¡A Fandanguear!: Studying Son Jarocho Music Workshops as a Translingual Cultural Practice

Yared Portillo

In recent decades, the fandango—a gathering where participants play son jarocho, a popular music born out of movements of resistance in Veracruz, México—has been taken up by multilingual Latine communities across the U.S. In this participatory musical gathering, children and adults are side-by-side participants playing jaranas (stringed instruments), singing verses in Spanish, and dancing zapateado (tap dance). Focusing on the everyday musicking and learning of intergenerational fandango students in the U.S., this study analyzes the role that folkloric literacies play in the lives of racialized bilingual learners. Through a participatory design research study with a fandango collective in California, I ask: (1) how do the intergenerational, cultural and translingual dimensions of the fandango afford opportunities to engage in and hone translingual practices; and (2) how does the fandango, as a cultural practice, engender a range of opportunities for consequential learning? Data collection includes participant observation, audio and video recordings, semi-structured interviews, and pláticas. Grounded in sociocultural approaches to literacy learning, this study examines how the sociolinguistic and sociopolitical dynamics of fandango classes create pathways for students of all ages to develop and sustain translingual practices, and how these practices can empower students to participate musically, socially, and civically in their communities. Situated at the intersection of music education, sociolinguistics, and sociocultural approaches to learning, this interdisciplinary study expands understandings about how the everyday musicking practices of racially and linguistically minoritized communities can be vehicles for heritage language learners and emergent bilinguals of all ages to hone their translingualism.

About Yared Portillo

Yared Portillo is a Ph.D. candidate in Learning Sciences and Human Development at UC Berkeley's School of Education with a focus on Language, Literacy, and Culture. She is a jaranera, leonera, guitarist, poet, and music teacher with over 15 years of experience. Raised in an agricultural Latine immigrant community in Santa María, California, her research interests sit at the intersection of music education, translanguaging pedagogies, and sociocultural approaches to learning. Yared's research and teaching are influenced by her years as a grassroots immigrant rights community organizer in South Philadelphia fighting detention and deportation cases, developing "know your rights" trainings, teaching English, and creating politically-grounded son jarocho music classes for immigrant adults and children. Her research examines the Mexican musical repertoires of a bilingual intergenerational Latine community, and the relationship between those musical repertoires and learning. By examining the multimodal and embodied literacies (e.g. music, dance, gesture) that constitute translingual practices, Yared studies how emergent bilinguals and heritage language learners engage music classes to not only learn music, but also to learn and/or reclaim language. Grounded in community-based and participatory approaches to research, Yared studies how music and the arts can serve as agentive embodied practices that empower transnational and translingual individuals to make sense of and transform their social and political worlds. Yared holds a B.A. from Swarthmore College and an M.S.Ed. in Reading/Writing/Literacy from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research has been supported by Ford Foundation and Public Mellon Foundation Fellowships.