This is the kind of New York Times story you wish would never go behind the firewall because it is so useful for people in the U.S. who are barely becoming acquainted with Mexican and Mexican American culture: "Far from Home, Mexicans Sing Age-old Ballads of New Life," by Randal Archibald. It describes the emergence of corrido culture in the American West. Corridos, a "musical news story," are now being studied at the Western Folklife Center in Elko, Nev., a laid-back cowboy and mining town where a brother of mine lives, along with my multiethnic nieces and nephews (Anglo, Mexican, Native American). This chunk is great, on defining a corrido:
Musicians and scholars debate what qualifies as a corrido. To purists, Mr. Garcia’s immigration song, though sung in the style of a corrido and with instruments common to the form, does not make the cut.
"I believe somebody has to die," said Juan Dies, an ethnomusicologist who is based in Chicago and is working with the center on the project. "But some people don’t feel that way."
The piece comes with a good multimedia feature. Also at NYT, a look at the Frida Kahlo retrospective, in honor of her centenary, at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. And previously, "But do they have bullet-proof cars like 50 does?" * UPDATE: Kahlo show got coverage in the L.A. Times in mid-June. (The NYT notes in its lede that Kahlo is a "Chicana heroine.")
* Photo from nytimes.com.