Con toda palabra, Lhasa de Sela video [i]
To read Lhasa’s lyrics in some of her different “identities”, go to blog post: “Lyrics: “Con toda palabra””
If Mexican-American Montreal-based songstress Lhasa de Sela isn’t representing cultural diversity as a way of fostering creativity and dialogue among cultures [ii], then what is?
The girl who grew up in a school bus converted to home with her family between California and Mexico, is an interesting character to look at in light of this debate. In an interview with Montreal cultural newspaper The Mirror in 1997, Lhasa expressed similar feelings to the TCKs dilemnas:
“When I was groping for identity at certain times in my life,” she says, “I would fall into the self-pity of not fitting in anywhere: ‘I’m not one thing and I’m not the other. Oh, woe is me.’ But my family is so mixed up [ethnically] that if you’re going to be tormented about your cultural identity, there’s just too much material there. At a certain point I realized that it would be ridiculous for me to try to pin it down to one thing.”
It could be said that Lhasa has made good use of her diverse background to offer an interesting hybridization of her music. She sings in Spanish, French and English and doesn’t feel like any of the three represent her completely as this quote puts it:
“The album’s in Spanish,” says de Sela, “but that can be misleading to people because I don’t consider myself a Mexican. And I’m sure that any Mexican who meets me would spot me right away as an imposter.”
Hence, her music is powerful in that it is sung in an international language. She has prioritized the emotions humans feel over the allegiance they have to a place or identity definition:
“I’ve realized that the human capacity for suffering is so huge that if you can just scratch someone and an ocean of sadness will come out. You don’t have to be living all these dramatic conflicts to tap into intense emotions. They are there in the smallest thing that you do.” [iii]
[i] “YouTube – CON TODA PALABRA.” 26 Nov. 2007 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGNk_zHy4Mg>
[ii] Chan-Tibergien, J. (2006) “Cultural diversity as resistance to neo-liberal globalization: The emergence of a global movement and convention” in Review of Education, Vol. 52: 94.
[iii] “Lhasa de Sela.” 25 Nov. 2007 <http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/1997/073197/music2.html>
