and pan-Latino
identity and links Latinos with an imagined Texas-Mexico that has spread throughout the
country. Though the places articulated through music involve notions of difference and
social boundary (Stokes, 1994, p. 3), Latinos also promote inclusiveness with peoples of
Toledo and seek to erase much of that border. This community must negotiate its history,
present and position within the city. Individuals and organizations have made decisions that
gave shape to the music culture and its place within public festivities and personal life cycles.
The community enshrines conjunto as music of deep feelings steeped in Toledo tradition,
while accepting all Latino music and pan-Latino ethnicity. There is, however, a diverse
dynamic at work as the younger and fully bicultural generation embraces a stronger
American identity, demonstrated by shared popular cultural traits (for example, clothing)
and further American music influences in youth-directed Latino music (for example, lively
cumbias). As Slobin asserts (1993, p. 6), music is not just a reflection of social life, it is
constitutive of culture and personality. Similarly, music does not simply repeat a community’s
pre-established ideology, it generates ‘a sense of peoplehood’ and makes apparent what
otherwise is rarely hinted at in spoken or written discourse (Lornell & Rasmussen, 1997, pp.
18–19).
Latino musicians and audiences in Toledo grapple with traditions and ways of inventing.
The artists we met seemed comfortable with the tension provided by ‘the sedimentation of
tradition, and the utopian invention of possible worlds that constitute innovation’, so aptly
articulated by Sancho-Velázquez (1994, p. 49). Successive generations of musicians have
added their personal expressions to ‘tradition’ in subtly modifying established forms to
reflect their time and environment. Most musicians we grew to know were ‘innovative
traditionalists’, embracing both change and tradition (Sheehy, 1997, pp. 152–153).
Educators may have many fine resources – for example, dynamic individuals such as Jesse
Ponce, Baldemar Velásquez, Amanda Reyna, Ruben Ramos and Yvonne Ramos – within their
communities to help them develop culturally sensitive, vibrant and inclusive programs. Such
programs can introduce both ‘tradition’ and ‘innovation’ in music culture. Educators can
also seek out ethnomusicologists to assist in ethnography to discover talented musicians and
local meanings, as we did in this study.
An interpretive task for the ethnomusicologist and reflective music educator is to find a
balance between understanding who we are and imagining who we might be, and
facilitating this query for our students. For us, the Latino community in Toledo played an
integral part in this dance. We attempted, with our collaborative partners, to know what it

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means to be part of the Latino music scene in Toledo, and were transformed by the
experience. From shouts of ‘Let’s hear it from you crazy Mexicans’ to echoes yet to come,
our celebratory dance continues.

Notes
1. One of the outcomes of study was a descriptive and educational guide on Latino musics that was
distributed to local schools, libraries, civic organizations, and educational institutions (Harnish, Long, &
O’Hagin 2002).
2. Popular music, for example, is sometimes denigrated as inauthentic.
3. In western and southwestern states, one can often find student mariachi or folklorico ensembles from
elementary to secondary levels. The renaissance that Loza (1993, p. 55) speaks of in Los Angeles has
not arrived in much of the Midwest.
4. K-12 denotes kindergarten through 12th grade (the final year of high school) in the US education system.

