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This dissertation analyzes a complex and multifaceted Huastecan identity that is created and performed at encuentros huapangueros and how it relates to pluri-multicultural politics and policies of folklore in Mexico, through El Programa de Desarrollo Cultural de la Huasteca (hereafter referred to as the PDCH). Encuentros, meetings or congresses, huapangueros, of practitioners of huapango, are open participatory concert-dance events, where elder tradition bearers, youth, cultural promoters, and community members gather to dance, sing, perform poetry and play Huastecan music at different festivals as part of this trans-local cultural scene, in festivals, such as, El Festival de la Huasteca, and La Fiesta Anual de Huapango Amatlán.

The following chapters focus on three groups of important representatives in
this process at the encuentros: maestros (who are also workshop leaders) and their students, mestiza trovadoras (women poetess-singers) from Pánuco, and nahua musicians from Hidalgo. By comparing their staged performances at the festival with informal performances—both in their home communities and in informal settings in and around the festival—I analyze how the agency of musicians combines with cultural policy to transmit local and regional practices associated with son huasteco to new generations through their performances.

Other scholars examine how local music and dance are reformed by nationalists and cosmopolitans (Turino 2000; Mendoza 2000). However, my research analyzes performance in these participatory encuentros as moments when
son huasteco musicians exert their agency in selecting which aspects of local musical and culture they will give to the region and nation. They also decide which local practices they will keep, and which regional and other trans-local practices they will make their own.

While these performances create ties between diverse Huastecan communities, the political process of folklorization and the performances of individual musicians also mark important differences among musicians and other participants along the lines of ethnicity, class and gender. My analysis adds to the understanding of sustainable development of musical patrimony through
government policy, the use of local and regional music and dance to empower youth, as well as how the intersections of gender, race and ethnicity impact the
performance of music and identity in participatory huapangos in Mexico.

List of Figures …iv
List of Tables …vii
Acknowledgements …viii

SECTION 1 -- Foundations
Ch.1 Introduction Dynamics between regional organization …1
and local practice in the Programa de Desarrollo Cultural de la Huasteca
Ch. 2 Huapangueros: A trans-local music scene, seen through …45
El Festival de la Huasteca
Music Genres: Huapango, Son Huasteco, Sones de costumbre …49
Ch 3. El Programa del Desarrollo Cultural de la Huasteca …72

SECTION 2---Teachers, Students, Nahua and Mestiza Identity
Ch.4 Xochipitzahuatl (thin flower): Maestros defining the Huasteca…93
Maestros as egalitarian teachers and pluri-multicultural agents … 97
The Huasteca region through the Chicontepec lense: Mestizo and Indigenous…99
Ch. 5 Teachers as Cultural Missionaries…105
Indigenismo, revolutionary women and cultural mission teachers… 106
anthropologists, and information about huapango 1920s-1940s
Rafael Saavedre El Huapango: Ensayo de costumbres huastecas …111
Gregorio López y Fuentes El Indio and Realist …118
Indigenismo from the Huasteca
Hilario Meníndez’s Cantares de mis Huasteca 1925…125
Ch. 6 Son Huasteco Music Workshops…130
No a los concursos, sí a los encuentros…130
Who is Don Ponciano Fajardo Martínez? …138
Eduardo Bustos Aguacero de Sones…146
El Balcón Huasteco Rolando Reyes Hernández…151
Viva El Huapango Ciudad Mante Tamaulipas August 2004…154
La Herencia de Don Ponciano at the Sevententh Edition of El Festival…157
Trío Ármonia Querétana perform Original Verses and Xochipitzahuatl …160
Apprenticeship with Don Ponciano …163
Musical Gatherings…167
Soraima y sus Huastecos perform Xochipitzuatl (thin flower) …170
Transmission of Culture from Chicontepec…172
Transmission by Don Ponciano at Encuentros…177
Xochipitzahuatl Travels to Querétaro and Back in El Festival de la Huasteca…180

SECTION 3--- Viejos Huapangueros Case studies: trans-local festival performance
and local values
Ch.7 Rocking the Cradle of Huapango: Pánuco Trovadoras and Trovadores …184
Panuco: gender and participation
Erasing Women Trovadoras and Musicians…189
The Invention and Political uses of a National Huapango from Pánuco…194
Excavating Women’s Rich History…198
The History of Professional Women Son Huasteco Instrumentalists…200
Tamazunchale: Lugar Donde la Mujer Mande…204
‘Place Where the Woman Would Rule’
Family Fiesta Huapangueada in Pánuco, Veracruz…218
Writing and Rocking the Cradle of Huapango, and the Controversía …223
Rocking the Cradle of Huapango El Cielito Lindo on Huaxteca TV…232
Ch.8 Nahua Musicians’ Performing Identity at Encuentros Huapangueros …238
Huejutla: language, music and sound-scape
To Sing or not to Sing in Náhautl on “Citlaltepetl,” ’Star Mountain’…243
Nahua Trío Huasteco Musicians…250
La Leva Cruzada (the Crossed Uprising) at the Huastecan Festival…253
Crossing the Festival Grounds …255
Staging the Huasteca in the XV Festival de la Huasteca…258
Representing the State of Hidalgo’s Huasteca …261
Náhua Repertoire and Playing with Identity in the Encuentro Huapanguero…264
Unpacking Two Huastecas Aesthetics at Play on Violin and Language …266
Nahua, Language, Masculinity and Identity in coplas for son huasteco…268
The Performance of Separate Huastecas in Zapateado…269
and Unification of through Signals
The Sizzle, Whistle and Boom of Nahua identity…273
Ch. 9 La Danza de Tres Colores Dancing for the Cross…278
Ch.10 Conclusion…294
Bibliography…306