Bullen - 1993 - Chicha in The Shanty Towns of Arequipa, Peru

Chicha in the Shanty Towns of Arequipa, Peru
Author(s): Margaret Bullen

Source: Popular Music, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Oct., 1993), pp. 229-244
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/931233
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Popular Music (1993) Volume 12/3. Copyright O 1993 Cambridge University Press
Chicha in the shanty towns of

Arequipa, Peru
MARGARET BULLEN
Chicha, a fermented maize beer, traditional in the Andes and brewed by Andean
migrants in the shanty towns of Peru's cities, has given its name to a musical
movement, which first emerged in the migrant squatter settlements of Lima in the
1960s. By the mid-1980s chicha was the most well-known and wide-spread form of
urban popular music in Peru (Romero 1990; Rowe & Schelling 1991, pp. 121-2),
widely played, sung and danced in impromptu chichodromos, set up in walled-in
vacant lots or back yards.
Mass rural-urban migration in Peru brought rural Andean cultural forms into
contact with the tropical rhythms and rock music prevalent on the urban coast,
giving rise to a creative mix of Columbian cumbia, Andean wayno, and rock, to form
chicha. The mix is suggested in other names given to this music style: 'tropical
Andean music' (mzisica tropical andina) or 'Andean cumbia' (cumbia andina).
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ones
, WIN'
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Figure 1. Pueblo Joven 'El Porvenir' Arequipa - Chichodromos could be set up in any of the lotes.
229
230 Margaret Bullen
It is a point of debate whether chicha is a positive innovation, drawing on pre-

existing music styles or a degradation or dilution of purer strands to produce a
'hybrid'. As the presenter of a chicha radio programme described it to me: 'It's a
product of the migrations in the last few years, this music didn't exist before, it's a
mixture of wayno and [cumbia], of coast and highlands, resulting in the cumbia
andina, it's a hybrid'.'
Another important feature of chicha is that it is primarily a youth music, the
music of young people from the shanty towns, descendents of Andean immigrants
who find in chicha an expression of their combined rural-urban heritage and an
outlet for social frustration.
Thomas Turino (n.d.) demonstrates how chicha expresses 'the ambiguities of
bicultural and transitional social situations where asymmetrical power relations are
fundamental in shaping identity'. It is my intention in this article to pursue this
thesis by examining how cultural identities are constructed in the discourse of
chicha, both directly in its lyrics and indirectly in the way chicha is talked about in
different sectors of Arequipan society. I will demonstrate how identities are con-
structed by appealing to stereotypes and how the evaluation of cultural forms is
influenced by these historically-shaped, racially-prejudiced preconceptions.
Taking self-ascription and ascription to be important in the construction of
identities, I propose to explore how the discourse of chicha is operative in the way
the shanty youth perceive themselves, and the way they and their music are
perceived by others, whether their parents, the Arequipan middle classes or the
broadcast media. I will discuss the discursive categories used by members of the
Arequipan bourgeoisie and go on to explore how these are taken up by the broad-
cast media.
Different producers and presenters of Arequipan radio provide varying
evaluations of chicha according to their particular definition of 'culture', influencing
their representation of shanty town culture. Their categorisation of cultural forms
adds another dimension to the analysis of the negotiation of power in the construc-
tion of identities, establishing a link between the micro level of social interaction
and the wider, less visible power structures embedded in institutions such as the
media.
This article is based on fieldwork carried out in the shanty towns of Arequipa,
the second city of Peru, from July 1988 to December 1989. The broad aim of the
research was to explore the impact of modern urban society and the mass media on
the cultural identities of rural migrants and chicha was examined as part of this
process. The methodology employed was fundamentally participant observation,
through residence with migrant families in two shanty towns, Rio Seco and
Porvenir, where the majority of first-generation migrants were peasant farmers or
traders from the highland provinces of the department of Arequipa and the
southern Andean departments of Puno and Cusco. Participant observation was
backed up with interviews, especially in researching the broadcast media in
Arequipa. The informants are shanty town residents, members of the Arequipan
middle classes and staff at radio stations.
The evolution of chicha
I will first look briefly at how the wayno and the cumbia, the two main musical
currents which combine to form chicha, became popular in the capital and other
Chicha in the shanty towns of Arequipa, Peru 231
coastal cities of Peru and made possible the evolution of a new music form (Llorens
1983, pp. 97-116; Turino 1988, pp. 127-50). In this section I will be referring largely
to Lima, where chicha began, but elsewhere my observations will be limited to the
specific social context of Arequipa.
Before the mass migrations of Andean migrants to the coastal towns from the
1950s, Lima was more open to music from other parts of Latin America and the
Caribbean, Europe and North America, than music forms from the interior of Peru.
Prior to the arrival of cumbia and salsa, the dominant music form of the Peruvian
coast was mtisica criolla (creole music), heavily influenced by Spanish and European
trends and popular in the mid-nineteenth century. It began as the music of the
bourgeoisie, but was popularised by the emergent working classes. In the 1920s it
was displaced by new foreign forms: tango, jazz, swing and charleston. Although
it is now regarded as old-fashioned, it is still upheld as the essence of Hispanic
Peru.
Andean music was little heard on the coast until the first decades of this
century (1910-40) when it was introduced in an erudite form, adapted for the urban
ear with rearrangements of traditional Peruvian melodies in European forms, pro-
ducing what was known as the 'Incaic Opera', favoured by the upper classes of the
capital. In the 1920s, other stylised forms of Andean music were brought to Lima
by urban-academic composers and members of the highland elite in support of
indigenismo, an intellectual movement with both political and cultural overtones,
which aimed to incorporate the Andean peoples into a Peruvian 'nation' and use
aspects of highland indigenous culture as a model for reform (Turino 1988, p. 131;
Rowe & Schelling 1991, pp. 57, 184).
There was no market for authentic Andean music in Lima at this time as
migrants were mainly from the departmental capitals rather than the more isolated
rural areas of the Andes, and not yet sufficiently strong in numbers or organisation
to diffuse their own cultural forms. From 1938, the first folkloric shows were staged
in Lima and Andean music began to be played in the shanty towns, but its
authentic expression continued to be disdained by limefios. Even composers from
the lower classes felt obliged to adapt to fashionable urban tastes and migrants of
peasant origin were afraid and ashamed to play their own music.
In the 1950s, urban growth, as a result of the demographic explosion and
rural-urban migration, was characterised by increased Andean presence in the
coastal cities and manifest in the proliferation of coliseos folkl6ricos (Andean folk
centres) and in the first recordings of Andean music. In Arequipa, Antonio, a
migrant from the department of Puno and resident of the shanty town of Porvenir,
related how it took three years to organise a folkloric festival. Permission was
constantly refused by the authorities, until it occurred to him to arrange a festival in
honour of the Civil Guard. Authorisation was obtained, only to be retracted two
days before the event, but under pressure from the guards, it went ahead and the
first large-scale public performance of Andean music was held in Arequipa. The
popularity of the coliseos was accompanied by the incursion of Andean music into
the media as many radio programmes began to devote themselves to 'folkloric
music'.
Mass production brought about the standardisation of the wayno and a loss in
regional distinctiveness. The wayno is the most well-known form of Andean music
but by no means the only one, the highlands occupying a vast and varied area of
Peru, giving rise to many regional variations in the wayno itself.2 The wayno has
232 Margaret Bullen
undergone many changes since conquest and colonisation, first incorporating

