Time and time again, we are shown how people of color’s contributions to the American music industry and culture are purposefully forgotten and ignored in favor of a history that fits the hetronormative, white, male agenda. In Ludwig Hurtado’s Country Music is Also Mexican Music, he dives into just how much Mexican music is a defining factor of country music, and therefore Mexican music fans should not be seen as outliers in country music’s fanbase. American Conservatives have recently tried to capitalize off of country music, viewing it as all white, all American safespace for the conservative agenda, only to find Mexican fans, who have always been there, and as Hurtado proves, belong to be there. He writes, “For too long, the reigning presupposition has been that country music was confined to a politics of closed borders, but country music wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for the transcendence of cultural and national border lines.” Country music is a result of Mexican and American culture blending, yet mainstream media and histories still label country as an exclusively white, conservative genre.
Just like Mexican influence in country music, women’s influence on both grunge and general Seattle culture has been forgotten, perhaps because of their status as women, until recently. After grunge musician Mia Zapata was brutally raped and murdered walking to her home in Capitol Hill, fellow femme musicians came togetehr to create Home Alive, as recently detailed in the film Rock, Rage, & Self Defense: an Oral History of Seattle’s Home Alive by DIY filmmakers Rozz Therrien and Leah Michaels. In an interview with Bitch Media’s Laina Dawes, Michaels says “I think that both of us were both shocked and inspired and also a bit confused as to how we both didn’t know about it. We were like, ‘How is this not a huge thing? How did people not really know about this at all?’” Even an event that had an international impact, like Mia Zapata’s murder, was largely forgotten when this film came out, probably because it was womxn ran.
- This tribute to Nipsey Hussle is a way in which people of a marginalized group remember someone who died. Tributes like this must be remembered.
- Mia Zapata’s band, listening to her voice is another way to remember her legacy.
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