Rockin Las Carnegiens Summary

Rockin’ Las Américans: The Global Politics of Rock in Latin America by Eric Zolov investigates the “systematic pattern of harassment and abuses” towards rock n’ roll in South America during 1960-70s. It questions how and why rock became so controversial, what was rock in Latin American contexts, depictions of race, class and gender in music, and what makes Latin American rock truly Latin American rock. Using first hand knowledge from “rockers” themselves as well as help from ethnomusicologists, and sociologists. It is a cultural type of history, and examines rock with different gender and age perspectives.
The author seems very adept to answer these questions as in the beginning of the texts, he cites that they were aware of the dilemmas in studying this topic and acknowledges them as pretty much unavoidable as some history simply is. Additionally, he explains the meaning of “American” very early on which sometimes creates a decent amount of confusion.
Citing reasons as to why it is frowned upon to be associated with rock n’ roll such as: it was a “distortion of local customs”, fear of subversion to the counterculture, and “rebellion without a cause”. The fear of subversion to the counterculture must be a constant fear of elites. It has been a theme in many texts I have read recently, elites do not want the youth to latch onto something they regard as bad or