Spanish instruments, such as the harp and violin, and later adding the saxophone,
accordion and Spanish guitar, in addition to traditional indigenous instruments,
such as the zampolia (panpipes), the charango, (a small banjo-lute instrument made
out of an armadillo shell) and an Andean flute. Both the media and migratory
movements have contributed to the process of standardisation, consolidated by the
commercial recordings by singers of Andean music, such as Pastorita Huaracina,
who popularised a standard wayno which became representative of 'Andean' or
'folkloric' music.
Despite the homogenisation of Andean music on the commercial front, more
variety was introduced in live performances. As more rural migrants entered the
cities from different regions, rather than assimilating to urban forms as was expec-
ted, they gave greater preference to regionally specific varieties, asserting not only
their Andean identity, but also their identification with a particular district or
community. In the 1960s and 1970s, migrant organisations gained in strength and
associations were formed according to place of origin. These reinforced the main-
tenance of their specific regional identity in the city and stressed the sense of
shared community in organising self-help projects or festivals to celebrate the feast
of their community's patron saint with the music and dance peculiar to the district
or community of origin. Radio programmes and performances of Andean music in
the city were also addressed to a particular region or department.
The diffusion of Andean music on the radio was also boosted by the reforms
introduced by Velasco (1968-75) who ruled that at least 60 per cent of programmes
should be of national production and took other measures designed to exploit the
media as a vehicle for the promotion of national identity (Ball6n 1987, pp. 15-41;
Gargurevich 1987, pp. 211-304).
In the 1960s, an urban popular form of the cumbia became fashionable in Lima
and Peru's coastal cities (Romero 1988, pp. 215-82). Whilst cumbia originates
specifically from the Afro-Columbian rural tradition, in Peru it is placed in a broad
category of 'tropical music'. Rural migrants, wishing to assimilate to the new urban
culture, started to play cumbias, heralded as a symbol of urbanism. However, the
strengthening of migrant organisations and the assertion of regional identities,
prompted migrant music groups to resist creole cultural hegemony with their own
musical innovations, adapting well-known Andean melodies, such as 'Virgenes
del Sol' and 'El Condor Pasa', to the rhythms of the cumbia (CEPES 1986, p. 28).
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, rock music, entering from North America
and Britain, became popular with the younger generation in Peru and its electric
instrumentation was added to the mixture of tropical and Andean music. If cumbia
was an index of urbanism in Peru and wayno a signifier of the highlands, then rock
was representative of the youth. It is rock which adds the modern dimension to the
cumbia-wayno mix and brings it specifically into the realm of the shanty town youth.
Whilst cumbia lends the rhythm and the wayno features in the melody, phrase
structure and imitation of panpipes, rock furnishes the instrumentation of chicha
bands.
A band usually comprises lead and rhythm electric guitars, electric bass,
electric organ, timbales and/or a conga player, one or more lead vocalists (who may
double up as percussionists) and in wealthier groups there may be a synthesiser for
special effects such as video sounds (Romero 1988, p. 272; Turino n.d., p. 6).
Chicha has not supplanted either tropical or folkloric music, but occupies a
different space and generates different meanings. The first group to make a com-
mercial success of chicha music were 'Los Demonios de Mantaro' (The Devils of
Mantaro) from the central highlands of Junin. They had a hit with 'La Chichera',
('The Chicha Seller'). It is from this song title that the movement derives its name.
The most famous chicha players today are 'Los Shapis', another group of provincial
origin who shot to stardom in 1981 with 'El Aguajal' ('The Swamp', literally 'place
of much water') an adaptation of a wayno called 'El Alizal' ('The Alder Grove')
which has been acclaimed as marking the birth of the new genre (CEPES 1986,
p. 28).
Although 'Los Shapis' are an all male group, other chicha bands, such as
'Mily, Heley, Keley', include female lead singers, following the tradition of the
commercialised wayno, protagonised by women such as Pastorita Huaracina. Both
male and female-led groups use the same adaptations of songs from Andean folk
and chicha and simply change the pronoun or referent as in 'Lagrimas de Hombre/
Mujer', tears of a man or woman according to the singer.
Chicha lyrics
First and foremost, chicha lyrics deal with love themes, whether the lead singer is
male or female. The subjects range over unrequited love, reproaches and jealousy,
love-sickness, pining and suicide, sorrows which call to be drowned in drink.
Whilst treating a universal theme like love, there are specific Andean references in
songs like 'Coraz6n Andino' ('Andean Heart') which laments a lost love and refers
to the deep feelings engraved on the 'Andean heart, highland heart'. The Andean
references derive from the contribution of the wayno to chicha, using the same lyrics
with some modifications, but adapting the rhythm. At the same time as borrowing
songs from cumbia and wayno, there is some original composition referring to
modern urban society: trains, buses, telephones (e.g. 'El telefonito', by Mily,
Heley, Keley).
Some lyrics relate to social issues and articulate the concerns of migrants,
expressing the hardships they face: under-employment, the lack of basic living
requirements and other problems relating to their class and occupational status.
Songs deal with the instability of their socio-economic position, with children
having to work or the plight of the street seller. 'El Ambulante' ('The Street Seller'),
written by Jaime Moreyra, one of 'Los Shapis', draws on his own childhood experi-
ence of accompanying his mother to provincial fairs (Rowe & Schelling 1991, p.
122). It relates, very simply, the experience of hundreds of people who work in the
informal sector and describes the precariousness of their position, ever at risk of
being moved on by the police. The song opens with a reference to the rainbow
colours of the flag of the Inca Empire, identifying the Andean heritage of the
ambulante, but these are also the present-day colours of the mantas or carrying
cloths which the sellers use both to transport and to set out their wares on the
street. Furthermore, it defines the street sellers as part of the urban proletariat
ascribing to them a class status. Shanty town residents may recognise themselves
in this song and discover a point of identification which is not manifest in
mainstream music.
My flag is of the colours and the stamp of the rainbow

