June 25, 2024 • 26 mins
In this episode of the NILC Freedom to Thrive podcast, host Victoria Ballesteros explores the powerful intersection of music and social justice with special guest, Hector Flores, co-founder of the band Las Cafeteras.
Join us as Hector shares his journey from social justice organizer to musician, highlighting the inspiration behind songs like "Caravana," "Vivas Nos Queremos," and "La Bamba Rebelde." Discover how his music serves as a voice for immigrant communities and a call to action for listeners everywhere.
Hector discusses the importance of telling stories of love, loss, and resilience within immigrant families, and the role music plays in changing perceptions and encouraging activism. He also reflects on the responsibility of artists to create spaces of joy and unity, and his hopes for reaching both immigrant communities and broader audiences.
Tune in for an inspiring conversation about the transformative power of music, the need for more artists to address social justice issues, and a heartfelt poem from Hector to close out the episode.
Don't miss this compelling episode of the NILC Freedom to Thrive podcast. Subscribe today to stay updated on future episodes and join us in continuing the conversation on immigration and justice.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is the NILC Freedom to Thrive podcast, powering pro-immigrant narratives, one story at a time.
I'm Victoria Ballesteros, Executive Vice President of Narrative at the National
Immigration Law Center.
When I was in high school in the 1980s, we didn't have cell phones,
we didn't have the internet, and we certainly didn't have social media.
(00:21):
What we did have, besides really big hair was MTV, music television.
I know it sounds really quaint today, but MTV was new and suddenly the world
opened up with music from around the globe.
And while they're musical time capsules today, I distinctly remember three songs
that awakened my consciousness to the travesty of apartheid in South Africa.
(00:44):
First was a song by Peter Gabriel called Biko. It's a powerful and and haunting
tribute to Stephen Biko, who was killed by South African police while in custody
for his work against apartheid.
That song moved and enraged me then, and it still does today.
Then there was Free Nelson Mandela by The Specials. At the time,
(01:05):
Mandela was in his 21st year of a 27-year imprisonment, also for opposing apartheid.
And while the subject matter was dead serious, it's a joyful song.
It makes you want to get up and dance.
The third and most electrifying for me was called Sun City by Artists United Against Apartheid.
That song was written and produced by Stephen Van Zandt, who our younger listeners
(01:27):
may know from his role on The Sopranos, but this was a defiant song by some
of the biggest musicians of the time calling for a boycott in solidarity with
the people of South Africa.
I can't name all the musicians because there are too many, but the music video
was stunning because it provided a glimpse into what people were are experiencing
at the hands of their government under the violence and brutal oppression of apartheid.
(01:50):
And that is the power of art and music specifically, to tap public consciousness
by not only holding up a mirror, but also saying, this isn't right. Pay attention.
And people did. I certainly did. And so did many in my generation.
Music provided an on-ramp to issues that otherwise weren't accessible.
(02:11):
It inspired us to speak up and take action. And we all know the rest of the
story with Nelson Mandela not only being freed, but later becoming the president of South Africa.
And this is why I'm so excited to be in conversation with our guest today,
Hector Flores, just a wonderful person and compañero in the struggle.
Hector has gone from social justice organizer to musician.
(02:34):
And as one of the founding members of Las Cafeteras, Hector is helping to change
the narrative on immigration one song at a time.
Victoria, that was a great intro.
That was a great intro. I love it. Welcome to the podcast. Cass.
It's so great to see you and thank you for being here. I know you're on tour
and you're going from one place to another.
(02:55):
I really appreciate it. It's wonderful to see you.
No, I mean, this is my natural habitat.
I've had to learn to kind of embrace the road.
A lot of folks always ask, how do you do it? How do you like it?
I mean, I remember when we used to travel and we'd have to sleep in bathtubs
in people's hallways and on the floor.
Now we get hotel hotel rooms and I'm okay.
(03:17):
I'm good. I remember the bad days. Moving on up.
I love it. I love it. I love it. So your music, Hector, is rooted in social
justice from songs like Caravana to Vivas Nos Queremos, La Bamba Rebelde,
This Land Is Your Land. There's so many.
What is the driving force behind your music and your work? You know, I think, wow.
(03:39):
Okay. I'm going to give, there's a long story and a short story.
Today, We're going to give the medium, but I feel like, where does it, where does it come from?
Well, before being a musician, I was an organizer, but for me, I come from organizing.
And so for 10 years, you know, from college to after college,
(04:00):
I worked in educational justice movement for environmental justice.
I did immigrant rights work, queer justice.
And that informed what I wanted to do in the world.
And so anything I do, whether I become a filmmaker, a chef, whatever I do,
I'm going to take those values.
(04:21):
So I just ended up becoming a musician by accident.
And really, at the end of the day, it's about, you know, I wanted to hear our stories on the radio.
Like, I grew up with cumbia. I grew up with hip hop. I grew up with rock music. all dope.
But at the end of the day, I wanted to hear my story also coming out of the speakers and I did it.
(04:45):
And so like a lot of folks, if you don't see it in the world,
then maybe you got to create it.
That's kind of the story of Las Cafeteras, you know? So let's talk about your
story. You're the son of immigrants.
How has that shown up in your work as a musician? Oh my goodness.
I mean, I mean, all over. I mean, if you hear our first album,
it's time. It's even the title of the album. It was in 2012.
(05:08):
It was titled It's Time. And it's because we were seeing all this anti-immigrant rhetoric, policies.
Jarpayo was running like havoc in Arizona.
We saw like anti-immigrant rhetoric and laws in Texas, in the South.
And so we wrote an album that was really dedicated to the plight of immigrants.
