A musician, songwriter and community activist, Ramón "Chunky" Sánchez has been a cultural icon in the Raza community of San Diego, California for many decades.
Sanchez was born Oct. 30, 1951, in Blythe, California to farm laborer parents. He and his brother learned to sing and play traditional music from their mother, a talented singer, and their uncles.
Both of his parents were farm laborers, and he himself worked in the fields, so Chunky learned early on in life about the struggles in the farm labor movement. He soon began to compose his own music, often with sociopolitical messages. He was frequently asked by César Chávez, to play at rallies and marches for the United Farm Workers Union.
A multi-talented musician, Chunky not only composed, but sang and played ten different instruments. Recruited along with other young farm laborers in 1969 to attend San Diego State University, Sanchez began performing with La Rondalla Amerindia de Aztlán, a popular musical group comprising both students and professors.
He later became the lead vocalist for the Mexican-Chicano folklore group Los Alacranes Mojados (The Wetback Scorpions). Chunky remarked about using the term “mojado” in the band’s name, telling a reporter; “We used that negative term among our own people. We tried to give it a positive connotation through the music. After a while, we cut the name down because it was too long, and besides that, we kinda like to joke around. People ask us, well, how come you’re not the Mojados anymore? I’d say, ‘cause we got amnesty!’”
Co-founded along with his brother Ricardo, The Alacranes recorded their first album in 1977. Using it as a platform to further Chicano civil rights and campesino labor efforts, his music has helped to define an era. Chunky's first original Raza hit “Chicano Park Samba” was a musical tribute to the famous Logan Heights Community Park takeover on April 22, 1970 in San Diego, California. Which has since been designated a national landmark!
Years later, Chicano Park Samba and Corrido del Bracero, were featured in a collection of "Songs of the Chicano Movement," that are preserved among the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings of the Smithsonian Institution, the national museum of the United States.
Órale, the Alacranes have two songs sitting alongside American folk music legends como Woodie Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Lead Belly! Chunky was also a 2013 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts, National Heritage Fellowship, the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
Paul Espinosa, an award-winning Filmmaker and Producer, is the President/CEO of Espinosa Productions, a film and video company specializing in documentary and dramatic films focused on the U.S.-Mexico border region. He has been involved with producing films for over 35 years and is Professor Emeritus in the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University.
Professor Espinosa pieced together the story of Chunky's life, tracing how music carried him to the forefront of the Chicano civil rights movement. In an interview, Professor Espinosa said of Chunky, “He was somebody that I knew well.”
Espinosa decided in 2011 that the world should know Chunky too. “I just felt his story was worth telling a larger audience.” Sadly, Chunky was never part of that audience. He saw only saw small clips of the film in production before he died in 2016, at the age of 64.
The finished film, ‘Singing Our Way to Freedom’ debuted in 2016. “I really want people to see the power of music in the larger social justice work that I believe needs to be done today,” Espinosa said.
If Chunky was sitting here with us today - locked down in our little corners of the world called home - I can almost hear him say, "Andale, ese are we gonna talk PuroChisme o cantar rolas de Aztlan, pues?"
Here is our humble tribute to Chunky. Inspired by, and sung-to-the-tune of
“Tri-lingual Corrido” written by him and recorded by Los Alacranes Mojados in 1977. Our way, buey, to keep the musical voices of positive change alive among Raza!
Corrido de COVID-19
ESE HERMANO QUE NO ENTIENDES
Hey, my brother don’t you understand
NO IMPORTA DE DONDE VINO
Doesn’t matter where it came from
LET ME TELL YOU EN MI CANTO
Let me tell you in my song
LO QUE ES NUESTRO ENEMIGO
What is our enemy
MOVIENDO POR TODO EL MUNDO
Moving all around the world
TANTO MUERTO Y ENFERMADO
So many dead and sick
BUSCANDO LA SANACION
Looking for the cure
YA LLEGO LA REALIDAD
And now the reality is here
NO PODEMOS SALIR DE CASA
We can’t leave our homes
POR LECHUGA O CUALQUIER COSA
For lettuce or any one thing
YA NOS TIENEN ENCERRADOS
We are closed up inside
TAN PRONTO NOS CAMBIO LA VIDA
How suddenly our lives have changed
BUSCANDO-LECHE, PAN Y HUEVOS
Looking for milk, bread and eggs
Y LOS RICOS Y CABRONES
And the rich and selfish
ELLOS LLEVAN TODO PRIMERO
They take everything first
HASTA NO QUEDA NI, TOILET PAPER
To the point there’s not even, toilet paper
PRACTICANDO LA DISTANCIA
Practicing our distancing
MI AMOR DICE, NO TOUCHING PLZ
And my love says, “no touching plz”
PERO ME DIO UN CHORIZO SANDWICH
But she gave me a chorizo sandwich
QUEDAMOS, NETFLIX BINGE-WATCHING
And now we are “Netflix binge watching”
AL TRUMPADO NO DA IMPORTANCIA
This is not important to Trump
LE MOLESTA OIR LAS QUEJAS
It bothers him to hear the complaints
NO MAS QUIERE SER PODEROSO
He just wants to be the most powerful
SUS PALABRAS VALEN LA MIERDA
His words are worth shit
ENTENDEMOS QUE EN ESTE MUNDO
We understand that in this world
ESTA LLENO DE BUENA GENTE
There are many good people
LUCHANDO POR SEGUIR ADELANTE
Fighting to stay ahead
DEL PINCHE, CORONA VIRUS
Of this fucking corona virus
ESE HERMANO QUE NO ENTIENDES
Hey, my brother don't you understand?
COME AND SIT RIGHT HERE CONMIGO
Come and sit right here with me
LET ME TELL YOU EN MI CANTO
Let me tell you in my song
LO QUE ES NUESTRO ENEMIGO
What is our enemy
Stay tuned for the audio version of Corrrido de Covid-19 sung by Mensajes coming very soon...porque we have nothing else to do right now in el tiempo de social distancing!
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