For Peru and America.
Watch out or the police will take your bundle off you!
234 Margaret Bullen
Ay, ay, ay, ay, how sad it is to live,

Ay, ay, ay, ay, how sad it is to dream.
I'm a street-seller, I'm a proletarian (bis)
Selling shoes, selling food, selling jackets,
I support my home.
I'm a street seller, I'm a proletarian (bis)3
Another chicha song 'Pan y Paz' ('Bread and Peace') describes the plight of
many a homeless and hungry child begging for bread on the streets of Peru.
Calling upon the power of chicha, 'Los Shapis', defying criticism that their music is
ephemeral, declare themselves 'now and forever', spokespeople for Peru. Defend-
ing the cause of the helpless, the song implores the passer-by not to turn a deaf ear
to the child's pleas and to proffer not only a crumb of bread but something of the
love from their own home.
Now and forever, the Shapis of Peru,

The power of chicha,
This little child is in the street,

With neither roof nor food, and asks you for bread, bread, bread,
Please sir, a piece of bread,
For my hunger, don't deny me,
Please sir, a piece of bread,
Because I'm poor, God will reward you.
If you see a little child,

With no direction,
Everything against them, you must give them bread, bread, bread,
From your home a little love,
They just want to play like a child,
Like just another child.
The song not only asks for generosity but also for understanding, for recog-
nition of the street urchin as 'just another child', equal in wants and needs to the
children of the rich: a plea to overcome prejudice and respond to human need.
Cultural identities in Arequipa

The construction of an 'Arequipan' or 'Andean' identity operates categories based
on a partial knowledge of 'the other' and uses racial and moral stereotypes arising
from socio-economic and political factors in the development of Arequipa. The
racist and reactionary attitudes to be found amongst the Arequipan bourgeoisie
have their roots in the city's regionalism, forged of a history of Spanish colonialisa-
tion and subsequent British commercialisation, defining trade routes independent
of Lima and leading to the organisation of the bourgeoisie in demand of economic
and political decentralisation of the acclaimed 'Independent Republic of Arequipa'
(Flores 1977).
The consolidation of Arequipa as the capital of the south, its domination of
commercial circuits in the nineteenth century and its industrialisation in this cen-
tury, have made it a pole of attraction for peoples migrating from the poorer and
less developed areas of the southern Andes (Martinez 1968, 1983, pp. 213-40).
However, the stagnation of industrial growth in Arequipa and widespread econ-
omic crisis in recent decades have rendered both the urban space and the labour
market insufficient to absorb the influx of Andean migrants and increased

