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The Immigrant Experience in Music: 25 Heartfelt Songs to Reflect on This Fourth of July
This Fourth of July, we're listening to 25 songs that reflect the immigrant experience in the United States.
Today, more than 50 million immigrants live in the country, with the biggest population coming from Mexico, the big neighbor to the South. We listened to favorites like Los Tigres Del Norte’s “De Paisano a Paisano,” which was released in 2000, but narrates in chilling detail the scorn and rejection suffered by the working immigrant today; and Ricardo Arjona’s “Mojado,” the ode to the everyday undocumented immigrant worker, who “Isn’t from here because his name isn’t registered, nor from here, because left (no es de aquí porque su nombre no aparece en los archivos,Ni es de allá porque se fue).” There’s the cheeky, sardonic “ Frijolero” by Mexican alt rockers Molotov from 2003 (‘Don’t call me gringo, you fuckin’ beaner, Stay on your side of that goddamn river”), and Residente’s angry “This Is Not America,” which with words reclaims the land taken.
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