(05:29):
And being myself, Denise and Kano, who are the core members of Las Cafeteras,
we had parents who came to this country as undocumented immigrants, right?
Like that's, for us, it's part of who we are. It's part of our identity.
We don't even identify, like I wouldn't, you know, we never identified as a political band.
We just identified as a band, but our stories have been politicized.
(05:50):
And for us, it was like, yo, this is who we are.
And right now, like we need to talk about it.
So like La Bamba Rebelde, you know, which is a four, like a 400 year old Afro-Mexican song.
La Bamba, which a lot of folks don't know, made famous by a 17-year-old Chicano
boy named Richie Valance, right?
And for us, we took this traditional song, but we wrote the lyrics to talk about
(06:15):
what we're going through, you know?
So the chorus, you know, in La Bamba would be like, Yo no soy marinero,
por ti seré, por ti seré, por ti seré.
We said, yo no creo en fronteras, yo cruzaré, yo cruzaré, yo cruzaré.
I don't believe in borders and
I'll cross them and cross them and cross them. And it became an anthem.
(06:35):
It became an anthem across the country. And everywhere we went,
we would sing that song and everybody would like, when that part came on,
everybody would scream it out and shout it out.
And I realized what we were doing is that we were writing music.
Not only when you write music about you and reflecting your story,
and that's true to you, you're also writing for others because we're all human
(06:58):
and a lot of us are feeling the same thing.
So for immigrants, man, and immigrant families and communities,
we were touring the country and folks resonated because like,
yo, we need to come together.
And this was a song that was, that was, that became an anthem across the country.
And like, you know, we're very proud to do that.
And I feel like, you know, Victoria, like what's your favorite loves.
(07:20):
Do you have a favorite love song? Oh boy.
Anyway, well, now we're talking to Chabela Vargas, but those are songs about pain and loss.
So maybe not. But you know, it's funny when you're talking about La Bamba Rebelde.
I love that song too, because there's so much like feminism woven throughout that song too.
And that song, I will belt it out when I'm, you know, driving down the freeway listening to it.
(07:43):
So I can definitely see people coming to your shows and yeah, and singing along.
It's so fun. It's fun to hear those stories in your music.
What role do you believe your music plays in changing the narrative about immigrants and immigration.
You know, I'll take it a little step back, kind of what we were talking about before.
(08:06):
So let me take it a step back, is there's a lot of songs about love, right?
Love songs about heartache, about longing.
But a lot of these great love songs that we know, they're really about partners,
right? They're about partners and relationships, couples. Couples.
And I think for us as immigrant folks, there's a longing and a love and a loss
(08:27):
that happens when you when a family member leaves it to another country.
Yeah. When they have to leave a family behind.
And who's talking about that loss?
Who's talking about that love? Who's talking about that heartbreak?
Right. And I feel like that's something that's so real for us.
Right. I have friends who haven't been back to see their mom in 20 years,
(08:49):
you know, because they can't. and that is a loss and a love and a heartbreak
that we don't talk about, you know?
And I feel like that's so particular to immigrant families and communities.
And I feel like that's a story that is so important for us in order to tell.
And I think like as musicians, as poets, as artists, we have that opportunity,
(09:14):
that gift to be able to tell that story.
So it's digestible for people to know know, and understand our heartache. Yeah.
Right. The same way you, like you, you know, when someone broke up with you
and in college or in high school and how you felt, like we're trying to tell
a story about families who had to leave their brothers, their sisters, their mom behind.
And that's a story that's not always told, but it's, it's felt by us.
(09:39):
And I feel like our world to tell it.
Yeah. And, and I feel like even within families, within immigrant families,
it's not talked about enough. I know that my father, when he came to this country,
didn't want to learn English because he had it in his mind that he was always going to go back.
He always thought he was going to go back. And he never went back.
And it's not that he didn't want to. You know, he left his family behind to come here.
(10:03):
And he's 95 now and he's still here. He never went back. And that,
I feel, is a loss that we don't talk about.
But we carry it. And maybe that's why Chabela Vargas.
Maybe that's why the Chabela Vargas songs, you know, resonate with me so much
because there is so much loss in our community.
But there's also a lot of love and joy and vibrancy. And that comes through in your music as well.
(10:24):
And that's really beautiful because we need that too, right?
We need the joy and the love and the vibrancy and community that is in your music.
We played a festival yesterday in Ogden, Utah, right?
Out here. And it's like, it was a folk festival. It was affluent neighborhoods.
But it was a lot of white folks.
And after the show, man, it was a rocking show.
(10:46):
Yeah. And this couple came up to me and they said, you make the movement so...
Irresistible and delicious. And I was like, yes. I was like, yes.
She's like, you make me want to be active. I want to do something.
I don't know what, but I want to do something. And I feel like that's the goal.
(11:11):
That's it. That's the goal. And it's letting, I don't know who said it,
how do we make the movement for social justice undeniable, irresistible?
Irresistible right and like you got to
make it fun yeah you got to make it you know you got
to make it dance and you got to make it joyful nobody wants to
be part of a movement that's just sad all the time right right
(11:34):
because there is joy and it's our job to lift it out yeah it's our job to make
sure people understand right and like on on the dance floor ain't nobody asking
where you where you were born on the dance floor nobody asks you know where
your mama from or language you speak on the dance floor,
it's the ultimate equalizer. We come together.
And our job as artists is to create dance floors and spaces across the country, across the world.
(11:59):
We're in places where we can come together and it doesn't matter where you come from.
What matters is that we're here now and we're here to build a new world.
A world where joy, happiness, dance, love can exist in this place.
And if it can happen on the dance floor, it can happen in the community. I love that so much.
So then I know you're on tour, you're traveling the whole country right now, which is amazing.