Arequipan resentment towards the indigenous peoples.
In Arequipa, divisions are made between indio, mestizo and cholo, all of which
are used interchangeably to denote members of the migrant sector, and blanco or
criollo which are assumed by Arequipans.4 Identities are also constructed in relation
to place of birth or dwelling place, operating a coast/highland dichotomy. The
geographical location of Arequipa, poised between the coast and the western
foothills of the Andes, prompts Arequipans to exploit the ambiguity of their local
identity. At over 2,300m above sea level, the city of Arequipa qualifies as sierra
(highlands), but the Arequipans reserve the epithet serrano (highlander) for those
arriving from the higher altitudes of the surrounding provinces and prefer to think
of themselves as costefios (coastal people) or criollos (creoles), the descendents of the
Spanish conquistadors.5
The Arequipans pride themselves on their Spanish descent and boast the
'whiteness' of their city, manifest not only in the white volcanic rock (sillar) of the
colonial architecture which characterises Arequipa, but also in the predominance of
blancos, the white descendents of European settlers who form Arequipa's elite.
Alfonso, a young migrant from the department of Puno, now resident in Porvenir
comments: 'This city was white, it belonged to the whites, and because of the sillar
it was white too, but more because of the whites who were here'.
Concerned to preserve this whiteness, Arequipans fear that by interbreeding
with Andean migrants the Arequipan stock will be whittled away. There are
overtones of eugenics in their discourse and Cecilia, a middle-class Arequipan,
talks of the need to 'purify the race', believing 'Indian blood' to be degrading to the
'Peruvian race': 'As far as race is concerned, we're going backwards ... there's a
cataclysm in race as much as in economy at the moment. The indigenous peoples
used to be separate from the whites, now the Indians are overturning the city'.
The Arequipans not only fear the 'tainting of their blood' but also the dirtying
of their pristine streets. Flora, another member of the Arequipan middle class,
condemns the migrants for bringing the squalor of the shanty towns into the heart
of the white city, attributing the unsanitary conditions of poverty to a defect of the
'Indian race': 'The Indian is like the snail: they both leave a trail of dribble wherever
they go. They are the symbol of our backwardness and disgrace'. The opposition
between civilisation and bestiality is central to a moral stereotype in which the
Arequipan is depicted as fully human: civilised, intelligent, hard-working,
ambitious, progressive and sociable whilst the stereotype of the Indian is the
antithesis: savage, brutish, lazy, stubborn, backward and unsociable, and
moreover given to violence, drunkenness and delinquency.
Mixing with non-Arequipans is also seen to signal the corruption of
Arequipan culture. The 'true' Arequipans are distinguished by their cultural prac-
tice, especially the playing and singing of the yaravi, a traditional Arequipan love-
song (Carpio 1976). However, the influence of peoples from other regions of Peru
has relegated the yaravi to the rural outskirts of the city where 'legitimate'
Arequipans are still to be found. Dionisio, a resident of Rio Seco, formerly from
Arequipa's coast, observes: 'The true Arequipan people have disappeared, people
have married others from Puno, Cusco... the real, true Arequipans, well, in [the
villages] there they sing yaravis'. The yaravf functions in opposition to the wayno to
differentiate migrants from the 'authentic' Arequipan: 'They've got their own dif-
ferent customs, out there their folkloric dances, here the yaravis'.
236 Margaret Bullen
The Arequipans consider their culture to be superior and discredit the

language, customs and cultural expressions of the shanty town residents. They
expect Andean immigrants to emulate them, to conform to their standard and to
adapt to city ways (Cecilia proposed forcing new migrants to do a compulsory
period of domestic service in which to learn how to live 'properly'). Speakers of an
indigenous language are made to feel embarrassed of their mother tongue and
ashamed of their Andean heritage and may deny their origins, claim ignorance of
Quechua or Aymara and pretend dislike for Andean waynos. This opinion is voiced
by Cristobal, a radio presenter: 'It's an inferiority complex . .. the person to emu-
late is the city man, they try and imitate, they are being depersonalised, losing
themselves, it's alienation. They no longer want waynos, they want city music,
rock, salsa'.
In referring to an Andean migrant, moving between two worlds and not
fitting into either, the term cholo is sometimes used. In Arequipa, cholo is used
synonymously with serrano or indio, in opposition to criollo or costeho and generally
signifies inferiority.6 Mercedes, a migrant from a wealthy family of former land-
owners, speaks disparagingly of the identity loss of her neighbours: 'When they
come to Arequipa, those people think they're something else, [but] they're neither
Indians nor mestizos, they're nothing'.
The discourse of chicha echoes that of cholos in reference to rural migrants in
Arequipa. Chicha is seen to be a product of the rural in the urban context and a
reflection of the identity crisis Andean migrants are believed to undergo in the city:
Mauricio (Radio Surperuano) comments: 'In the city, the Andean people begin to
change their identity, they assume other models, they only listen to waynos inside
the house, at home they don't feel Andean, nor are they coastal people, that's how
chicha arises'.
The shanty town youth

