Los Jornaleros del Norte denounce harassment: ‘They’ve followed us, sent us hate mail’
After their song ‘La Cumbia de la Migra’ went viral thanks to Pedro Pascal, the group of migrant musicians have received threats over their protest music
Chilean actor Pedro Pascal, one of Hollywood’s most recognizable faces, was moving to the rhythm of a cumbia that wasn’t born on a red carpet, but in the street, amid shouts of protest, in front of an immigration patrol. “Racist as you’re full of hate, why don’t you go straight to hell,” goes the chorus. The song, La Cumbia de la Migra, belongs to Los Jornaleros del Norte, a group of migrant musicians who for 30 years have accompanied marches and strikes in Los Angeles with guitars, drums, and an unwavering conviction: to sing in order to survive.
Omar León (Michoacán, 1976), the group’s keyboardist, accordionist, and composer, doesn’t consider himself a star. “We don’t make music to be famous. We make music so people know we exist,” he says in an interview with EL PAÍS. However, this time it was was different. Someone videoed the song at the Los Angeles protest, it went viral, and suddenly everyone was talking about it. But with that came harassment.
Every verse comes at a price. The group’s videos have been viewed millions of times and shared by various media outlets. León points out that this attention has also brought a backlash: people who support President Donald Trump’s administration have responded with threats. “They’ve followed us, sent us hate mail. They even tried to take away the truck we play from at the protests. They wanted to scare us into stopping. But we weren’t scared. If they take the truck, we’ll play on foot,” León asserts.
The group was formed in 1995 in the City of Industry, California, when an immigration raid interrupted an ordinary morning. Some men were waiting for work in a parking lot when the agents stormed in. One of them, Omar Sierra, wrote a corrido: El Corrido de Industry. It was a simple, stark tale, like the old corridos that narrated tragedies. “That’s when we decided we were going to sing our own stories. We had no one to tell them,” León recalls.
Since then, Los Jornaleros del Norte, made up of León, Pablo Alvarado from El Salvador, and Omar Sierra from Honduras, have remained true to that promise. They are part of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which defends immigrant workers throughout the United States. Songs like Las Redadas (The Raids), Serenata a un Indocumentado (Serenade to an Undocumented Worker), Pueblo Únete (People, Unite), and Que No Pare la Lucha (Don’t Stop the Fight) have become anthems against fear. Songs that don’t seek comfort, but rather remembrance. They define themselves as people who fight, who work, who dream, and who resist.
Their struggle is peaceful, but León acknowledges that they have had difficult encounters. “We’ve been confronted face-to-face by anti-immigrant people, by racist people. We’ve been spat on, pushed, threatened. Even so, we keep going. What’s admirable about my bandmates is that, despite everything, they maintain their spirit to make music to tell our stories, to demand justice, and to give a voice to those who are afraid to speak out.”
Sometimes, amid the anger, tenderness emerges. As in Serenata a un Indocumentado, inspired by a family on the sidewalk bidding a final farewell to a father about to be deported. The mother, who went to the Los Angeles detention center with her children every afternoon, told the group that they waited for dinnertime, when the detainees passed through a corridor and the families could see them for a few seconds, to blow them a kiss. “I wrote the song with her words,” says León.
Resilience also emerges, as in his most recent song, Solo el Pueblo Salva al Pueblo (Only the People Save the People). “The struggle calls your name, the people are in the streets, the voice of the farmworkers will never be silenced. This song is born from the earth, they demand equality, silence is defeat, let’s fight to the end,” explains the composer. Each verse is a call not to be paralyzed by fear, to take to the streets and raise their voices.
Their music isn’t played on commercial radio, but it resonates in the streets. Los Jornaleros del Norte perform wherever unions protest, where domestic workers demand rights, where farmworkers demand justice: “You’ll see us in the streets, at strikes, in the courts. Because the fight happens there too,” León affirms.
There is no resentment in his voice, only weariness and a stubborn calm. “Sometimes they call us crazy. But if we stay silent, who will tell what’s happening? Silence is the cruelest enemy.” León acknowledges that even within the Latino community there are those who support the measures implemented by the Trump administration. “They tell us we’re common, vulgar, that’s why they don’t like us. Yes, there are Latinos who agree with what’s happening, and who are even happy about it, but that doesn’t stop us. Regardless of what they can take from us (the truck, the instruments), Los Jornaleros will carry on. Because our struggle doesn’t depend only on us, but on a larger collective that will continue to raise its voice.”
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