Cumbia and the Construction of an Immigrant Identity in Buenos Aires

VILA PABLO Y SILBA MALVINA

Toronto, Canadá

Congreso; XXIX International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association; 2010

LASA (Latin American Studies Association)

Cumbia spread all over Latin America in the late fifties and early sixties. It was introduced in Argentina by a group of Colombian and Costa Rican immigrants, who were going to college in Buenos Aires. Even though in its origins it remained quite faithful to the Colombian cumbia of the fifties, overtime the genre was modifying its music, its rhythm, its instrumentation and its choreography. This happened because, step by step, cumbia was being mixed first with Argentine folk rhythms (more prominently chamamé), and later with rock. Currently there are several types of cumbia in the country, differing from each other in terms of their music and types of lyrics, such as the romantic cumbia, the Santa Fe cumbia, etc. Beginning in the 1990s, the so-called cumbia villera has become increasingly popular. However, in its different incarnations, cumbia is the danceable music of choice of Argentine popular sectors, prominently those living in Buenos Aires whose heritage is either from the Argentine countryside or from neighboring countries such as Bolivia and Paraguay. In a word, cumbia, from the point of view of official, mainstream, ?white? Argentina, is ?música de negros.?