This identity crisis is the inheritance of second and subsequent generations of
migrants who form the principal group of chicha followers. Ernesto, Arequipan-
born son of cusquefios, resident in Porvenir, comments: 'I think our generation has a
kind of divided heart, it still has some feeling for its roots, but it's submerged and
on top of that is a bit of feeling for the imposed culture which is stronger, which
alienates more'.
Brought to Arequipa when very young or born in the city, the shanty town
youth express the ambivalence of their position as children of Andean parents who
have grown up in the city and may never have visited their parents' place of origin,
have no knowledge of their parents' mother tongue (Quechua or Aymara) and do
not relate to the Andean way of life. However, their very status as the descendents
of migrants and inhabitants of the shanty towns, meets with prejudice from the
middle-class Arequipans of the town centre and residential areas, who refuse to
accept them as fellow Arequipans and block their integration into the urban
society.
In the face of racial discrimination, the shanty town youth play down their
Andean heritage and assert their Arequipan birth. Prestige is attached to being
born not only in Arequipa, but significantly in its hospital. In Rio Seco, Marcia, a
young migrant from Puno, tells how her sister-in-law boasts her Arequipan birth
status: '[She's] awful, she calls people Indian, she's Arequipan but her husband is
from Puno, it's just that those who have their birth certificate saying "born in the
General Hospital" think that they're better than the rest'.
Contrary to their parents, regional differences diminish in importance for the
children of migrants whose main reference of identity becomes their Arequipan
birth. I was surprised to find that young people I talked to in the shanty towns
were often unaware of their parents' exact place of origin, having a vague idea that
they came from some region of the Andes but unable, or unwilling, to specify the
locality. Some claimed origins to be irrelevant and seemed oblivious as to where
their family or their neighbours came from, as Susana and Anita, two young
women in Rio Seco commented: 'I don't know where [my parents] come from, or
where my neighbour comes from either ... everyone is equal, like brothers and
sisters, it's a matter of inconsequence if they've come from another place'.
This disregard for local identities indicates the construction of a new inclusive
level of identification amongst second and third generation migrants. They identify
themselves as Peruvians or Arequipans or as residents of a particular shanty town.
Luis, from Porvenir, testifies: 'I feel more Peruvian ... now people don't say I'm
from Puno or from another place, rather they say I'm from Porvenir'. Chicha
expresses this inclusive identity, addressing itself to a wider audience of Peruvian
youth. 'Los Shapis' introduce themselves as 'The Shapis of Peru' and dedicate their
songs 'with affection' to 'the people of Peru and America'. There is still a marked
Andean frame of reference but it acknowledges a general Andean background
rather than emphasising exact places of origin. As Turino (n.d., p. 8) demonstrates,
chicha has a pan-highland character and evokes regional neutrality and the unity of
all those of Andean heritage.
tie-?
Pat-
40V ::~
Figure 2. An extended Pueblo Joven family resting after a roofing party: the older generation from the
rural Andes enjoy huaynos and wititis, the younger generation and their children, born in Arequipa
enjoy chicha and rock.
238 Margaret Bullen
Nevertheless, although the children of migrants may reject traditional

Andean culture and assert the urban base of their identity, the Arequipans refuse
to accept them as fellow Arequipans. On account of their Andean surnames and
the origins of their parents, the young people still face discrimination as they look
for work or seek promotion. Elmer, the son of punefios, relates a bitter experience of
having secured a good post in an army office after completing his military service,
but because of his Andean parentage he was gradually downgraded until he was
forced to resign: 'They discriminate against you, because you're from the sierra,
because you come from there, so they say to you OK, first requirement, to be
Arequipan, you present yourself and you're Arequipan, but your parents are from
the interior, so there you've got a problem, you're at a disadvantage'.
Elmer believes many young people are discriminated against in this way:
however hard they try to dissociate themselves from the language and lifestyle of
their parents, they continue to be rejected by mainstream society on account of
their background. This creates bitterness and resentment in many young people,
thwarted in their attempt to secure a good job and improve themselves:
The situation of a young person in a shanty town is a bit more difficult, a bit tougher than
that of any other youth, because the fact of living on the outskirts of the city implies a lot of
things ... for example, there's no water, no electricity, none of these services people need to
meet their basic necessities, never mind develop themselves culturally, no libraries, no
cultural centres or clubs, nothing like that. (Elmer)
Cultural integration is impossible for the shanty town youth because even by
conforming to the norm of the dominant sector, that sector ostracises them on
other grounds. The hopelessness of their endeavour creates tension between their
'roots' and the urban way of life which simultaneously attracts and repels them.
Chicha responds to this conflictive situation: it is a response which combines tradi-
tions of the past with trends of the present, manipulating the ambiguities confront-
ing young people in the shanty towns of Arequipa.
Performance contexts and prejudice
Chicha dances
In Arequipa, chicha is played at a variety of social occasions in the shanty towns; in

