2. Investigating Narcoco
idos and
Their Meaning in the U.S.-Mexico
Border Context
As a particular case in which some of the general concerns men-
tioned in Chapter 1 may be elucidated, the research on narcoco
i-
dos is intended as a preliminary investigation regarding their role,
in combination with social conditions, in shaping the creation of
a cultural archetype or persona—the narcotrafficker—and the pat-
tern of action that ties violence, power, money, and drugs to po-
litical, social, and regional themes for which the narcotrafficker is
known.
1
Produced and distributed through well-known yet ‘‘under-
ground’’ channels, these songs feature archetypal heroes, or ‘‘big
men,’’ who are involved in the drug trade, smuggling, drug use,
or other related activity that is prevalent on the border. Build-
ing on the co
ido tradition—border ballads with epic themes of
heroes who resisted the Texas Rangers, U.S. authorities, or, in
some cases, even central Mexican authorities (Paredes 1958, 1993;
He
era-Sobek 1993)—these new co
idos have situated their pro-
tagonists in the cu
ent border context and have gained substan-
tial popularity among a wide range ofMexican,Mexican American,
and other Hispanic audiences. For some narcoco
ido groups (e.g.,
Los Tucanes de Tijuana or Los Tigres del Norte),
2
the audience has
oadened beyond Mexico to Latin America at large.
Like some ‘‘gangsta rap’’ or early reggae, the narcoco
idos often
describe the exploits of, and situations faced by, those who are por-
trayed in some manner as outlaw heroes, or ‘‘social bandits’’ (Hobs-
awm XXXXXXXXXXA basic presumption, therefore, is the following: the
fact that these songs are in co
ido form has significance with re-
spect to their meaning and themeaning of the narcotrafficker char-
acter they so often feature.
For purposes of this research, I was generally interested in the
following:
• How are these narcoco
idos framed or understood by those
who listen to them and those who produce them? Both groups
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AN: 130423 ; Edberg, Mark Cameron.; El Narcotraficante : Narcoco
idos and the Construction of a
Cultural Persona on the U.S.-Mexico Borde
Account: s XXXXXXXXXXmain.ehost
26 El Narcotraficante
have been included in this study under the assumption that
the meanings commonly drawn from a given media product
esult from a synthesis of producer and consumer motives,
goals, and interpretive frameworks.
• How do the narcoco
idos shape or reflect common under-
standings of the narcotrafficker—particularly in terms of the
way the narcotrafficker is situated in the context of
oade
social forces in the U.S.-Mexico border area, which include
patterns of social stratification?
• Do narcoco
idos, as a vehicle for representing the narco-
trafficker, have any impact on patterns of individual action,
including violence and involvement in trafficking? And,
finally,
• Are the answers to these questions generalizable to
oade
questions regarding the influence of public (including media)
epresentations on individual action?
Of course, in a small-scale, preliminary study such as this, I do
not expect definitive answers.What I hope for is more at the level
of the suggestive, which can at least provide directions for furthe
esearch.
Research Site and Rationale
I conducted the research primarily in two sites, following the gen-
eral division between producers and consumers of the narcoco
i-
dos.The bulk of interviews and observations were conducted in the
twin cities of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, which
straddle the border inWest Texas.Together, El Paso and Juárez form
an u
an area with a population of more than two million. The El
Paso/Juárez metropolitan area is a major u
an border center, char-
acterized by significant poverty (e.g., in the colonias, slums or shack
settlements) and visible wealth, due to the dominant presence of
maquila (cross-border) industries and the drug trade. It also has a
elatively high rate of drug use, including injection use.
I also conducted a small number of interviews in Los Angeles,
California, because that metropolitan area is the site of offices and
studios for a number of the major producers, distributors, and mar-
keters of narcoco
idos and related music—including EMI Records
(EMI-Latin) and Fonovisa and several smaller companies, such as
Cintas Acuario Internacional. In addition, the Los Angeles area
could be characterized as a ‘‘hot spot’’ with respect to the popularity
of narcoco
idos, not only because many are produced there, but
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EBSCO : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 7/22/2018 3:41 PM via UNIV OF TEXAS AT EL PASO
AN: 130423 ; Edberg, Mark Cameron.; El Narcotraficante : Narcoco
idos and the Construction of a
Cultural Persona on the U.S.-Mexico Borde
Account: s XXXXXXXXXXmain.ehost
Investigating Narcoco
idos 27
also because they are very popular in clubs and on radio stations
serving the near-majority Hispanic population.
Finally, I conducted interviews with members of a norteño group
that performs all along the border and performs co
idos (including
narcoco
idos) as an important part of their repertoire.These inter-
views were conducted in Douglas, Arizona, a small border town di-
ectly across from Agua Prieta in Mexico.
The research was therefore organized on the lines of what George
Marcus XXXXXXXXXXhas called ‘‘multi-site ethnographic research.’’ It fol-
lowed cu
ent theoretical developments in anthropology and othe
social sciences that seek to move beyond a strict construction of
culture as tied to place. These developments are particularly rele-
vant when studying cultural representations as they are produced,
disseminated, and consumed via mass media, because mass-media
epresentations flow so quickly across geographic space and are so
easily available to be incorporated, adapted—or rejected—by people
from a
oad range of cultural traditions.
