Dr. Leon Felipe Garcia Corona. Courtesy photo.
FLAGSTAFF — NAU will present the free lecture “Sentimental Song, Vulnerability, and the Social Construction of Later Life in Older Hispanic Immigrants in Los Angeles” with NAU Latin American Studies expert Dr. Leon Felipe Garcia Corona
at 7 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 15 in Liberal Arts (Bldg. 18), Rm. 120.
A transnational community of older immigrant adults in Los Angeles County who are aficionados of the bolero–a genre of Latin American sentimental songs popularized in the 1950s–meets weekly in a converted auto mechanic shop in Bell Gardens, California. Their appreciation for the repertory that gave voice to economic and political vulnerability after the Second World War is not solely attributable to nostalgia for youth and homeland. Many of these older adults are triple political minorities: elderly, immigrant, and Hispanic. The vulnerability expressed in these songs parallels their status in the United States.
Separated from extended family on which they would otherwise depend, elderly immigrants are among the most isolated people in the country. The bolero’s importance as a Mexican (and Mexican American) artistic expression and as a cohesive mechanism among this population has not been studied. In this paper I address the social construction of later life in older Hispanic immigrants by presenting their cohesion around the bolero as observed in original fieldwork in Bell Gardens. The presentation considers diversity and inequality in old age, and dependency in later life underpinned by the social relations of late capitalism, which values activity and consumerism. It addresses how this music contributes to the social inclusion of older immigrant adults in a country of twittering youth.
Visit the NAU parking website for information about parking on campus.
Contact Alexandra Carpino at alexandra.carpino@nau.edu at 928-523-4781 for more information.