Porvenir, for example, the shanty town's anniversary was celebrated with a whole
day of chicha music, bringing in a variety of local bands. However, the main venues
for live chicha performances are the public chicha dances where the music defines a
space exclusive to the shanty town youth. At the same time it serves as an outlet for
social frustration and consequently the dances are the subject of much controversy
both within the shanty towns and without.
The dances are held in the shanty towns at weekends and attended by young
residents. In the chichodromos a small stage is erected, cement floor laid and the PA
system set up so that the music blasts out into the open air and keeps the rest of the
shanty town awake until the early hours. Stalls sell beer and food and chicha dances
are notoriously accompanied by heavy drinking.
Chicha dances meet with disapproval both from the Arequipan middle classes
and the other shanty town residents and are frequently banned on account of the
noise, drunkenness and brawling which often attend the event. The proposal to
hold a chicha dance in the cloisters of the church of La Compafifa, in the city centre,
WIN
oi I SI/
01,
1:1w
Figure 3. Migrants from Puno dancing in an Arequipan shanty town.
caused a public outcry from the catholic Arequipans and an article in the local press
suggested that healthy pursuits such as team games or a mini-marathon would be
suitable alternatives to occupy a restless youth.7
In spite of such naivety, it is recognised by both migrants and some members
of the middle classes that wretched economic levels attract people towards a form
of music which expresses their frustration and their rejection of a system which
fails to cater for them. However, the middle classes also attribute this to the
'baseness' and lack of 'culture' and education of a 'social class of low, uncultured
people'. I often heard the comment that the poor should not be spending their
money on drink and enjoying themselves and this attitude is taken up with irony
by 'Los Shapis' in the spoken introduction to a chicha song:
Isn't it impudent, isn't it shameful

Drinking beer with so much poverty?
How come they say there's no money?
First generation migrants tend to class chicha along with rock and pop as
music of the youth, as Milagros in Porvenir remarks: 'I don't really like chichas,
they're for the children'. Some parents believe chicha encourages immorality and
are critical of the delinquency connected with chicha dances, but they tend to be
more sensitive to the social environment from which chicha arises. Domingo,
another migrant now resident in Porvenir, recognises it as a youth protest move-
ment in which drunkenness and violence are interpreted as expressions of the
youth's discontent: 'It's a way of feeling, of expressing oneself. Chicha manifests, in
almost all its content, rebellion, protest'.
That listening to chicha music or getting drunk at a chicha dance can be forms
240 Margaret Bullen
of rebelling against the system is also recognised by some middle-class Arequipans

like Cristobal: 'They want to throw off the system, flout the law, loose themselves'.
Max (Radio Landa) recognises the importance of a music which moulds itself to the
specific social situation of the shanty towns: The themes of misery, of the prob-
lems people have, yes, they're important ... it's a way these people have of
talking, of expressing themselves, it gives them their own way of living, it deals
with problems that arise'.
However, some older migrants like Cesar in Porvenir, also indicated that the
chicha movement is manipulated by forces beyond their control, not only by the
media but also by corrupt local authorities who accept bribes from the organisers of
chicha dances: 'It's a bit awful about the chicha dances, it seems we have no say in it,
no autonomy. For example, the present mayor, all he can say is "give them chicha,
give them chicha, give them chicha". But what happens? here in a dance there are
even shootings, stabbings, that can't be allowed'.
The manipulation of what seems to be the spontaneous expression of young
people in the shanty towns by commercial and political concerns has provoked a
rejection of chicha by some migrant associations who want to revive and restore
value to the indigenous pre-Hispanic culture of Peru and feel that chicha is politi-
cally counter-productive, detrimental to the advances made in promoting Andean
cultural forms in the city. They claim the wayno, dating back further and held to
represent the essence of ancient Peru, to be more threatening to the national order
than chicha, held to be 'conservative' because it is inserted in modern society and
manipulated by 'non-national interests' (CEPES 1986, p. 30).
However, in Porvenir, which has some of the strongest neighbourhood
organisations in Arequipa and runs the only popular communications centre in the
area, the people involved in these associations are of the opinion that chicha should
be given a place alongside waynos. At the same time as actively promoting their
Andean past.they recognise that Peruvian folklore is not a thing of the past but still
part of the life of 'the people' and is continually being recreated in the urban
context.
The exploitation of chicha for commercial purposes and the desire to control
the conditions of its performance, continue the conflict from which chicha orig-
inates. A reaction, in part, to socio-racial discrimination, chicha provokes a new
outcry from the Arequipan bourgeoisie and generates fresh criticism of the shanty
town residents, echoing the same stereotypical prejudices.
Chicha on the radio
Middle-class prejudices are further reflected in the attitudes of media people

