Mexican Waves: Radio Broadcasting Along Mexico’s Northern Border, 1930–1950 by Sonia Robles

Abstract

Reviewed by: Mexican Waves: Radio Broadcasting Along Mexico’s Northern Border, 1930–1950 by Sonia Robles Aaron W. Navarro Mexican Waves: Radio Broadcasting Along Mexico’s Northern Border, 1930–1950. By Sonia Robles. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2019. Pp. 232. Illustrations, notes, archives, bibliography, index.) The study of the radio industry in Mexico is only beginning to emerge, most notably with J. Justin Castro’s Radio in Revolution: Wireless Technology and State Power in Mexico, 1897–1938 (University of Nebraska Press, 2016). In her new book, Sonia Robles adds much to this nascent literature by analyzing “the history of radio stations along Mexico’s northern border to demonstrate that, historically and still today, cross-border ties between the two nations have been commercial and cultural, and, with the rise of commercial radio, facilitated by mass media” (12). Electromagnetic radiation is cosmopolitan: it inhabits the world without regard to boundaries conceived by modern states. For Robles, this physical reality is the predicate for the commercial strategy of Mexican-owned stations, strung along the frontera (Mexico’s northern border) from Tijuana to Naco to Reynosa, which attempted to reach Mexican migrant communities in the United States through a mix of local business advertisements, traditional music, and Spanish-language broadcasters. This “national and international project . . . had a direct role in shaping Mexican immigrant communities, their consumption practices, and the growth of their small businesses in the United States” (12). [End Page 489] Robles indicates that “[i]n 1930 over one hundred thousand receivers were in operation throughout the nation. Five years later, that figure reached six hundred thousand” (9). This innocuous fact is key to understanding the development of new forms of marketing and entertainment that stretched across the U.S.–Mexico border. Indeed, three of the five chapters of this study involve the cultural implications of radio as a medium, dealing with the marketing strategies of station owners, the musical performers who honed their craft on the air, and the importance of commercials in English and Spanish that created a community of consumers on both sides of the border. This cultural analysis fits alongside the better-known history of “border blasters” in the twentieth century that used high-power signals to saturate the United States with marginal styles, such as the early stirrings of country music. Importantly, “Mexico’s political leaders recognized that wireless broadcasting was a powerful tool that crossed borders freely and easily and that radio amateurs . . . had the capability to broadcast without government authorization” (5). This ability to evade centralized authority is examined in intriguing detail in chapter 3, in which Robles turns to the role of interventores (agents) appointed by the Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Obras Públicas (Secretariat of Communications and Public Works, or SCOP) whose job it was to oversee the enforcement of federal regulations. These interventores were a motley crew who “could easily keep their job at the telegraph office” while moonlighting for SCOP by monitoring several stations on the side (92). The “tenuous loyalties of interventores” created opportunities for graft and selective enforcement, which sometimes worked in the interest of station owners attempting to transgress rules emanating from Mexico City (87). An important achievement of this book is the use of SCOP records, an archive of documents more often mined for Obras Públicas (road and hydraulic projects) than for Comunicaciones (telephone, telegraph, radio). This strength is moderated slightly by the lack of detailed identifying information about the documents themselves, especially the group of decimal files that form the bulk of evidence for the study. This small complaint aside, Robles has done fine and determined work in an archive that is often overlooked and has given readers a good sense of its riches. Moreover, the way that Robles combines the technical aspects of radio production along the frontera with its binational cultural outcomes is an important extension of our knowledge in this field. [End Page 490] Aaron W. Navarro Texas Christian University Copyright © 2020 The Texas State Historical Association