Crossing the Border: The Emigrant

This is the first in a six part series on a Nicaraguan's journey to the United States.

Angel Manuel was a thin, dangly man with a large innocent grin that made him all the more mischievous.  A long protruding nose that arched downward had earned him the nickname Choco, short for Chocoyo or Parrot.  Choco was a gifted mooch.  At the local comedor that his group of friends used as a hang out, he’d arrive, sit down, and greet everyone with a fantastical story about a bar fight, a cheating spouse, or a local government conspiracy; as he told the story, he would reach out and grab pieces of chicken from a friend’s plate, then some tajadas (fried plantain chips) from another plate, then sip on the tropical fruit drink of another friend, not once taking his eyes off his captivated audience.  When the time came to buy alcohol, he was always the one who offered to go pick it up instead of putting money down.  Choco was the type of friend that you didn’t call but would show up; the one that you tried not to eat with; the one that you hid the booze from.

Choco lived with his parents in adobe house with a spacious back yard littered with the droppings of mango, avocado, and lemon trees.  He worked the occasional odd job, at times looked after his little brothers, but mostly spent his time watching television or playing pool at one of the pool halls.

Choco had a brother that worked as a taxi driver.  After many years of work, and through other income streams, he managed to collect five thousand dollars in savings.  Choco’s brother had long ago decided he wanted to go to the United States, and since he had been unable to get a visa, he used his savings to cross the border illegally.  He paid a coyote* the money, reached the Mexican-American border, and crossed over, only to be caught by the U.S. Immigration Authority.  He spent three months in a Houston detention center.  Before releasing him, the immigration officials at the detention center warned him that if he tried to cross the border again, they would consider him a terrorist and he would be arrested and tried in a U.S. court.

Nicaragua: Names

Birth names, on the whole, are interesting cultural indicators.  They can reflect entrenched cultural values (as in the prominence of Biblical names), migration patterns (Irish names, Italian names, Polish names), and even pop culture trends (children named after sports figures and celebrities).  With regard to birth names, Nicaragua represents a curious case.  A person’s name does not seem to reveal a cultural identity, as much as a decision based on whim and fancy.  In many cases, names in Nicaragua seem to be the result of a game of Scrabble gone terribly awry.  How else to explain the following names: Joxe, Jocasta, Axel, Exel, Lubianka, Mayerling, Esquiam, Yen.

In spite of the randomness, many names do fall into certain categories, though some categories are more esoteric than others.  As is to be expected, names of Spanish origin are popular, but not to the degree of other Latin American countries.  Whereas, in other countries “discovered” by the Conquistadors, Spanish names account for around ninety percent of the birth names, in Nicaragua it is probably closer to sixty percent.  Pre-Colombian Aztec names such as Xochilt, Itzachelt, and Cuatemoc are less common, but still typical (especially Xochilt).

The end of the Spanish colonial period, and the rise of the United States as the regional hegemonic power, made a greater mark on birth names in Nicaragua than in many other Latin American countries I have visited.  Anglo-Saxon names such as Karen, Hazel, Helen, Jennifer, Kathy, Katherine, Lucy, Marjory, Jason, Walter, Kenneth, Gary, Bryan, Andy, Michael, Edwin, Sammy, Franklin are unheard of in other Hispanic American countries (to say nothing of Spain itself), but in Nicaragua they are about as common as standard Spanish names like Jose, Luis or Maria.  An odd situation, given the difficulty Spanish speakers have in pronouncing these names (between the English and Spanish languages there is a noticeable deviation in the pronunciation of the letters H, J, and R as well as in the sounds made by the combination of “th” and “ca”).

Top 10 Albums

In true Pitchfork fashion, here are the top 10 albums of the "The History of Music: A Personal Story" series.  The subtitle for this list should be "The albums that are still worth listening to...".  The albums are in order of musical phase, starting with nu-metal, then punk, then indie.  Some of these bands have more than one album that is worth listening to, but as a rule, no band I have ever liked has released more than three solid albums.  So, for any band out there, reach your peak, release three albums, and then just stop.  After that, I will either stop paying attention or just buy your CD out of loyalty.

Rage Against the Machine
S/T (1992)

The first hardcore funk-rock band.  There has never been, and probably will never be, better music to spark a destructive riot.  After the riot, some may sit and ponder what was accomplished, at whom was the anger directed, and whether the destruction was necessary.  But as long as the riot keeps going, we can enjoy the thrill of smashing things, and yelling “FUCK YOU, I WON’T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!” at someone (not sure who) for telling me to do something (not sure what). (Songs: Killing in the Name Of, Take the Power Back)

Tool
Ænima (1996)

There are not many bands from my nu-metal phase that can still be taken seriously today, but Tool is definitely one of them.  They would have been a damn good prog-rock band, if their sound hadn’t been so sinister. Ænima is a world of dark dungeons, the rhythm marked by the dripping of the leaky pipes, while prisoners tell stories of martyrdom and apocalypse to the cries of the tortured in the background.  The long, intricate song arrangements, and the depth of the writing make these guys the Radiohead of the nu-metal movement. (Songs: Eulogy, Hooker with a Penis)

Operation Ivy
Energy (1991)