(12:23):
Who do you hope to reach with your music? Oh my good.
Who do I hope to reach? I hope to reach people who love to eat tacos and don't know who to vote for.
You know, like those people who are still on the fence somehow,
you know, I want to reach people.
Well, one is obviously, I mean, I want to reach like everybody wants to reach the masses.
(12:46):
Yeah. But my, you know, my, my wife, who's a marketing guru,
she says, if you market to everyone, you market to no one. And I always think
about that when I think about like, who are we trying to reach?
Right. And I think for me, I want to reach people like me, like children of immigrant families,
children of immigrants who sometimes feel lost in this concrete jungle of,
(13:09):
you know, of Los Angeles, of the United States, who feel jaded, who feel lost.
Who feel like they don't have a voice or they feel like being an immigrant or mexican is less than.
Right and they don't understand how powerful they are how beautiful they are
you know how your brown skin glows in the sun in a way that reflects mother
(13:31):
earth right like i want to reach you and make sure that you know how beautiful
you are as a brown person right and never to feel less So that's one.
And then the second group is the folks who basically love, you know,
Latino, Mexican culture, who love our food, who love our dances,
who love our music, you know, but don't always love us at the ballot box. Yeah.
(13:53):
You know, so I want to let folks know, like, yo, if you love all this goodness.
Right. Remember that on the day you go voting, you know, because we can we can
not only, you know, live together, we can thrive together.
We can share together, you know, and I feel like playing in places like Ogden,
Utah and Omaha, Nebraska.
(14:13):
You know, and it it for we we come out as ambassadors and we remind folks that,
hey, we can we can create a new world.
A world where many worlds exist we don't have
to agree on everything you know and that's okay
but what can we can agree on is that tacos
are the best you know who doesn't love tacos come on i don't i don't want to
(14:35):
know the person that doesn't love tacos you know oh yeah well okay so you talked
about starting out as an organizer and then becoming a musician i imagine that
making it in the music industry has not been easy and you talked about sleeping
in bathtubs you know know, when you were first starting out,
who or what inspires you to keep going?
(14:55):
Gosh, you know, I feel like we came up in a music scene in Los Angeles where
like there was a lot of our peers were coming up at the same time. There's a lot of folks.
It was like a dope Chicano movement, you know, like in the early 2000s that was going on in L.A.
And there was a lot of bands that were up and coming. And we kind of,
(15:17):
there wasn't a, I feel, and for me, there wasn't a lot of mentorship, but we had each other.
And so like, you know, there were bands like Chicano Batman,
La Santa Cecilia, Buya Pongo, who were, you know, Quita Penas.
Us like you may or may not know these bands but we
were coming up together playing music in bars and clubs
(15:38):
trying to travel like and trying
to basically get you know make our mark and
bring our music in la but then we were trying to come out and i feel we we supported
each other we rallied for each other we went to each other's shows and i feel
like there was a great and a great movement of artists that were doing that
(15:59):
in the early 2000s and we're still doing it and I feel like.
Because I understand the lack of mentorship that happened when we were coming up.
I feel like now when we work with younger bands, I work with a lot of young artists now.
And some of them, we'll hire young. I'm on the road right now.
We hired, our bassist wasn't able to come.
(16:19):
So we hired this young man, JJ, who's with Los Tranquilos.
But he's 20, 23 years old. Wow. You know, I'm 41.
But on the road, I don't drink. You know, I don't do drugs. drugs,
you know, we eat well, we sleep well.
And I want to make sure that he understands that if you want to be a musician
and you want to be here for the long haul, there's another way of doing it, right?
(16:43):
You think about your health, your sustainability and not only for yourself, but for your community.
And I feel like, you know, when lots of people think about musicians and artists,
it's really about like, you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll,
you know, and all those things have burned out,
you know, our heroes and sheroes, you
know in a lot of ways and i think there's another way
(17:04):
to do that there's another way to exist as an artist it's hard
it's difficult but you have to be stay focused and i feel like because i didn't
have that mentorship coming up as an artist we only kind of had each other and
like you know at some point you know when you work with it's all young people
well you don't you only know so much yeah you need that sort of that wisdom
and so i think working now with young people,
(17:26):
I feel like that's my responsibility, you know?
And so, yeah. You mentioned heroes and sheroes, and I'm curious.
You know, I think Residente just put a song out, you know, very social justice
oriented song that he put out.
And I'm wondering if you have artists, musicians that are doing similar work
(17:48):
in terms of infusing social justice narratives in their music that you look up to?
Who do you look up to if there are artists out there that are doing something similar?
Because like I said, the songs that I talked about earlier, those are time capsules now, right?
Those are from back in the day under South African apartheid.
But who's doing music like that today? Anyone that comes to mind for you?
(18:11):
You know, I feel like not as much as I would want.
Yeah, yeah. Not as much as I would want, especially even now when we're talking
about sort of like like Palestinian liberation, you know, that's something that's a taboo.
And I feel like people, you know, saying Black Lives Matter at the time was
a taboo. Not everybody wanted to come out until it was safe to say it.
(18:33):
Not everybody came out for South African apartheid, you know?
And there's not as many artists that I think are speaking up.
Now, as I wish there were, like I saw a song by Macklemore. I said, oh, dope.
Macklemore put out a track. Residente put out a track. Ana Tijoux put out a
track, which is like, these are amazing artists.
(18:56):
And I feel like, you know, I want to see more.
But, you know, I remember like when Santa Cecilia dropped a song called Yellow Ice.
That was amazing. That's right. You know, and it was really about,
it was really about talking about, you know, immigrant families in Attack on Ice.
You know, I remember Chicano Batman, they put out an album called Freedom,
(19:17):
you know, Freedom Ain't Free.