towards chicha. I interviewed the owners, producers and presenters of Arequipan
radio stations about chicha.
Few radios will actually play chicha because of its negative associations with
the shanty towns and connotations of aggression. Of over twenty broadcasting
stations in Arequipa, at the time of my fieldwork only two had cashed in on the
success of chicha and targeted that corner of the market. One of these, Radio
Surperuano, devotes itself entirely to chicha, an enterprising step in Arequipa
where most radios tend to diversify their production and mix music styles. The
owners of Surperuano run another radio with a more varied programme and
decided to open up their second frequency for chicha given that the market was
virtually unexploited.
The other radio to play a significant amount of chicha is Radio Landa, interest-
ingly Arequipa's oldest radio. This status might lead one to suppose that it would
be more reactionary and less open to new music currents. However, it is the older
radios which have been accessible to the migrant population in Arequipa, includ-
ing programmes of waynos which the proliferation of new FM radios in the last few
years are reluctant to do, preferring rock, pop and salsa. Radio Landa, founded in
the 1940s, has been forced to change over the years because of increasing competi-
tion from other stations. The introduction of chicha, as Max, its director, confesses
is a purely commercial venture, at odds with his poor opinion of it: 'Radio as a
business has to be on the lookout and see what type of listeners there are, you have
to keep in step with these changes, modify your programming. Andean tropical
music is very profitable'.
Whilst recognising its profitability, Max excludes chicha from the category of
'culture' and defines it in purely negative terms: 'Chicha is not autochthonous
music, but rather a mix of folkloric and tropical music ... it's folkloric music with a
youthful rhythm, it's not culture, it doesn't represent the culture of Peru, it's a
mixture, an invention, it was only made up a little while ago'. This concept of
culture, common amongst the middle-class Arequipans with whom I spoke on this
subject, is based on the assumption that high culture is enduring and immutable,
whilst chicha is a recent invention and has not withstood the test of time, and
moreover a mixture of two supposedly pure, 'authentic' strains, degrading the
original stock and producing a 'mongrel' music.
The proximity of Andean migrants in the city means that the 'urban Indian' is
the main source of Arequipan unease and chicha has superceded Andean music as
the most despised form of popular culture. The wayno, although associated with
peasant and lower class life, acquires status as 'folkloric music', representative of
the folk tradition of Peru. The rural context is conceived to be the seat of folklore
and the essentially urban chicha, as well as commercialised folkloric music, are held
to be corruptions of a pure cultural tradition, however erroneous the belief in the
existence of a single unified and untainted cultural source. Rene of Radio Con-
tinental, a self-styled 'quality radio' and one of Arequipa's most powerful stations,
belonging to a nationwide radio and television chain, dismisses such commercial
production: '[Our] folklore is being vulgarised, degraded. Commercial folklore is a
distortion, with no depth of meaning; the authentic should transmit the culture of
our ancestors'. The notion of ancestry, problematic for the Arequipans who claim a
Hispanic rather than Peruvian heritage, is resolved by an appeal to their Inca, as
opposed to their 'Indian' past. Flora explains that the contemporary Indian is not
the same intelligent Indian of Inca times because the Spaniards bludgeoned their
brains and dulled their senses (literally 'turned them into brutes').
Many of the negative connotations of chicha derive from its association with
the lower classes of Arequipan society, the Andean immigrants, the shanty town
residents. Rene makes a direct link between 'low culture' and 'low people':
Chicha is being played for the very reason that there are a lot of low people, it's aimed at the
lower class, its public are mostly of low conditions, those who have migrated here, they like
that type of music. The Peruvian people of a low level don't respond much to cultural
things, they're more worried with finding a way to stay alive.
242 Margaret Bullen
This class-based evaluation of culture derives from the aristocratic concept of

'high culture', the prerogative of those with time and money for education and
artistic pursuits, whilst the impoverished way of life of the shanty towns, where
people remain at subsistence level, is considered incompatible with 'culture'. Rene
judges that those who are preoccupied with keeping body and soul together have
neither the time nor the inclination for the refinement of the spirit: 'they don't pay
attention', 'they think with their stomachs'.
The people of the shanty towns are held to be primitive, remaining at the
level of animals or savages whilst they remain uneducated. Education is held to be
fundamental to the process of refinement necessary for the appreciation of 'high
culture' and the 'low culture' of the shanty towns, deduced from the supposed
superficiality and accessibility of chicha, is attributed to low levels of education.
David of Radio Hispana, professing to promote Hispanic high culture says:
'They're uncultured people, they're not interested in culture, they prefer chicha,
cumbia' .
Whilst the failure of the education system is held responsible for people's
inability to appreciate 'culture', there is also implicit the idea that the Andean
people are innately ignorant, as Max comments: 'They're used to listening to things
purely for entertainment, you have to teach these people, they listen to things of
no educational value. . . there's no culture here, there's a lot of illiteracy, the
government have no coherent plan'.
Consequently, the broadcasters, like the middle-class public, feel the need to
educate, 'civilise' and control the migrant population. This is part of the 'popular
mission' which commercial radios conceive for themselves in Arequipa, adopting
the rhetoric of public service radio and defining themselves as a medium of infor-
mation, education and culture. Chicha presents a problem to those broadcasters
who assume the role of promoting culture amongst the uncultured; since, as far as
they are concerned, chicha is not culture, it must be dealt with either by repression
or by isolating it from its social context.
Juan, of Radio Cultura, based in a shanty town in the vicinity of Rio Seco,
favours the second option, believing that to outlaw chicha dances would only push
them underground and exacerbate the problem. He proposes that giving chicha a
higher profile on the radio would familiarise it, assuming that it is the music itself
that gives rise to violence rather than other social factors: 'You have to give it
another meaning, which won't lead them to knifing and fighting, there ought to be
more space for chicha on the radios ... with a person able to orientate them, to
explain that the point of it is to enjoy themselves, not to fight'.
However, most radios refuse to play chicha at all and believe that to take up
Juan's suggestion would be reneging on their mission to change habits and to
educate in order to preserve and protect the status quo to which popular culture
poses a threat.
Conclusions
The discourse of chicha involves a negotiation of power in the attempt by dominant

