When Tara López set out to write “Chuco Punk: Sonic Insurgency in El Paso,” she sought to document more than just a local music scene — she wanted to amplify a rebellious cultural movement rooted in identity, resistance and community.
Drawing from more than 70 interviews with musicians, organizers and everyday punx, López’s book captures the creativity of El Paso’s punk scene — particularly during the 1990s — and situates it within broader conversations about border politics, rasquache aesthetics and women’s contributions to underground culture.
Published in 2024 by the University of Texas Press, “Chuco Punk” is the latest selection of the El Paso Matters Book Club. López, who teaches Latinx and ethnic studies at Winona State University in Minnesota, will take part in a Pages & Pints event at Old Sheepdog Brewery on Saturday, June 28. The free, all-ages gathering will feature a conversation with the author, live music and opportunities to connect with others interested in the region’s cultural history.
In the following Q&A, López reflects on the year since the book’s release, its reception in the Borderland and beyond, and the questions it has raised about community archiving, identity and punk’s enduring presence in El Paso.
Q: It’s been a year since “Chuco Punk” hit shelves. Looking back, what has surprised you most about the book’s reception — either in El Paso or beyond?
A: Rather than surprised, I am impressed by how much the city of El Paso has embraced the book.
From the outset, at the book release in June 2024 at the El Paso record store, Sound Decay, I was really amazed to see so many people from the tri-cities fill up the store with not simply an interest in the book, but a love for music, El Paso and community.
The entire city has also really embraced the book, as well, from a letter of commendation from U.S. Representative (Veronica) Escobar to a panel at the El Paso Museum of History on the women of punk rock. It’s awesome to see that my research, especially with its focus on women, resonates with a broad spectrum of people in this community.
Q: Have you seen the book spark new interest in preserving or archiving El Paso’s punk history — either among fans, musicians or institutions?
A: This is an important and rather challenging question to answer. Overall, the answer is, yes, that there is interest in preserving and archiving El Paso punk history.
As an academic, I interact with institutions, so, I will answer the question from that vantage point. There has been what I see as “oblivious” requests at archiving and “respectful” requests at archiving.
The “oblivious” requests ask me about archiving El Paso punk ephemera, but by asking me, the individuals haven’t read my book to see that this is NOT my property, and the entire point of the book is that the punx are the cultural producers, and I am just helping to share their stories.
Even when I have directed requests from institutions to the punx themselves, institutional representatives ignore the punx and write back to me about archiving, again. That is messed up and disrespectful to the punx, and that irritates me because the focus is honoring punx’s power and creative agency, not imposing some messed up hierarchy on their own cultural production.
My suggestion to anybody seeking to ask about archiving: Read the book, and ask the punx, not me, about archiving.
The respectful requests have been from UTEP, where one of the key archivists has suggested punx create a community archive. Also, fellow punk scholars have understood the importance of archiving emanating from the punx themselves and have pointed me in the direction of punk-run archives in places like (Washington) D.C. and Pensacola (Florida). I want those connections to be available to the punx in El Paso as they choose to preserve their ephemera in whichever way they believe is appropriate.
Q: Was there anything you wish you had included in the book that, over the past year, feels more urgent or relevant now?
A: These Chuco punx were ahead of their times and were sonically expressing the urgency of issues like economic inequality, climate change, racism, sexism and xenophobia, problems that have engulfed society today.
I began to engage with these topics in the book, and I wanted to write in even more depth on this punk community and the foresight they had regarding social change locally, nationally and internationally. However, I also saw the urgency of sharing the history of these Chuco punx as soon as I could at this historical juncture. The issues they expressed in songs, zines, flyer, shows and community provide not just inspiration today, but can help people map strategies to grapple with seemingly overwhelming forces.
Q: What kinds of conversations has the book opened up with younger generations of punks or artists in the borderlands?
A: The most potent of conversations have been with young Chicanas who are interested in doing research on punk in various places, from Tucson to McAllen. That excites me because I will soon have more opportunities to read what I did not have when I was younger: Well-researched works on Chicanas documenting a refusal to be stagnant, but instead, catapulting culture into transformative realms of creativity and meaning.
Q: Your work situates punk within a broader political and cultural framework. Have you found the book entering into discussions outside of music — perhaps in academia, activism or border studies?
A: I am pleasantly surprised that academics have been so receptive to the book. Both politically and culturally, the academic audiences with whom I have interacted are fascinated with how El Paso punx engaged in fun and political problems with guitars, words and community. I think the most powerful point that they take away is that, outside of political parties and governmental activities, these punx developed a sophisticated politics of community that was rowdy, passionate, relevant and most importantly, fun AF!!! There’s no match for that!
Q: In the past year, have there been moments — events, emails or encounters — that reminded you why telling this story mattered?
A: There were three events that illustrated how researching this history and writing it mattered, and the first of which was the record release party in El Paso last year. The generosity of Abel and Danny Salazar in letting me have the book release at their store and how packed with people there sharing their stories with me when I signed their books were so powerful.
Moreover, when Chuceño Mike Cota interviewed me for his podcast during the event, he got all choked up because the book reminded him of how much he loved his punk community. The energy and emotion was a potent mix that reaffirmed to me that I did the right thing in writing this book.
Personally, the book has been met with a form of homecoming for me in New Mexico. For instance, in Taos, where my father’s family is from, they held a comida where family and friends attended. Key elders were there, and while they do not like punk, they extoled their love of El Paso and music and their pride that I, a taoseña, was documenting this important cultural movement.
Finally, at a talk at the NMSU Library, librarian Jess Zubia created this badass, handmade sign that read: “Bienvenidx a casa, Tara!” I spent the first part of my life in Doña Ana, but then left for Albuquerque when I was 5, so, it was astounding to see a “Welcome Home, Tara” sign in Cruces!
I always felt that I am a weird, awkward, outsider everywhere I go, with school, books, music and the punk rock community being the only things mooring me to a concrete sense of identity. The receptions in Taos and in Cruces, however, shed light on the belonging in places I really wasn’t emotionally aware of previously … . So, there’s another thing to thank the punx of El Paso for after this book.
Q: And finally, can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next? Will it continue to explore themes of resistance and identity in border communities or are you heading in a new direction?
A: There are two projects I am working on currently.
First, Chuceño Dr. Mike Tapia, professor of criminology at East Texas A&M, has invited me to co-edit and contribute to the upcoming book crime in New Mexico. My chapter in the book will explore how the town of Taos grapples with forces of cultural erasure and how that is reflected in how local Chicanx culture is treated as inconvenient and, at times, criminal.
Second, I will continue in this vein of how Chicanx culture is treated as deviant and/or primitive in my research on women in both New Mexico and El Paso and their acts of cultural and political innovation and defiance in the 20th and 21st centuries.
The post El Paso Matters Book Club Q&A: ‘Chuco Punk’ author Tara López on borderland rebellion, punk power appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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