Alejandro L. Madrid is a musicologist and cultural theorist whose research focuses on the intersection of modernity, tradition and globalization in music and expressive culture from Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2005 Alejandro received the prestigious Casa de las Américas Musicology Prize. He is Assistant Professor of Latin American and Latino studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
<br> In this brilliant study of a local culture's transnational dynamics and dimensions, Alejandro Madrid reveals how radical changes in contemporary commerce and culture are imbuing old identities, borders, and boundaries with new meanings. --George Lipsitz, author of Footsteps in the Dark<br> The Nortec Collective stands astride the US/Mexico border creating an art of hope and adaptation. This music represents all that is possible along the new frontier, and it has fomented a movement of art and film and literature that is unique in the world. Alejandro Madrid's masterful study of this brilliant hybrid stands as one of the important texts in the history of the new, shining, borderlands. Nortec sings, 'Tijuana makes me happy.' This work makes us happy to be alive. --Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Devil's Highway and The Hummingbird's Daughter<br> Alejandro Madrid is an amazing thinker. His fresh theoretical insights are synthesized from a broad base of knowledge and disciplines. Th