And they did their version of This Land Is Your Land, which is probably one of my favorites.
Oh, you know, Café Tacuba just dropped a pro-immigrant song.
They just dropped a pro-immigrant one, you know?
And so I feel like, here's the thing, Victoria, I can name them on one hand
right now. And that's a problem.
You know, and I feel like, and again, I'm not one to call folks out.
(19:40):
I'm one But like if there's an issue or something I don't see, what do I say?
Like I said, if you don't see something, then you got to do it.
And so for us, you know, we just dropped an album right now.
And for me, you know, it's a movement album, you know, because there's a saying,
you can't have a movement without movement, you know. And so it's an album.
(20:01):
We have a track on there talking about the femicide against women,
Native women, Mexican women, you know. It's called Vivas Nos Queremos.
We want them alive. life. And it's a direct call to action to protect women at this time.
We have Caravana, which is a pro-immigrant track.
We have a song about addiction on there because that's something we've seen
(20:23):
a lot of our peers and families go through.
A song called More of You. It sounds like a toxic love song,
but it's really a song about addiction that we wrote on the road. And so like.
We're doing that. I don't expect other people to do anything.
I would like to see more of it. But if you'd like to see more of something,
then you got to do it and you got to put it out. So what's the name of your album?
(20:47):
Oh, gosh. A Night in the Pantla. A Night in the Pantla. A Night in the Pantla.
And the Pantla is an Aztec word or Nahuatl word, meaning the world in between.
And that's where we live as mixed peoples, mestizos, Chicanos,
brown folks. Like we come from, we don't come from one place.
(21:08):
We come from a lot of stories, a lot of sounds, a lot of trauma, a lot of joy.
And like Gloria Anzaldua said, we live in the borderlands, the world in between.
And if you want to know who we are, where we live, you know, listen to the album.
Come stay the night with me in the panla, you know?
And that's why we called it A Night in the Panla because there is where we live.
(21:31):
If you want to know how we live and what we sound like and what we're dealing
with, come with me and stay the night in the butler. Nice.
So at NELC, as you may know, we have a vision for this country where all of
us can thrive, no matter how much money we have, what we look like, or where we were born.
I'm going to give you a magic wand now, Hector, and you get to wave your wand
(21:53):
over this country and create a country that's in any way that you want to design
it. So what does your reimagined country look like?
You know, it's things that we, that are not, let me say this.
If I were to reimagine this country, one, there would be a lot of lineback to indigenous folks.
(22:16):
I would make sure that everyone had access to healthcare.
Like universal healthcare is not a radical thing. Right. And access to health,
like I think the pandemic allowed us to see that we can create a system where
everyone had access, right?
Everyone needed access to this, to the COVID shot.
(22:37):
And we created a system where everyone had access and it was free and it was
for the protection of everybody.
And I feel we can have a healthcare system that can do that, right?
We saw it in action. It's happening in other countries. We're the only developed
country that doesn't have universal healthcare.
That is true. Right. We look to our neighbors to the North Canada.
They're doing it. You know, Mexico is on its way.
(22:58):
And so like, why, why don't we have it? Why is everything privatized?
Why is everything about the dollar and about the profit?
And so like if a reimagining would be a reimagining of values, right.
Reimagining of what do we value and prioritize. And if we prioritize human safety,
human health, then everything would have to reflect those things. Right.
(23:20):
And would there have to be a lot of forgiveness?
And a lot of moving forward. So I would say also just in terms of immigration.
Like I'm not here to, as an artist, I'm not here to mandate immigrant policies.
What I'm here to do is remind people that in the early 1900s,
we were admitting immigrants from Europe at a higher rate than they were today.
(23:42):
And folks were not only admitted into the U.S., but these folks,
you know, had jobs and were able to work and thrive and raise their families here.
And now we have immigrants from all over Europe and the United States, right?
Like, we can create an economy, a country where many worlds fit,
many communities fit, and there's enough land, food, money, resources in this
(24:04):
country to be able to take care of one another. Now, exactly how to do it, that's not my job.
My job is to write a good song, you know what I'm saying? But my job is also
to push forward values that I believe in that I think we can live in.
And I feel like in the US, we have a wonderful opportunity to make that happen. It's not over.
It's not over by far. And we have an opportunity to create a world that we feel is just, right? Right.
(24:31):
And my job is to make sure that world not only has that has good music,
but has beautiful values.
I know you're on tour right now. I don't know if you have your instruments with
you, but can you play us a song or share a poem or something before before you go?
You know, before I was a musician, I was a poet, you know, and all our songs come from our poetry.
So let me drop a poem that I wrote many years ago about solidarity called Movement Time.
(24:56):
Black, white, and brown bleeding together on a day I'll always remember,
you see, because my folks, we never surrender.
So just in case they got you guessing, I want to kick y'all down with a history lesson.
You see, in the 60s in Oakland, California, Black Panthers were organizing for answers.
In New York, the Young Lords, they fought against wars.
(25:17):
The Stonewall Rebellion remained true for the rights of the LGBTQ.
Aim down with Native rights. No shame in their game. In the campus of California,
it was Filipinos who laid down the boycott, screaming in solidarity, Isang Baksak.
One rise, one fall. You come for one, you come for all.
But see, today, Arizona and Alabama, they don't play. They carving out racist
(25:41):
lies like it's made out of clay.
But I stand with Emmett, Trayvon, Oscar, and Bell, my homeboy Mumia,
who's held in the cell, telling you I'd rather be be blind than to stay quiet
on a day when my people are hunting like prey.
So walk with me and let's rise with the sun. Pick up your heart,
put down that gun, kiss your mama just for fun and realize that today,
(26:04):
you know, Victoria, me and you, we'd be one.
