Y La BAMBA HAS BEEN MANY THINGS, but at the heart of it is
singer-songwriter Luz Elena Mendoza’s inquisitive sense of self.
Their fifth record, Mujeres, carries on the Portland-based band’s
affinity for spiritual contemplation, but goes a step further in
telling a story with a full emotional spectrum. Coming off Ojos Del
Sol, one of NPR’s Top 50 Albums of 2016, Mujeres exhibits the
scope of Mendoza’s artistic voice like never before. “Soy como
soy,” Mendoza says, and that declaration is the bold— even
political— statement that positions Mujeres to be Y La BAMBA’s
most unbridled offering yet.The record exists in the post-2016
landscape of a national identity crisis, and Mendoza explores what it
means to be a Mexican American woman by leading us through places we
are afraid to go. Mujeresventures in to the discomfort of the stories
we tell ourselves. Those of our past, our futures. We all have these
stories somewhere inside of us, but with Y La Bamba, Mendoza forges
new narratives from old stories of heritage and family, tracing
history while forging modern chicana feminism.
“Music is an extension of everything I have inside. It’s how I
emote,” Mendoza says. The raw honesty of Mujeres is in fact the
raw honesty of Mendoza. Armed with the emotionality of traditional
música mexicana and the storytelling of American folk, Y La Bamba’s
artistry is not just their musical ability but Mendoza’s search for
unadulterated truth. It is in an ancestral, spiritual journey in which
Mendoza comes to terms with the influence and limitations of her
upbringing. Mendoza’s experience of childhood summers in the San
Joaquin Valley listening to mariachi, of being raised strict Catholic
by immigrant parents, of being a woman having to prove herself to the
boys, paints strokes of both melancholy and healing on the tracks.
“From the way that my family struggles, to the way they shoot the
shit… it’s so different from whiteness,” Mendoza says. “It’s
a different dimension.”
Y La Bamba exists in the dimension of the Mexican American
imagination: somewhere cynical and optimistic at the same time. While
there is a celebration of the Mexican creativity that has informed
Mendoza’s life, there is a darker side to reconcile with. Where do
mujeres fit in to the American story? What are the sins for which we
are all guilty? How do different generations interact with the world?
How can a culture become visible without tokenization? It is no
surprise that in Mujeres, Y La Bamba’s first record with Mendoza at
the helm of production, Mendoza contemplates these questions to tell
her story. But it is not just Mendoza’s story. Challenging a
narrative and dealing with the emotionality of that effort— that is
everyone’s story.
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31/01/2020 Last update