Alec Wilkinson's "Immigration Blues," in this week's issue, takes us on the road with the norteno band Los Tigres del Norte. I enjoyed the ride immensely. I particularly enjoyed Wilkinson's writing. The piece contains a number of inspired sentences. For example: "Behind them were rows of cowboy hats, like a skyline." Here's another example: "Raul and Eduardo sang a mournful song, in which their voices were so tightly fitted to each other that they seemed braided, and when they finished someone said, 'That's a good one.'" And one more: "On boleros, the entire band seems to move here and there in a trancelike way, as if on currents." Los Tigres sings corridos, which, as Wilkinson points out "are almost always factual, or at least claim to be." He goes on to say, "Their audience no more cares to hear about imaginary characters and imaginary happenings than the readers of the Wall Street Journal would care to read about made-up businessmen and made-up business deals." I smiled when I read this because I, too, feel the same way, and I strongly suspect that Wilkinson does, as well. It's probably one of the things about Los Tigres that drew him to them as a subject for a story. That and the fact that Los Tigres sings "mainly about things that happen to poor people in Mexico, or to Mexicans in America." As Wilkinson has shown in previous writings (e.g., Big Sugar), he deeply relates to migrant workers. I like the way that Wilkinson, in "Immigration Blues," includes quotes from people in the huge crowds that attend Los Tigres' "dances." At the end of his piece, when he describes a random search of Los Tigres's bus, led by a power-tripping white cop, I could feel his fierce indignation on behalf of the band members. "Immigration Blues" is bluesy, lyric, and real. In fact, it has many of the attributes of a great corrido.
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