Naturalized musicians support immigrants but keep a conciliatory tone

“It’s been a long time since Luis Hernández was an illegal immigrant. He and his brothers snuck over the Mexican border in the late 1960s, and since then they have come out of the shadows, taken an oath of allegiance and joined the rank-and-file of American citizenry.

But along the way, the Hernández brothers, who are better known as four-fifths of the band Los Tigres Del Norte, have never forgotten where they came from, or, rather, how they came. Immigration has been one of the hallmark themes of the band’s music ”” a playful Mexican mix of country-western and polka music called norteño ”” and its corridos, or storytelling ballads, have often been about the little people on society’s fringes. (Another hallmark Los Tigres themes as been drugs. The band has the dubious distinction of being credited with the invention of narcocorridos, or songs about drug trafficking.)”

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