Learn about the roots & influence of the predominantly Chicanx punk rock scene in El Paso since the late 1970s.

About the event

Join us for a virtual MACRI Talk about the history of punk rock in El Paso featuring Dr. Tara López. Learn about the roots and influence of the predominantly Chicanx punk rock scene in El Paso since the late 1970s.

Punk music is associated with rebellion, social unrest, and challenging power structures, while questioning conformity, inequality, and corruption, so of course, there are connections to Mexican American civil rights!

MACRI is excited to host Dr. Tara López, the 2025 Al Lowman Memorial Prize recipient for her recent book, Chuco Punk, to be our guide connecting El Paso’s punk scene to the city’s history as a borderland, a site of segregation, and a place with a long lineage of cultural and musical resistance. Covering the first roots of Chuco punk in the late 1970s through the early 2000s, we’ll learn about how Dr. López used more than seventy interviews with punks, as well as unarchived flyers, photos, and other punk memorabilia to uncover how El Paso’s punk scene influenced not only the contours of sound and El Paso, but the entire topography of punk rock.

🛜 This MACRI Talk will stream live on Thursday, October 2, 2025, at 6 PM Central on MACRI’s Facebook at https://bit.ly/FB-MACRI and YouTube at https://bit.ly/YT-MACRI.

About Our Guest
Tara López is an Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota. Her research interests include social and cultural movements, especially among working-class communities and communities of color. López is the author of The Winter of Discontent: Myth, Memory, and History (2014), “‘¡Vamonos pa’l Chuco!’: Punk Rock, Power, and Memory in El Paso, Texas” (2020) published in the Journal of Texas Music History, and Chuco Punk: Sonic Insurgency in El Paso (2024).

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MACRI’s programs are funded in part by the City of San Antonio Department of Arts & Culture, Bexar County, the Mellon Foundation, the John L. Santikos Charitable Foundation Fund of the San Antonio Area Foundation, Spurs Give, and individual donors like you! Gracias!

As always, views and ideas shared by presenters do not necessarily reflect those of the MACRI, its staff, board, or funders.