References
Barrett, J. R., McCoy, W. C., & Veblen, K. K. (1997). Sound ways of knowing: Music in the interdisciplinary
curriculum. New York: Schirmer.
Behar, R. (1996). The vulnerable observer: Anthropology that breaks your heart. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Burr, R. (1999). The Billboard Guide to Tejano and regional Mexican music. New York: Billboard Books.
Campbell, P. S. (2004). Teaching music globally. New York: Oxford University Press.
Daniel, R. J. (1984). A study of multicultural teacher training components in teacher education programs
and teaching practices. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Houston, TX.
Fung, C. V. (1994). Undergraduate nonmusic majors’ world music preference and multicultural attitudes.
Journal of Research in Music Education, 42(1), 45–57.
Harnish, D., Long, L., & O’Hagin, B. (2002). A celebration of Latino music culture in Toledo, Ohio. Bowling
Green: Partnerships for Community Action.
Koegel, J. (2002). Crossing borders: Mexicana, Tejana, and Chicana musicians in the United States and
Mexico. In W. A. Clark (Ed.), From Tejano to tango (pp. 97–125). London: Routledge.
Lornell, K., & Rasmussen, A. (1997). Musics of multicultural America: A study of twelve musical
communities. New York: Schirmer Books.
Loza, S. (1993). Barrio rhythms: Mexican American music in Los Angeles. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Maquet, J. (1994). LA: One society, one culture, many options. Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology, 10,
15–21.
Noddings, N. (1992). The challenge to care in our schools: An alternative approach to education. New
York: Teacher’s College Press.
O’Hagin, B., & Harnish, D. (2001). Reshaping imagination: The musical culture of migrant farmworker
families in northwest Ohio. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 151, 21–30.
O’Hagin, B., & Harnish, D. (2003). From ‘what does it matter’ to the ‘heart of the matter’:
Recommendations for multicultural education experiences in undergraduate music programs. College
Music Symposium, 43, 42–54.
Peña, M. (1985). The Texas–Mexican conjunto: History of a working-class music. Austin: University of Texas
Press.
Peña, M. (1999). Mexican American orquesta. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Rice, T. (2003). Time, place, and metaphor in musical experience and ethnography. Ethnomusicology, 47(2),
151–179.
Rothstein-Fisch, C. Greenfield, P. M., & Trumbull, E. (1999). Bridging cultures with classroom strategies.
Educational Leadership, 56(7), 64–67.
Sancho-Velázquez, A. (1994). Interpreting metaphors: Cross-cultural aesthetics as hermeneutic project.
Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology, 10, 37–50.
Sheehy, D. (1997). Mexican mariachi music: Made in the USA. In K. Lornell & A. Rasmussen (Eds.), Musics of
multicultural America: A study of twelve musical communities (pp. 131–154). New York: Schirmer Books.
Slobin, M. (1993). Subcultural sounds: Micromusics of the west. Hanover: University Press of New England.
Stokes, M. (1994). Introduction: Ethnicity, identity and music. In M. Stokes (Ed.), Ethnicity, identity and
music: The musical construction of place (pp. 1–27). Oxford: Berg.
Valdes, D. N. (2000). Region, nation, and world-system: Perspectives on Midwestern Chicana/o history. In R.
I. Rochin & D. N. Valdes (Eds.), Voices of a new Chicana/o history (pp. 115–141). East Lansing, MI:
Michigan State University Press.

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 O’Hagin & Harnish Cultural identity 69

Isabel Barbara O’Hagin, assistant professor of music education at Central Michigan University,
is a nationally known clinician in the areas of multicultural music, children’s kinesthetic
responses to music and early childhood music. Her research is published in the Bulletin
of the Council for Research in Music Education and the College Music Symposium
Journal, among others. She teaches general music methods, early childhood music,
Kodaly pedagogy and Orff-Schulwerk approaches.
Address: 5202 Dale St, Midland, MI 48642, USA. [email: ohagi1ib@cmich.edu]

David Harnish is Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology, Director of the Ethnic Cultural Arts
Program, and Director of Balinese Gamelan Kusuma Sari at Bowling Green State
University. His research interests include Indonesian and other Asian musics, Latino-
American musics, cultural studies, representation and identity. Author of Bridges to the
Ancestors: Music, Myth and Cultural Politics at an Indonesian Festival (2006, University of
Hawai’i Press), his research has been published in books, encyclopedias and journals such
as Ethnomusicology, Ethnomusicology Forum, Journal of Musicological Research,
Yearbook of Traditional Music, The World of Music, College Music Society Symposium,
and Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education. He has conducted projects
with the BBC, National Geographic, and the Smithsonian Institute; and he has recorded
and/or performed Indonesian, jazz and Tejano musics with five different labels.
Address: Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA. [email:
dharnis@bgnet.bgsu.edu]

