Department of Music Lecture: “Cómo un fantasma se aparece”: Ghost Smuggling Ballads as Repositories of Haunting, Transgenerational Trauma, and Undocumented Migrant Survival

Teresita Lozano, Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

 Title:
“Cómo un fantasma se aparece”: Ghost Smuggling Ballads as Repositories of Haunting, Transgenerational Trauma, and Undocumented Migrant Survival 

Abstract:
Based on musical testimonies circulating social media, undocumented Mexican migrants are sharing a collective ghost story marked by themes of persecution, survival, and religious devotion to a miraculous apparition who helps migrants cross the U.S.-Mexico border. Since 2007, this collection of Mexican corridos, which I define as corridos de coyotes fantasma (“ghost smuggling ballads”), narrates the near-death experiences of migrants and their encounters with the ghost of Santo Toribio Romo, who migrants have adopted as El Santo Coyote (The Holy Smuggler) and unofficial Patron of Immigrants. Toribio Romo González was a Mexican priest killed in the highlands of Jalisco during La Cristiada, the 1926-1929 Cristero Rebellion. Cristeros were post-Revolutionary Mexican Catholic rebels who participated in an armed revolt against the Mexican government in response to the militant enforcement of anticlerical laws, which they perceived as deliberate encroachment on religious liberty. The Catholic Church canonized Santo Toribio Romo in 2000 alongside other Cristero martyrs but has never recognized him as the Patron of Immigrants, a secondary canonization bestowed on Santo Toribio Romo by migrants whose devotion remains fortified through cyber-devotion. For example, for migrants unable to return on pilgrimage to Santo Toribio Romo’s shrine in Jalisco, corridos serve as musical votives that are then shared with other devotees and future migrants on YouTube, a space that defies geopolitical borders. Inspired by Jacques Derrida’s conceptualization of “hauntology” (1993) and contributing to theoretical discourse on immigration politics within migrant religious expression (Hagan 2008, Calvo-Quirós 2023) and transgenerational trauma encoded within survivors’ music (Cizmic 2012, Pilzer 2015), I analyze how these corridos transcend temporal and physical boundaries through multiple layers of haunting beyond Santo Toribio’s ghostly intercessions. Furthermore, I explore how these corridos – a tradition most associated with the Mexican Revolution and Post-Revolutionary period – embody inherited cultural memory of trauma and injustices that extends to the current struggles of undocumented migrants, particularly amidst the current U.S. presidential administration’s ongoing efforts to execute mass deportations. 

Biography:
Dr. Teresita Lozano is an Assistant Professor of Musicology and Ethnomusicology at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. A native of the El Paso, Texas – Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua borderland, she engages in research that explores the intersections between music, borders, migration, cultural memory, and religion. Her current monograph project centers on musical and religiopolitical manifestations of the undocumented migrant experience in the U.S.-Mexico transborder region. A passionate advocate for musical and community activism, she has served as a performer and “border music” specialist for projects in public education and immigrant rights movements. Prior to her position at UTRGV, she served as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Ethnomusicology at West Virginia University and was previously awarded the prestigious Charlotte Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship for research centered on religion and ethics. She is also an alumna of the Smithsonian Institution’s Latino Museum Studies Program where she worked in residence as a graduate fellow. She maintains a professional performance career as a flutist and vocalist in diverse global traditions. Dr. Lozano holds a BME from Baylor University and a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology and Musicology from the University of Colorado Boulder.