History of Punk in Latin America
A mural of (L-R) rock muscians Buddy Holly, Big Bopper, Roger Peterson, and Ritchie Valens in Pacoima, California. Ritchie Valens was a pioneer for Chicano rock.
It is impossible to pinpoint any specific band or person as the originator of punk in Latin America. In an interview with lead vocalist of Los Crudos, Martin Sorrondeguy, on Pitchfork, he states when asked about the myth that his band had started Latino punk, "Latino punk existed in Latin America almost as soon as punk was a thing."
But there are aesthetic and musical aspects of punk that can be traced to rock.
Early Origins of Rock in Latin America
Rock in the United States, in its early years, had featured white, black, and Latino artists but as it became increasingly mainstream and then with the advent of the British Invasion, black artists being relegated to soul, funk, or R&B. As a result, "...many Latin Americans, especially younger fans who had come of age in 1960s and thereafter, remained largely unaware of rock's original hybrid characteristics and their cultural implications." (Hernandez et al. 2) Rock had a tumultuous time arriving to Latin America due to the rocky relationship of Latin America and the United States, such as with US economic and military interventions, and so "rock was seen as an unwanted export of the Colossus to the North." (Hernandez et al. 5)
Rock had become synonymous with modernity, which the US was becoming associated with, and it's from then that rock was initially embraced with middle-class and upper-class Latin Americans. In comparison, rock was seen as "an expression of working-class culture (and was thus antithetical to a construct of cosmopolitanism based on white, middle-class hegemony)" in the United States.(Hernandez et al. 8) However, rock in Latin America began to be embraced by lower-class and working-class people. From there, punk had a foundation to grow and flourish.
However, before going into a notable punk bands and events in Latin America, it is important to give context to the state of the continent during the late 60s to late 80s.
Jorge Rafael Videla, Argentinan dictator from 1976 to 1981, on a now declassified document. Image Source
Operation Condor
The Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (abbr. CELS, in English: The Center of Legal Studies and Socials) describes Operation Condor as, "a formal system to coordinate repression....that operated from the mid-1970s until the early eighties. It aimed to persecute and eliminate political, social, trade-union and student activists from Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil."
Operation Condor was a US-backed campaign in Latin America to forcibly remove elected officials who leaned left to replace them with righ-winged officials who would terrorize the continent for numerous decades. The US provided intelligence, military training, and supplies.
Before the induction of Operation Condor, the US had staged numerous interventions to remove Latin American governmental figures out of office and induct their own figures into place. Such as the 1954 overthrowing of democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz in Guetemala, back by the CIA. Operation Condor took it to another level as it affected numerous countries for decades, leading to the deaths, kidnapping, and disappearances of many people. Below is an inforgraphic provided by CELS on detained-disappeared people.
To learn more about Operation Condor, click here to redirect to CELS' page on the campaign.
Notable Punk Bands
As stated previously by Sorrondeguy, punk had been in Latin America since its start, meaning the scene had begun to take shape in the 70s like it did in the UK. The at-the-time politcal and economical landscape of many countries in Latin America united many youths to use music as a way to vent their frustrations.
Los Violadores pictured in 1985
Argentina
Beginning in 1980, Los Violadores (The Violators in English) are a punk band from Argentina that La Historia del Rock Argentino calls "the "punk" band more important and massive in Argentina."* Their legacy in Latino punk cannot be understated.
During the era the band was most active, Argentina was heavily impacted by Operation Condor as a military government was set in place when dictator Jorge Rafael Videla went into power. Due to censorship, the band went under the name of Los Voladores (The Flyers) during their initial years.
An article on Todo Noticias, an Argentinan news site, by Carlos Iogna Prat says, "On July 17th 1981, the group presneted at the University of Belgrano. There wasn't any other show like it: it ended with the artists and part of the audience in jail. Many note the day as the birth of punk in Argentina."** With their second album, ¿Y Ahora Qué Pasa, Eh?, in 1985 the band began to become well-known in Chile, Peru, and the United States.
Peru
With a foundation set by Los Saicos in the 60s, the punk scene in Peru was vibrant as seen in the 1987 documentary El Grito Subterráneo (The Underground Scream) featuring footage of performances intercut with news footage. Peru was affected by Operation Condor, although to a lesser extent compared to countries like Argentina and Chile. The band Leusemia, who are featured in the documentary, mention the danger of the commercialization of punk expression, which is what led them to create an underground scene.
The documentary does not have English subtitles, but some translations and explanations are provided here.
Brazil
Often forgotten in the discussion about Latino culture due to Portuguese being its predominent language instead of Spanish, Brazil's punk scene was equally vibrant. According to their MySpace profile, Cólera, started in November 1979, was one of the first punk bands in Brazil and were the first to perform abroad. But the scene began to shine when bands took a more post-punk turn, meaning that they combined many of the same philosophies of punk with other musical genres apart from rock. Coming out of São Paulo were bands like Innocentes, Legião Urbana and Mercenárias. However, few bands had black and mixed-race members, but in the 90s more black bands came to the forefront such as punk-metal band Mystifier who were discussing issues of poverty and discrimination.
Original Untranslated Lines
* "...fueron la banda "Punk" más importante y masiva de Argentina..."
** "El 17 de julio de 1981, el grupo se presentó en la Universidad de Belgrano. No fue un show más: terminó con los músicos y parte del público en la cárcel. Muchos toman esta fecha como el nacimiento del punk en la Argentina."
Citations:
Click to open citations
“A 30 años del primer grito punk: recordamos a Los Violadores.” Todo Noticias, 31 Dec. 2013, https://tn.com.ar/musica/noticias/2013/12/31/a-30-anos-del-primer-grito-punk-recordamos-a-los-violadores/.
“A History of Brazil’s Black Punk Scenes.” OkayAfrica, 3 Oct. 2016, https://www.okayafrica.com/black-punk-brazil-scene/.
Nast, Condé. “Martin Sorrondeguy on Los Crudos’ Reissues and Latino Punk History.” Pitchfork, 10 June 2015, https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/791-martin-sorrondeguy-on-los-crudos-reissues-and-latino-punk-history/.
Rockin Las Americas: The Global Politics Of Rock In Latin/o America. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt9qh62v.