Although Argentina has not been a place associated with indigenous scholarship this image is shifting as scholars, activists, musicians, and artists have begun to challenge the myth of a homogenous Argentina and recognize the country’s estimated 900 indigenous communities. This dissertation analyzes the role that musicians, dancers, and other culture bearers of Argentine popular and folkloric music play in this burgeoning indigenous movement. In an attempt to capture a multifaceted indigenous narrative of Argentina, I begin from the premise that identity is not static but rather a ‘“production’, always in process” (Hall 1990:222), Thus, I consider the multiple ways that Argentines choose to align or distance themselves from a shared indigenous ancestry and how they use particular dress, symbols, musical genres and instruments to do so. I analyze shifts in this discourse in relation to broader trends of tourism, national politics, transnationalism and a growing international indigenous awareness. This dissertation begins with a look at indigenous trends in national music and within the country’s capital Buenos Aires and moves into a detailed study of musical practices in the northern province of Salta, a locus of gaucho folclore. In particular, I examine the ways—again—through which instruments, genres, and dress, that three separate groups of musicians: copla performers, an “Indian” comparsa, and an ethno-folcloric fusion group, revalorize indigeneity by representing native northern Argentine communities in their performances. Ultimately I argue that musical expressions of indigeneity in Argentina both contribute to and detract from the struggle for indigenous recognition by allowing for a retelling of Argentine history and the emergence of native peoples onto a historically White nationalist narrative and by simultaneously perpetuating indigenista exoticist trends in which the “great,” ancient, Indian civilizations are elevated as authentic culture bearers while extant ones are excluded or portrayed as primitive in comparison.

This paper analyses the different ways that two groups in the Los Angeles area use son jarocho, a musical practice from Veracruz, Mexico and the participatory values in a fandango, a communal gathering, to build community and to connect with their Mexican heritage. The first group is composed primarily of Mexican Americans and Chicanas/os who refer to themselves as jaraneros, or players of the main son jarocho instrument, the jarana. For the jaraneros, fandangos provide an opportunity for people to come together in a democratic setting in which the main tenets of neo-liberalism such as competition and privileging the individual over the community are eradicated. The jaraneros are also connected to the Zapatista movement and a global effort to re-examine and ultimately challenge the new world order and its modes of capitalism like free trade under NAFTA. The second group, the jarochas, is composed primarily of immigrants from Veracruz. For members of this group, playing son jarocho is about connecting with their traditions from their hometowns in Veracruz and building community with others from that part of Mexico. Using these two communities as my case studies, I demonstrate the different ways that diasporic and immigrant communities cultivate the practice of fandango and son jarocho in Los Angeles. I argue that the meaning each group has assigned to this practice is reflective of each one's respective relationships to the homeland, Mexico, and more specifically to Veracruz, where son jarocho originates.