That gave me chills. Thank you. Thank you for closing us out with that.
Victoria, thank you so much for your work. I love this podcast.
I love what you're trying to do, you know, and thank you for inviting us to be part, to be a guest.
Las Cafeteras, NILC, we got to do some more things together.
We do. Definitely do. Thank you.
(26:26):
I want to thank our listeners for spending time with us. For more immigration
truths, visit us at nilc.org and freedomtothrive.com.
And make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.
I look forward to continuing this conversation with all of you.
This is the NILC Freedom to Thrive podcast, powering pro-immigrant narratives, one story at a time.
I'm Victoria Ballesteros, Executive Vice President of Narrative at the National
Immigration Law Center.
When I was in high school in the 1980s, we didn't have cell phones,
we didn't have the internet, and we certainly didn't have social media.
(00:21):
What we did have, besides really big hair was MTV, music television.
I know it sounds really quaint today, but MTV was new and suddenly the world
opened up with music from around the globe.
And while they're musical time capsules today, I distinctly remember three songs
that awakened my consciousness to the travesty of apartheid in South Africa.
(00:44):
First was a song by Peter Gabriel called Biko. It's a powerful and and haunting
tribute to Stephen Biko, who was killed by South African police while in custody
for his work against apartheid.
That song moved and enraged me then, and it still does today.
Then there was Free Nelson Mandela by The Specials. At the time,
(01:05):
Mandela was in his 21st year of a 27-year imprisonment, also for opposing apartheid.
And while the subject matter was dead serious, it's a joyful song.
It makes you want to get up and dance.
The third and most electrifying for me was called Sun City by Artists United Against Apartheid.
That song was written and produced by Stephen Van Zandt, who our younger listeners
(01:27):
may know from his role on The Sopranos, but this was a defiant song by some
of the biggest musicians of the time calling for a boycott in solidarity with
the people of South Africa.
I can't name all the musicians because there are too many, but the music video
was stunning because it provided a glimpse into what people were are experiencing
at the hands of their government under the violence and brutal oppression of apartheid.
(01:50):
And that is the power of art and music specifically, to tap public consciousness
by not only holding up a mirror, but also saying, this isn't right. Pay attention.
And people did. I certainly did. And so did many in my generation.
Music provided an on-ramp to issues that otherwise weren't accessible.
(02:11):
It inspired us to speak up and take action. And we all know the rest of the
story with Nelson Mandela not only being freed, but later becoming the president of South Africa.
And this is why I'm so excited to be in conversation with our guest today,
Hector Flores, just a wonderful person and compañero in the struggle.
Hector has gone from social justice organizer to musician.
(02:34):
And as one of the founding members of Las Cafeteras, Hector is helping to change
the narrative on immigration one song at a time.
Victoria, that was a great intro.
That was a great intro. I love it. Welcome to the podcast. Cass.
It's so great to see you and thank you for being here. I know you're on tour
and you're going from one place to another.
(02:55):
I really appreciate it. It's wonderful to see you.
No, I mean, this is my natural habitat.
I've had to learn to kind of embrace the road.
A lot of folks always ask, how do you do it? How do you like it?
I mean, I remember when we used to travel and we'd have to sleep in bathtubs
in people's hallways and on the floor.
Now we get hotel hotel rooms and I'm okay.
(03:17):
I'm good. I remember the bad days. Moving on up.
I love it. I love it. I love it. So your music, Hector, is rooted in social
justice from songs like Caravana to Vivas Nos Queremos, La Bamba Rebelde,
This Land Is Your Land. There's so many.
What is the driving force behind your music and your work? You know, I think, wow.
(03:39):
Okay. I'm going to give, there's a long story and a short story.
Today, We're going to give the medium, but I feel like, where does it, where does it come from?
Well, before being a musician, I was an organizer, but for me, I come from organizing.
And so for 10 years, you know, from college to after college,
(04:00):
I worked in educational justice movement for environmental justice.
I did immigrant rights work, queer justice.
And that informed what I wanted to do in the world.
And so anything I do, whether I become a filmmaker, a chef, whatever I do,
I'm going to take those values.
(04:21):
So I just ended up becoming a musician by accident.
And really, at the end of the day, it's about, you know, I wanted to hear our stories on the radio.
Like, I grew up with cumbia. I grew up with hip hop. I grew up with rock music. all dope.
But at the end of the day, I wanted to hear my story also coming out of the speakers and I did it.
(04:45):
And so like a lot of folks, if you don't see it in the world,
then maybe you got to create it.
That's kind of the story of Las Cafeteras, you know? So let's talk about your
story. You're the son of immigrants.
How has that shown up in your work as a musician? Oh my goodness.
I mean, I mean, all over. I mean, if you hear our first album,
it's time. It's even the title of the album. It was in 2012.
(05:08):
It was titled It's Time. And it's because we were seeing all this anti-immigrant rhetoric, policies.
Jarpayo was running like havoc in Arizona.
We saw like anti-immigrant rhetoric and laws in Texas, in the South.
And so we wrote an album that was really dedicated to the plight of immigrants.
(05:29):
And being myself, Denise and Kano, who are the core members of Las Cafeteras,
we had parents who came to this country as undocumented immigrants, right?
Like that's, for us, it's part of who we are. It's part of our identity.
We don't even identify, like I wouldn't, you know, we never identified as a political band.
We just identified as a band, but our stories have been politicized.
(05:50):
And for us, it was like, yo, this is who we are.
And right now, like we need to talk about it.
So like La Bamba Rebelde, you know, which is a four, like a 400 year old Afro-Mexican song.
La Bamba, which a lot of folks don't know, made famous by a 17-year-old Chicano
boy named Richie Valance, right?
