Latin American Immigrants, Identity and Nationalism in the Music of Los Tigres del Norte

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that Mexico's most famous nortei¿½o group, Los Tigres del Norte, accurately expresses the political identity of Latino immigrants in the lyrics of their hit songs. This political identity is revealed in song lyrics that criticize the territorial borders imposed by nation-states, at the same time that the lyrics reinforce the idea of ethnic nations. Ironically, the lyrics of Los Tigres del Norte use the symbols of Mexican nationalism to attack the notion of the separateness of the United States from Latin America, I conclude that Los Tigres del Norte promote an ethnic ideology based on the concept of a Pan-American Latino nation, a borderless, transnational ethnic nation of people who share the experience of migration, the Spanish language, and the desire to resist containment within borders.