Music That Makes Hearts "Beat Faster": Radio Broadcasting, Nostalgia, and Mexican Music over the Airwaves, 1929–40

Since the late 1920s, Mexican corridos (folk ballads), egocentric and sentimental boleros, and the cancíon ranchera, were launched into the North American airwaves by way of high-powered radio receivers.  In the United States, this music, which displayed the vibrant soul of Mexico, brought social unity to Mexican immigrant communities and gave life to their migration patterns.  In the 1930s and 1940s, Mexican stations also introduced the U.S. born Mexican generation to notable Mexican singers like Pedro Infante and Lydia Mendoza.  Listeners noted that hearing this music aroused feelings of nostalgia for the homeland and at times even made their hearts “beat faster.”  Exonerating their position as immigrants in the United States, song writers, radio broadcasters and artists crafted a particular style of music that took from a variety of Mexican genres and interjected lyrics highlighting the struggles and trials of immigrant life in the United States.  This paper focuses on the musical production of Mexican immigrants and U.S. born Mexicans that was disseminated over the airwaves in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s.  I argue that radio, which initiated and sustained musical exchanges between Mexico and the United States, was also a platform for advocacy of immigrant rights as well as a place where new musical genres could grow and thrive.