sectors of Arequipan society to categorise, relegate and exclude chicha and to
ascribe a negative identity and inferior status to its followers. This is countered by
the response of chicha itself which in both its style and its lyrics creates an alterna-
tive discourse which confronts the social situation of second and subsequent gener-
ation migrants and asserts a positive identity for the young people of the shanty
towns.
The racial and social prejudices towards Andean migrants and their children,
manifest in the discourse of Arequipans, derive from stereotypes which are trans-
ferred from the evaluation of people to the consideration of their cultural forms.
This correlation is evidenced in the analysis of the radio producers' and presenters'
comments about chicha. Just as the migrants are excluded from mainstream society,
so this particular cultural expression is excluded from the category of 'culture'.
Discursive dichotomies are manipulated by Arequipans in order to fit notions
of their historical identity. In opposition to chicha, the wayno is elevated in status as
the pure expression of the Incas, whilst chicha is devalued as the hybrid production
of contemporary 'brutish' Indians. Just as the Andean peoples are accused of
degrading the Arequipan race, so they are condemned for corrupting the authentic
music of their ancestors.
The Arequipans, on the other hand, believe themselves to be 'cultured' and
'civilised', contrary to the 'primitive' and 'savage' shanty town inhabitants, whose
lack of culture is exemplified for the Arequipans in the superficiality of chicha's
lyrics and simplicity of style, and in the violent behaviour and drunkenness of
chicha dances. The Arequipans consider themselves naturally intelligent and
refined by education whilst those of Andean origins are thought to be innately
ignorant and in need of educating.
The education of the 'uncultured' is an exercise in conformity to the dominant
norm and is assumed as the role of local radio in Arequipa. Like the Arequipan
middle classes, radio producers and presenters attempt to curtail the liberties of the
shanty town population through the minimal representation of new music forms
like chicha and the dismissal of their cultural expressions. However, whilst the
repression of chicha and chicha dances is attempted by certain sectors of society,
other cultural and political concerns exploit chicha for their own ends.
Control for whatever ends is the central issue in the discourse generated by
chicha in which a power struggle is waged through the attempts of dominant
sectors and institutions of Arequipan society to impose identities on the shanty
town population. To follow Foucault's concept of power, power always meets
with, and depends upon resistance. Rather than achieving the conformity of
migrants and their children to the dominant norm, the prejudice and discrimi-
nation of Arequipans prevents their integration and provokes resistance. The
attempts of the dominant to suppress cultural differences result in their prolifer-
ation and give rise to new forms of cultural expression like chicha which accentuate
difference and articulate new subjective identities.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to David Horn for inviting me to give an earlier version of this paper
in the Institute of Popular Music in Liverpool in May 1991 and for encouraging its
publication. I would also like to thank Penny Harvey, Barbara Bradby and Jan
Fairley for their comments and suggestions.
244 Margaret Bullen
Endnotes
1 Mauricio, owner-manager of Radio Surperu- 5 Criollo is now generally used to indicate the sup-
ano, Arequipa, actually refers to chicha as a mix posedly fair-skinned inhabitants of the coast as
of wayno and salsa, the latter often being con- opposed to the 'dark' highlanders, although
fused with cumbia in Peru.
this differentiation is a discursive category and
2 Montoya (1990) identifies eight regional does not refer to empirical groups. The
varieties of Andean music, but CEPES (1986) dichotomy is social rather than racial and
affirms that there are over thirty indigenous ignores the historically complex composition of
forms of music. the Peruvian coast which includes black,
3 My transcription and translation of song texts. Chinese and Japanese ethnic groups.
4 These racial divisions refer to social rather than 6 In the social science literature cholo has been
biological concepts. After centuries of inter- taken out of context and used to define a cate-
breeding in Peru, the vast majority of the gory of 'marginals', impossible to identify
population is mestizo ('of mixed blood') and an empirically (see Quijano 1965).
'Indian race' would be impossible to define. 7 El Correo, 22 November 1989.
References
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Centro Peruano de Estudios Sociales (CEPES). 1986. Huayno, Vals, Chicha, Rock (Lima)
Flores Galindo, A. 1977. Arequipa y el sur andino: siglos XVIII-XX (Lima)
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Discography
Los Shapis, Cinco Estrellas en Chicha (pirate cassette)
Mily, Heley, Keley, Pintura Roja (pirate cassette)

Bullen - 1993 - Chicha in The Shanty Towns of Arequipa, Peru

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Chicha in the Shanty Towns of Arequipa, Peru

Author(s): Margaret Bullen

Chicha in the shanty towns of

It is a point of debate whether chicha is a positive innovation, drawing on pre-

The evolution of chicha

undergone many changes since conquest and colonisation, first incorporating

My flag is of the colours and the stamp of the rainbow

Ay, ay, ay, ay, how sad it is to live,

Now and forever, the Shapis of Peru,

This little child is in the street,

If you see a little child,

Cultural identities in Arequipa

market insufficient to absorb the influx of Andean migrants and increased

The Arequipans consider their culture to be superior and discredit the

The shanty town youth

Nevertheless, although the children of migrants may reject traditional

Performance contexts and prejudice

In Arequipa, chicha is played at a variety of social occasions in the shanty towns; in

Figure 3. Migrants from Puno dancing in an Arequipan shanty town.

Isn't it impudent, isn't it shameful

of rebelling against the system is also recognised by some middle-class Arequipans

Chicha on the radio

Middle-class prejudices are further reflected in the attitudes of media people

This class-based evaluation of culture derives from the aristocratic concept of

The discourse of chicha involves a negotiation of power in the attempt by dominant

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