***Viewer/Listener/Reader Discretion Advised**
This project will focus on Americo Paredes’s “The Country”. The theme will be the new settlement that the Spaniards claimed near the Rio Grande River. The project will focus and pertain to the descriptions that are written by Americo Paredes of the Nuevo Santander settlement. The media project will be of a Corrido which was the favorite form of song of the Nuevo Santander communities.
The corrido that will be composed is a representation of what people in this region loved to do. In a sense, it was their form of writing history. These ballads are important because it is perhaps the only history that was left behind by the communities. So, this project will pay respect to the corrido form and tell the story of the Nuevo Santander community with the help of Americo Paredes’s piece.
This is a relevant project to our course because Mexican Americans perhaps overpopulate the Rio Grande region. It is further implied by the Anglo-Americans that Mexican Americans have no business in the United States of America. It is a fact presented by Paredes that the Mexicans in this region were maltreated and even murdered for being in their own lands. Paredes comes to give pride and sets the record straight on the lies that have been perpetuated by the Anglo-Americans. This corrido is simply implying some of that context by Americo Paredes to portray the Nuevo Santander people with honor and not as thieves.
Pictures of the Nuevo Santander settlement will play while I sing and play the guitar. The Nuevo Santander was colonized in 1749 by Jose Escandon, and Paredes wrote, “This was the heart of the old Spanish province of Nuevo Santander, colonized in 1749 by Jose de Escandon” (Paredes 33). In these regions people were said to be outlaws. Paredes notes that, “The Lower Rio Grande, known as the Seno Mexicano (the Mexican Hollow or Recess), was a refuge for rebellious Indians from the Spanish presidios who preferred outlawry to life under Spanish rule. Thus, at its earliest period in history, the Lower Rio Grande was inhabited by outlaws, whose principal offense was an independent spirit” (Paredes 34). The Spanish worked together with the Indians to form a community and they came together to dislike the “gringos.” Paredes writes that, “In succeeding generations, the Indians, who began as vaqueros and sheepherders for the colonists, were absorbed into the blood and the culture of the Spanish settlers. Also absorbed into the basically Spanish culture were many non-Spanish Europeans, so that on the Border one finds men who prefer Spanish to English, who sometimes talk scornfully about the “Gringos,” and who bear English, Scottish, Irish, or other non- Spanish names” (Paredes 34).
"El Corrido De Nuevo Santander" by Israel A. De Leōn
Nuevo santander señores
Pueblo muy reconocido
Enpesado por españoles
Indios y muy queridos
Juntos ellos laboraaban y todos bien entendidos
Aorillas del rio bravo
Ranchos, parselas y mytos
Eran hombres muy derechos
Y por muchos muy temidos
Selinciosos eran ellos aqui se inspira el corrido
Con la guittara cantaban
De su Pueblo querido
Respondian por su raza
Por su familia los mismo
Entre varias jugadas hasta salieron bandidos
Las carreras de caballo
con finta de precidio
Los gallos entrenaban
Muy formal y muy destinctos
Essa gente se amaba
No entraba ningun gringo
Empesaron a llegarles
Los gringos muy bravitos
Nuevo Santander contestaba
Y con mucho tonito
Maten me rinches cobardes
Yo nunca eh corrido!
Ofensas ami Pueblo
Dicen que estamos perdidos
Anglo-Americano como has mentido
Mi gente es honesta
Y como tu Crimen no hemos cometido
Varios de esos valientes
Pues ya se han despedido
Les gusto quemar ropa
Y cruzarse ese rio
Dejaron muchas baladas
Decenedientes por lo visto
Por favor de no meterse
Nuevo Santander me despido
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