Abstracts

La musique en tant qu’identité culturelle: Les musiciens Latino dans le

Midwest négocient la tradition et l’innovation
Cette étude, basée sur des enquêtes sur place, explore la culture de la musique Latino dans
Toledo, Ohio, et présente des stratégies pour incorporer la musique dans la salle de classe.
Dans le projet ethnographique, trois professeurs – professeur de musique, ethno-
musicologue, et folkloriste – ont interviewé plusieurs musiciens, bandes et chefs dans la
communauté. Les musiciens régénéraient les traditions Mexicain-Américaines,
particulièrement celle de l’ensemble folklorique de conjunto, tout en développant des
stratégies pour l’innovation du son afin de rejoindre l’esthétique changeante d’une jeunesse
populiste et d’une identité naissante de la population pan-Latino. En plus de reconstruire la
culture traditionnelle, les musiciens et les chefs de la communauté étaient intéressés à poser
une image positive pour les non-initiés et initiés au niveau culturel, tout en atteignant la
communauté au large de la ville de Toledo. Les auteurs accentuent les vies musicales des
artistes, proposent que les musiciens puissent jouer un rôle en formant des programmes
d’études qui sont sensibles au niveau de la culture, et préconisent que les éducateurs et les
étudiants s’engagent directement dans des projets de travaux sur place pour améliorer la
compréhension de l’importance de la musique dans la vie des gens.

Musik zur kulturellen Identität: Latino Musiker behandeln Tradition und

Fortschritt im Mittleren Westen Amerikas
Diese Studie untersucht auf der Grundlage neuer Feldforschung Latino Musik in Toledo
(Ohio, USA) und stellt dabei Verfahren vor, diese Musik in den Klassenunterricht
einzubeziehen. In dem ethnographischen Projekt befragten drei Professoren – ein

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70 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MUSIC EDUCATION 24(1)

Musikerzieher, ein Musikwissenschaftler und ein Folklorist – verschiedene Musiker, Bands

und Gemeindevorstände. Die Musiker waren bemüht, mexikanisch-amerikanische Musik-
traditionen, insbesondere die des conjunto Ensemble, wiederzubeleben und dabei
Möglichkeiten zu entwickeln, dessen Klang zu erneuern und so der gewandelten ästhetik
der populären Jugendkultur und einer gerade entstehenden Pan-Latino Identität zu
entsprechen. Darüber hinaus waren die Musiker und Gemeindevorstände daran interessiert,
ein positives Bild sowohl für kulturelle Insider wie Outsider zu entwerfen und dadurch in die
weitere Umgebung von Toledo auszustrahlen. Die Autoren stellen das musikalische Leben
der Künstler heraus und folgern, dass Musiker eine wichtige Rolle übernehmen können,
kultursensible Klassencurricula zu erstellen, und sie fordern, dass sich Musikerzieher und
Schüler unmittelbar an Feldprojekten beteiligen, um so besser die Bedeutung der Musik im
Leben der Leute zu verstehen.

Música e identidad cultural: Músicos latinos negocian tradición e innovación

en la región de los estados medios
Este estudio, basado en una reciente investigación de campo, explora la cultura musical
Latina en Toledo, Ohio, y presenta estrategias para incorporar la música en el aula. En el
proyecto etnográfico, tres profesores – un educador musical, un etnomusicólogo, y un
folkloristas – entrevistaron a muchos músicos, bandas y líderes comunitarios. Los músicos
estaban regenerando las tradiciones Mexicanas-Americanas, especialmente la del conjunto
folklórico, al tiempo que desarrollaban estrategias para innovar el sonido y enfrentarse con
las estéticas cambiantes de un mercado populista joven y de una surgente identidad pan-
Latina. Además de reconstruir la cultura tradicional, los músicos y los líderes comunitarios
estaban interesados en generar una imagen cultural positiva tanto para los de afuera como
para los de adentro, y llegar a la gran comunidad de Toledo. Los autores resaltan las vidas
musicales de los artistas, sugieren que los artistas pueden tener una participación en la
conformación de un currículum de aula culturalmente sensible, y ayudar a que los
educadores y estudiantes se comprometan directamente en proyectos de trabajo de campo
para comprender el significado de la música en la vida de las personas.

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