And for us, we took this traditional song, but we wrote the lyrics to talk about
(06:15):
what we're going through, you know?
So the chorus, you know, in La Bamba would be like, Yo no soy marinero,
por ti seré, por ti seré, por ti seré.
We said, yo no creo en fronteras, yo cruzaré, yo cruzaré, yo cruzaré.
I don't believe in borders and
I'll cross them and cross them and cross them. And it became an anthem.
(06:35):
It became an anthem across the country. And everywhere we went,
we would sing that song and everybody would like, when that part came on,
everybody would scream it out and shout it out.
And I realized what we were doing is that we were writing music.
Not only when you write music about you and reflecting your story,
and that's true to you, you're also writing for others because we're all human
(06:58):
and a lot of us are feeling the same thing.
So for immigrants, man, and immigrant families and communities,
we were touring the country and folks resonated because like,
yo, we need to come together.
And this was a song that was, that was, that became an anthem across the country.
And like, you know, we're very proud to do that.
And I feel like, you know, Victoria, like what's your favorite loves.
(07:20):
Do you have a favorite love song? Oh boy.
Anyway, well, now we're talking to Chabela Vargas, but those are songs about pain and loss.
So maybe not. But you know, it's funny when you're talking about La Bamba Rebelde.
I love that song too, because there's so much like feminism woven throughout that song too.
And that song, I will belt it out when I'm, you know, driving down the freeway listening to it.
(07:43):
So I can definitely see people coming to your shows and yeah, and singing along.
It's so fun. It's fun to hear those stories in your music.
What role do you believe your music plays in changing the narrative about immigrants and immigration.
You know, I'll take it a little step back, kind of what we were talking about before.
(08:06):
So let me take it a step back, is there's a lot of songs about love, right?
Love songs about heartache, about longing.
But a lot of these great love songs that we know, they're really about partners,
right? They're about partners and relationships, couples. Couples.
And I think for us as immigrant folks, there's a longing and a love and a loss
(08:27):
that happens when you when a family member leaves it to another country.
Yeah. When they have to leave a family behind.
And who's talking about that loss?
Who's talking about that love? Who's talking about that heartbreak?
Right. And I feel like that's something that's so real for us.
Right. I have friends who haven't been back to see their mom in 20 years,
(08:49):
you know, because they can't. and that is a loss and a love and a heartbreak
that we don't talk about, you know?
And I feel like that's so particular to immigrant families and communities.
And I feel like that's a story that is so important for us in order to tell.
And I think like as musicians, as poets, as artists, we have that opportunity,
(09:14):
that gift to be able to tell that story.
So it's digestible for people to know know, and understand our heartache. Yeah.
Right. The same way you, like you, you know, when someone broke up with you
and in college or in high school and how you felt, like we're trying to tell
a story about families who had to leave their brothers, their sisters, their mom behind.
And that's a story that's not always told, but it's, it's felt by us.
(09:39):
And I feel like our world to tell it.
Yeah. And, and I feel like even within families, within immigrant families,
it's not talked about enough. I know that my father, when he came to this country,
didn't want to learn English because he had it in his mind that he was always going to go back.
He always thought he was going to go back. And he never went back.
And it's not that he didn't want to. You know, he left his family behind to come here.
(10:03):
And he's 95 now and he's still here. He never went back. And that,
I feel, is a loss that we don't talk about.
But we carry it. And maybe that's why Chabela Vargas.
Maybe that's why the Chabela Vargas songs, you know, resonate with me so much
because there is so much loss in our community.
But there's also a lot of love and joy and vibrancy. And that comes through in your music as well.
(10:24):
And that's really beautiful because we need that too, right?
We need the joy and the love and the vibrancy and community that is in your music.
We played a festival yesterday in Ogden, Utah, right?
Out here. And it's like, it was a folk festival. It was affluent neighborhoods.
But it was a lot of white folks.
And after the show, man, it was a rocking show.
(10:46):
Yeah. And this couple came up to me and they said, you make the movement so...
Irresistible and delicious. And I was like, yes. I was like, yes.
She's like, you make me want to be active. I want to do something.
I don't know what, but I want to do something. And I feel like that's the goal.
(11:11):
That's it. That's the goal. And it's letting, I don't know who said it,
how do we make the movement for social justice undeniable, irresistible?
Irresistible right and like you got to
make it fun yeah you got to make it you know you got
to make it dance and you got to make it joyful nobody wants to
be part of a movement that's just sad all the time right right
(11:34):
because there is joy and it's our job to lift it out yeah it's our job to make
sure people understand right and like on on the dance floor ain't nobody asking
where you where you were born on the dance floor nobody asks you know where
your mama from or language you speak on the dance floor,
it's the ultimate equalizer. We come together.
And our job as artists is to create dance floors and spaces across the country, across the world.
(11:59):
We're in places where we can come together and it doesn't matter where you come from.
What matters is that we're here now and we're here to build a new world.
A world where joy, happiness, dance, love can exist in this place.
And if it can happen on the dance floor, it can happen in the community. I love that so much.
So then I know you're on tour, you're traveling the whole country right now, which is amazing.
(12:23):
Who do you hope to reach with your music? Oh my good.
Who do I hope to reach? I hope to reach people who love to eat tacos and don't know who to vote for.
You know, like those people who are still on the fence somehow,
you know, I want to reach people.
Well, one is obviously, I mean, I want to reach like everybody wants to reach the masses.
(12:46):
Yeah. But my, you know, my, my wife, who's a marketing guru,
she says, if you market to everyone, you market to no one. And I always think
about that when I think about like, who are we trying to reach?