Social Stratification and Poverty on the Borde
Thinking along the lines of multisited ethnography, however, does
not mean ruling out any consideration of geography. The context
of place still has a part to play in the meaning of representations;
it just may not be the only or the final word. In this research, the
geographic area in which most of the research took place retains
some importance in understanding narcoco
idos and the narco-
trafficker image because the co
ido genre at issue was born in a
order context. Moreover, the area provides a historically relevant
setting for assessing connections between social stratification and
cultural representations. The U.S.-Mexico border is characterized
y high poverty, migration, population flux, and a proliferation of
cross-border factories, known as maquilas (or maquiladoras). The
maquilas exemplify what has become the prevalent organization of
labor among transnational corporations in the past several decades:
administrative and technical operations located in the home coun-
try, with manufacturing or assembly located offshore, or across
the border, where inexpensive labor can be found (see Sklair 1989;
Dwyer XXXXXXXXXXThere are well over three hundred such maquilas on
the Mexican side of the border in Juárez.While the maquilas have
created employment on both sides of the border (though the flow of
wage labor, not surprisingly, has moved to the Mexican side), much
of the employment is low wage and characterized by high turnove
(Dwyer XXXXXXXXXXPoverty in many large border cities such as Juárez
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EBSCO : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 7/22/2018 3:41 PM via UNIV OF TEXAS AT EL PASO
AN: 130423 ; Edberg, Mark Cameron.; El Narcotraficante : Narcoco
idos and the Construction of a
Cultural Persona on the U.S.-Mexico Borde
Account: s XXXXXXXXXXmain.ehost
28 El Narcotraficante
is rampant, and the colonias on its outskirts are filled with house-
holds living in wood-and-scrap shacks and often headed by single
women who work in the maquilas. More than 100,000 residents
have no running water (see Moore 2000).
Even on the U.S. side of the border, the poverty rate is one-third
greater than the national average, and per capita income is 12 per-
cent below the average. Unemployment is high, and one-quarter of
adults have less than a high school education (U.S. White House,
Office of the Press Secretary, Bulletin, May 25, XXXXXXXXXXAt the same
time, the population is growing twice as fast as in the rest of the
country and is much younger. In Juárez itself, only about one-
quarter of the population has completed grade school (information
from Juárez SISVEA [Sistema de Vigilancia Epidemiológica de las
Adicciones—Epidemiologic Survey System of Addictions] director,
Esteban Román Olvera, M.D., in Proceedings of Border Epidemi-
ologyWork Group, August XXXXXXXXXXAnd El Paso, despite its gleaming
city center, is the poorest large city in Texas and the fourth poor-
est in the country (U.S. Census Bureau, 1992), with 25 percent of
families living below the poverty line. It is also approximately 73
percent Hispanic.
Finally, the reality of social stratification by racial or ethnic cate-
gory in Mexico cannot be ignored. Despite the historical represen-
tation of Mexican culture as mestizo, a deep racism born during the
Spanish invasion and conquest remains as a ‘‘disdain for pure Indi-
ans and a special respect for güeros, or whites’’ (Riding 1989, p. 7).
Accompanying the racism is the socioeconomic fact that Indian
peoples are, by and large, the poorest of Mexicans, while those of
European (criollo) ancestry have traditionally been ove
epresented
among the economic elite, a pattern that mi
ors the general legacy
of European colonialism in theNewWorld. Also not unusual is that
the most egregious racism against Indian peoples is often reported
as coming from mestizos (Riding 1989, pp. 199–218). Apropos this
esearch, rural people—a large part of the narcoco
ido audience—
may in general be more associated with poverty and ‘‘Indian-ness.’’
Narcoco
idos as Subject Matte
Examining narcoco
idos and their social context and role provides
an excellent vehicle for the examination of
oader questions re-
lated to the construction, production, and interpretation of media
images and archetypes as they relate to poverty and social stratifi-
cation, and the relationship between these media images and indi-
vidual practice.This is so because narcoco
idos are a cu
ent itera-
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EBSCO : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 7/22/2018 3:41 PM via UNIV OF TEXAS AT EL PASO
AN: 130423 ; Edberg, Mark Cameron.; El Narcotraficante : Narcoco
idos and the Construction of a
Cultural Persona on the U.S.-Mexico Borde
Account: s XXXXXXXXXXmain.ehost
Investigating Narcoco
idos 29
tion of the co
ido form, a very deeply rooted vehicle in Mexican
culture for the representation and dissemination of culturally sig-
nificant values and social roles. In their cu
ent form, however, they
have melded into the larger domain of mass media. This, as will be
argued, not only has transformed certain elements of their essential
character, but also has changed the way in which they exert influ-
ence as purveyors of culturally shaped messages.
To begin understanding narcoco
idos