Baylor College alumna Teresita Lozano will current a Lyceum Sequence lecture on Friday, February 25, starting at 1:30 p.m. in Seminar Room 2 (Moody 304) of Crouch Superb Arts Library. Dr. Lozano is Assistant Professor of Musicology and Ethnomusicology on the College of Texas–Rio Grande Valley. She holds a Bachelor of Music Schooling diploma, with an emphasis in flute, from Baylor College and a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology (Musicology) from the College of Colorado–Boulder.
Dr. Lozano’s Lyceum Sequence lecture is entitled “Songs for the Holy Coyote: Ghost Smuggling Ballads and the Migrant Journey.” Based mostly on musical testimonies circulating over social media, a number of undocumented migrants have shared a collective ghost story of survival, spiritual devotion, and a mysterious apparition who guides them throughout the U.S.-Mexico border. A brand new phenomenon of corrido (Mexican ballad) composition and efficiency narrates the near-death experiences of undocumented migrants and their miraculous encounters with the ghost of Saint Toribio Romo.
Saint Toribio Romo, whom migrants have adopted because the Santo Coyote (Holy Smuggler) and Patron Saint of Immigrants, was a Cristero priest killed in 1928 in Jalisco throughout La Cristiada, the 1926-1928 Cristero Rebel. (Cristeros have been post-Revolutionary Mexican Catholic rebels who participated in an armed rise up towards the Mexican authorities, in response to the militant enforcement of anticlerical legal guidelines and perceived encroachment on spiritual liberty.) Saint Toribio Romo corridos, which Dr. Lozano defines as “ghost smuggling ballads,” depict the migrant journey within the desert house alongside the U.S.-Mexico border. Ghost smuggling ballads redefine the function of the coyote (smuggler) as a supply of divine safety, sanctifying the migrant journey as a sacred pilgrimage.
This Lyceum Sequence lecture, made attainable by the Meadows Basis of Dallas, is freed from cost and open to the general public.