Right. And I think for me, I want to reach people like me, like children of immigrant families,
children of immigrants who sometimes feel lost in this concrete jungle of,
(13:09):
you know, of Los Angeles, of the United States, who feel jaded, who feel lost.
Who feel like they don't have a voice or they feel like being an immigrant or mexican is less than.
Right and they don't understand how powerful they are how beautiful they are
you know how your brown skin glows in the sun in a way that reflects mother
(13:31):
earth right like i want to reach you and make sure that you know how beautiful
you are as a brown person right and never to feel less So that's one.
And then the second group is the folks who basically love, you know,
Latino, Mexican culture, who love our food, who love our dances,
who love our music, you know, but don't always love us at the ballot box. Yeah.
(13:53):
You know, so I want to let folks know, like, yo, if you love all this goodness.
Right. Remember that on the day you go voting, you know, because we can we can
not only, you know, live together, we can thrive together.
We can share together, you know, and I feel like playing in places like Ogden,
Utah and Omaha, Nebraska.
(14:13):
You know, and it it for we we come out as ambassadors and we remind folks that,
hey, we can we can create a new world.
A world where many worlds exist we don't have
to agree on everything you know and that's okay
but what can we can agree on is that tacos
are the best you know who doesn't love tacos come on i don't i don't want to
(14:35):
know the person that doesn't love tacos you know oh yeah well okay so you talked
about starting out as an organizer and then becoming a musician i imagine that
making it in the music industry has not been easy and you talked about sleeping
in bathtubs you know know, when you were first starting out,
who or what inspires you to keep going?
(14:55):
Gosh, you know, I feel like we came up in a music scene in Los Angeles where
like there was a lot of our peers were coming up at the same time. There's a lot of folks.
It was like a dope Chicano movement, you know, like in the early 2000s that was going on in L.A.
And there was a lot of bands that were up and coming. And we kind of,
(15:17):
there wasn't a, I feel, and for me, there wasn't a lot of mentorship, but we had each other.
And so like, you know, there were bands like Chicano Batman,
La Santa Cecilia, Buya Pongo, who were, you know, Quita Penas.
Us like you may or may not know these bands but we
were coming up together playing music in bars and clubs
(15:38):
trying to travel like and trying
to basically get you know make our mark and
bring our music in la but then we were trying to come out and i feel we we supported
each other we rallied for each other we went to each other's shows and i feel
like there was a great and a great movement of artists that were doing that
(15:59):
in the early 2000s and we're still doing it and I feel like.
Because I understand the lack of mentorship that happened when we were coming up.
I feel like now when we work with younger bands, I work with a lot of young artists now.
And some of them, we'll hire young. I'm on the road right now.
We hired, our bassist wasn't able to come.
(16:19):
So we hired this young man, JJ, who's with Los Tranquilos.
But he's 20, 23 years old. Wow. You know, I'm 41.
But on the road, I don't drink. You know, I don't do drugs. drugs,
you know, we eat well, we sleep well.
And I want to make sure that he understands that if you want to be a musician
and you want to be here for the long haul, there's another way of doing it, right?
(16:43):
You think about your health, your sustainability and not only for yourself, but for your community.
And I feel like, you know, when lots of people think about musicians and artists,
it's really about like, you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll,
you know, and all those things have burned out,
you know, our heroes and sheroes, you
know in a lot of ways and i think there's another way
(17:04):
to do that there's another way to exist as an artist it's hard
it's difficult but you have to be stay focused and i feel like because i didn't
have that mentorship coming up as an artist we only kind of had each other and
like you know at some point you know when you work with it's all young people
well you don't you only know so much yeah you need that sort of that wisdom
and so i think working now with young people,
(17:26):
I feel like that's my responsibility, you know?
And so, yeah. You mentioned heroes and sheroes, and I'm curious.
You know, I think Residente just put a song out, you know, very social justice
oriented song that he put out.
And I'm wondering if you have artists, musicians that are doing similar work
(17:48):
in terms of infusing social justice narratives in their music that you look up to?
Who do you look up to if there are artists out there that are doing something similar?
Because like I said, the songs that I talked about earlier, those are time capsules now, right?
Those are from back in the day under South African apartheid.
But who's doing music like that today? Anyone that comes to mind for you?
(18:11):
You know, I feel like not as much as I would want.
Yeah, yeah. Not as much as I would want, especially even now when we're talking
about sort of like like Palestinian liberation, you know, that's something that's a taboo.
And I feel like people, you know, saying Black Lives Matter at the time was
a taboo. Not everybody wanted to come out until it was safe to say it.
(18:33):
Not everybody came out for South African apartheid, you know?
And there's not as many artists that I think are speaking up.
Now, as I wish there were, like I saw a song by Macklemore. I said, oh, dope.
Macklemore put out a track. Residente put out a track. Ana Tijoux put out a
track, which is like, these are amazing artists.
(18:56):
And I feel like, you know, I want to see more.
But, you know, I remember like when Santa Cecilia dropped a song called Yellow Ice.
That was amazing. That's right. You know, and it was really about,
it was really about talking about, you know, immigrant families in Attack on Ice.
You know, I remember Chicano Batman, they put out an album called Freedom,
(19:17):
you know, Freedom Ain't Free.
And they did their version of This Land Is Your Land, which is probably one of my favorites.
Oh, you know, Café Tacuba just dropped a pro-immigrant song.
They just dropped a pro-immigrant one, you know?
And so I feel like, here's the thing, Victoria, I can name them on one hand
right now. And that's a problem.
You know, and I feel like, and again, I'm not one to call folks out.
(19:40):
I'm one But like if there's an issue or something I don't see, what do I say?
Like I said, if you don't see something, then you got to do it.
And so for us, you know, we just dropped an album right now.