Dude, it still sounds like the songs are being played on cassette tape.  Dude, the songs are barely two minutes long (no bridges, man).  Dude, the choruses are just him repeating the title of the song over and over again.  It’s fucking punk rock, is what it is.  And it’s fucking awesome.  This album is an early example of what would later become the 90s punk and ska scene.  Look up the word “crude” in a thesaurus and apply all the synonyms to this album: simple, makeshift, rough, unfinished, unsophisticated, raw, unrefined, unprocessed, rude, coarse, vulgar, offensive, uncouth.  It really doesn't get much better than this. (Songs: Knowledge, Take Warning)

The History of Music: A Personal Story (Part 5)

The Decline

Nearly ten years had passed since KoRn.  A preference had become a hobby, a hobby a fixation, a fixation a passion.  The narrative reached a climax--its High Fidelity moment--with the indie music phase: visits to hip records stores in the city, the friends that only talked about music, the concerts on the weekends, deciding whether to date someone based on their taste in music, mix tapes.  A feverish passion, that soon began its natural decline.  A couple of years later, I had stopped searching for music, stopped browsing CDs, stopped going to shows.  The only exposure to new music was through friends and whatever they played at their house, in their car, or at a party.  I accompanied friends to shows, but never looked into whether any of the bands I liked (or had liked) were in town.

The death of music had two potential causes.  First, the indie music scene had expanded the scope of “good” music to encompass almost anything, as long as you had discovered it on your own.  In other words, it was a race to see who could find a strange, quirky band that nobody had heard of before.  It didn’t matter if it was pop, hip hop, house, electronic, classical, jazz, old, new; anything, as long as you could defend it or as long as it was for the sake of irony. The internet and the proliferation of Do It Yourself recordings made the possibilities endless.  There were the local dive bar bands, the international bands that sung in foreign languages (French, Spanish, or Portuguese), the forgotten bands that had broken up before finding an audience.  These were all potential discoveries that one was on the hunt for.  There was even a movement to rediscover old established bands that had been written off as dated, or had always been acknowledged but never truly appreciated.

The History of Music: A Personal Story (Part 4)

Radiohead and the Indie Scene

Radiohead felt like grown-up music.  It took time and effort--patience--to get into the band.  Unlike pop-punk music, the melodies did not instantly trigger a sugar high, they weren’t ear candy, they did not immediately “click.”  I listened to OK Computer over and over again, the cascading guitar chords flowing like a milky river into the unexplored recesses of my brain.  I developed a relationship with OK Computer; we fell asleep together, wandered through malls together, drank coffee and read the paper in the mornings together.  I got to know the album; I read and re-read the liner notes; thought about whether the layout of the “Airbag” lyrics intentionally created the outline of a tank; analyzed the ambiguous lyrics.  And I began to love OK Computer, began enjoying the once uncomfortable silences.

As a result of the process, the emotional response to the music was, inevitably, different.  Whether it be the delayed gratification, the self-satisfaction due to one’s own awareness of the effort that has been invested, or simply brainwashing through repetition, the connection to the album proved lasting and transcendent.  At the risk of sounding overly cynical, let me say that the music itself was (is) beautiful.  A dreamy world of layered sounds and echoes, of whale songs and bursting bubbles; the image of swimming underwater and looking up at the sky as a light drizzle falls on the other side, blurring the vision like an impressionist painting.  But Radiohead would also come up the surface from time to time, and immerse itself in the gathering storm clouds, the flashes of lightning, the thunder, and the crashing wave of Jonny Greenwood’s guitar.  Radiohead was the roaring “Off with his head man, off with his head man, why don’t you remember my name?!” and the serene “Rain down, rain down on me.”

The History of Music: A Personal Story (Part 3)

Punk is Dead

Elton was pale and unshaven, his face brought to mind a young Ewan McGregor, while his demeanor--slouched, introspective, with a wardrobe in constant mourning--brought to mind a beatnik poet.  He played guitar in our high school jazz band when really the instrument that most suited him was piano.  Unlike your typical attention whore guitar player, Elton always played his guitar sitting down and hidden away somewhere in the rhythm section, his head leaning into the neck as if the electric guitar were whispering a secret to him.  The only indications the audience had of his existence were the occasional of off-beat high-note chords that would slide deliciously back up the fret board.  When he would take a solo, the impressionable audience would look at each other and say, “I didn’t know there was a guitar.  He’s good.”

Elton became my guitar teacher early on, after I decided to follow in my brother’s footsteps and join the jazz band. (My brother played the drums.) He was quiet, dedicated, patient and sharp; he only spoke when absolutely necessary, but in those moments he was clever and devastatingly ironic.  He could also be condescending and elitist.  He quickly became my reluctant mentor.

Elton ridiculed my taste in music.  Punk in its earliest forms had been the last stop on the long road of making music a popular art form; you didn’t need to know how to play an instrument all that well, and you didn’t even need to be a decent singer, to express yourself through punk music.  It was the ultimate form of rebellion against the traditional oligarchy of music.  But you can only rebel for so long.  After twenty years, punk music had became a cheap imitation of itself.  The simplistic four-note bar-chord progressions, were no longer a symbol of rebellion, but of conformity to an established niche.  “Corny, preachy, repetitive, and unoriginal,” was Elton’s crushing assessment.

He led me down the path of sustained and minor chords, of bizarre instruments and strange computer noises: he introduced me to the almighty Radiohead.