REVIEW ESSAY: MEXICAN AMERICAN MUSIC

The Billboard Guide to Tejano and Regional Mexican Music. By Ramiro Burr. New York: Billboard Books, 1999. ISBN 0-8230-7691-1 (paper). Pp. 256.

Lalo: My Life in Music. By Lalo Guerrero and Sherilyn Meece Mentes. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8165-2213-8 (cloth); 0-8165-2214-6 (paper). Pp. xii, 216.

Land of a Thousand Dances: Chicano Rock 'n' Roll from Southern California. By David Reyes and Tom Waldman. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8263-1929-7 (cloth); 0-8263-1883-5 (paper). Pp. xxi, 178.

Lydia Mendoza's Life in Music/La historia de Lydia Mendoza: Norteño Tejano Legacies. By Yolanda Broyles-González. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001 (with compact disc). ISBN 0-19-512706-4 (cloth); 0-19-5161831 (paper). Pp. xvi, 235.

The Mexican American Orquesta: Music, Culture, and the Dialectic of Conflict. By Manuel Peña. Austin: University of Texas Press. 1999. ISBN 0-292-76586-X (cloth); 0-292-76587-8 (paper). Pp. xii, 350.

Música Tejana: The Cultural Economy of Artistic Transformation. By Manuel Peña. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-89096-877-2 (cloth); 0-89096-888-8 (paper). Pp. xii, 239.

Puro Conjunto: An Album in Words and Pictures/Writings, Posters, and Photographs from the Tejano Conjunto Festival en San Antonio, 1982-1998. Edited by Juan Tejeda and Avelardo Valdez. Austin: Center for Mexican American Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 2001. ISBN 0-292-78174-1 (cloth); 0-292-78172-5 (paper). Pp. xxiv, 443.

Tejano Proud: Tex-Mex Music in the Twentieth Century. By Guadalupe San Miguel Jr. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002. ISBN 1-58544-159-7 (cloth); 1-58544-188-0 (paper). Pp. xv, 192.

Latino musical life in the United States encompasses many different yet related traditions in geographic origin and repertory. While people of Mexican heritage make up the largest percentage of the Spanish-surnamed population in the United States, other Latin American countries and Spain have long been represented in America's collective immigrant experience. Because of this larger population, Mexican musical traditions have attracted the most scholarly attention. The books reviewed here represent a multiplicity of Mexican American musical styles and geographic regions and include in-depth coverage of popular music and musicians in the twentieth century, with selected coverage of the nineteenth. While they overlap in theme, they do not significantly duplicate each other. They also represent a wide range of methodologies and purposes and are addressed to a diverse readership. All eight books are valuable contributions to the literature, and each offers important insights or information.