And for me, you know, it's a movement album, you know, because there's a saying,
you can't have a movement without movement, you know. And so it's an album.
(20:01):
We have a track on there talking about the femicide against women,
Native women, Mexican women, you know. It's called Vivas Nos Queremos.
We want them alive. life. And it's a direct call to action to protect women at this time.
We have Caravana, which is a pro-immigrant track.
We have a song about addiction on there because that's something we've seen
(20:23):
a lot of our peers and families go through.
A song called More of You. It sounds like a toxic love song,
but it's really a song about addiction that we wrote on the road. And so like.
We're doing that. I don't expect other people to do anything.
I would like to see more of it. But if you'd like to see more of something,
then you got to do it and you got to put it out. So what's the name of your album?
(20:47):
Oh, gosh. A Night in the Pantla. A Night in the Pantla. A Night in the Pantla.
And the Pantla is an Aztec word or Nahuatl word, meaning the world in between.
And that's where we live as mixed peoples, mestizos, Chicanos,
brown folks. Like we come from, we don't come from one place.
(21:08):
We come from a lot of stories, a lot of sounds, a lot of trauma, a lot of joy.
And like Gloria Anzaldua said, we live in the borderlands, the world in between.
And if you want to know who we are, where we live, you know, listen to the album.
Come stay the night with me in the panla, you know?
And that's why we called it A Night in the Panla because there is where we live.
(21:31):
If you want to know how we live and what we sound like and what we're dealing
with, come with me and stay the night in the butler. Nice.
So at NELC, as you may know, we have a vision for this country where all of
us can thrive, no matter how much money we have, what we look like, or where we were born.
I'm going to give you a magic wand now, Hector, and you get to wave your wand
(21:53):
over this country and create a country that's in any way that you want to design
it. So what does your reimagined country look like?
You know, it's things that we, that are not, let me say this.
If I were to reimagine this country, one, there would be a lot of lineback to indigenous folks.
(22:16):
I would make sure that everyone had access to healthcare.
Like universal healthcare is not a radical thing. Right. And access to health,
like I think the pandemic allowed us to see that we can create a system where
everyone had access, right?
Everyone needed access to this, to the COVID shot.
(22:37):
And we created a system where everyone had access and it was free and it was
for the protection of everybody.
And I feel we can have a healthcare system that can do that, right?
We saw it in action. It's happening in other countries. We're the only developed
country that doesn't have universal healthcare.
That is true. Right. We look to our neighbors to the North Canada.
They're doing it. You know, Mexico is on its way.
(22:58):
And so like, why, why don't we have it? Why is everything privatized?
Why is everything about the dollar and about the profit?
And so like if a reimagining would be a reimagining of values, right.
Reimagining of what do we value and prioritize. And if we prioritize human safety,
human health, then everything would have to reflect those things. Right.
(23:20):
And would there have to be a lot of forgiveness?
And a lot of moving forward. So I would say also just in terms of immigration.
Like I'm not here to, as an artist, I'm not here to mandate immigrant policies.
What I'm here to do is remind people that in the early 1900s,
we were admitting immigrants from Europe at a higher rate than they were today.
(23:42):
And folks were not only admitted into the U.S., but these folks,
you know, had jobs and were able to work and thrive and raise their families here.
And now we have immigrants from all over Europe and the United States, right?
Like, we can create an economy, a country where many worlds fit,
many communities fit, and there's enough land, food, money, resources in this
(24:04):
country to be able to take care of one another. Now, exactly how to do it, that's not my job.
My job is to write a good song, you know what I'm saying? But my job is also
to push forward values that I believe in that I think we can live in.
And I feel like in the US, we have a wonderful opportunity to make that happen. It's not over.
It's not over by far. And we have an opportunity to create a world that we feel is just, right? Right.
(24:31):
And my job is to make sure that world not only has that has good music,
but has beautiful values.
I know you're on tour right now. I don't know if you have your instruments with
you, but can you play us a song or share a poem or something before before you go?
You know, before I was a musician, I was a poet, you know, and all our songs come from our poetry.
So let me drop a poem that I wrote many years ago about solidarity called Movement Time.
(24:56):
Black, white, and brown bleeding together on a day I'll always remember,
you see, because my folks, we never surrender.
So just in case they got you guessing, I want to kick y'all down with a history lesson.
You see, in the 60s in Oakland, California, Black Panthers were organizing for answers.
In New York, the Young Lords, they fought against wars.
(25:17):
The Stonewall Rebellion remained true for the rights of the LGBTQ.
Aim down with Native rights. No shame in their game. In the campus of California,
it was Filipinos who laid down the boycott, screaming in solidarity, Isang Baksak.
One rise, one fall. You come for one, you come for all.
But see, today, Arizona and Alabama, they don't play. They carving out racist
(25:41):
lies like it's made out of clay.
But I stand with Emmett, Trayvon, Oscar, and Bell, my homeboy Mumia,
who's held in the cell, telling you I'd rather be be blind than to stay quiet
on a day when my people are hunting like prey.
So walk with me and let's rise with the sun. Pick up your heart,
put down that gun, kiss your mama just for fun and realize that today,
(26:04):
you know, Victoria, me and you, we'd be one.
That gave me chills. Thank you. Thank you for closing us out with that.
Victoria, thank you so much for your work. I love this podcast.
I love what you're trying to do, you know, and thank you for inviting us to be part, to be a guest.
Las Cafeteras, NILC, we got to do some more things together.
We do. Definitely do. Thank you.
(26:26):
I want to thank our listeners for spending time with us. For more immigration
truths, visit us at nilc.org and freedomtothrive.com.
And make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.
I look forward to continuing this conversation with all of you.
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