Perhaps never in recent memory has the angst of the immigrant in the United States felt as acute as it does today, in the middle of President Trump’s often brutal immigration crackdown.
While the vicissitudes of the immigrant experience have always been a constant in history, across time and lands, they are permanently front of mind in the U.S., which since the 1970s has been the main destination for international migrants, according to the World Migrant Report. Today, more than 50 million immigrants live in the country, with the biggest population coming from Mexico, the big neighbor to the South.
No wonder then that music in Spanish has long served as a vehicle for immigrant stories, of every stripe. As we prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July, Independence Day in the U.S., we dove into those immigrant songs that have spoken to us through the years, but particularly now, at a time when we – Billboard’s Latin music crew — are taking stock of our personal immigrant experiences.
We listened to favorites like Los Tigres Del Norte’s “De Paisano a Paisano,” which was released in 2000, but narrates in chilling detail the scorn and rejection suffered by the working immigrant today; and Ricardo Arjona’s “Mojado,” the ode to the everyday undocumented immigrant worker, who “Isn’t from here because his name isn’t registered, nor from there, because he left (no es de aquí porque su nombre no aparece en los archivos,Ni es de allá porque se fue).”
There’s the cheeky, sardonic “Frijolero” by Mexican alt rockers Molotov from 2003 (‘Don’t call me gringo, you f—in’ beaner, Stay on your side of that goddamn river”), and Residente’s angry “This Is Not America,” which, with words, reclaims the land taken.
And then, there’s those songs that yearn for the home and country lost, like Celia Cruz’s “Por Si Acaso No Regreso.”
For years, we have collected songs of patriotism for Fourth of July. This year, our list of songs reflect frustration, anger, angst, resignation, but also, a sliver of hope.
