The songs I’ve selected for this collective “Diaspora Jukebox” come from those parts of me that are activated by moments when I was moved, both literally and figuratively. This includes the many times I was moved from one place to another, which happened a lot with my musician parents—from the Philippines, to Hawai’i, back to the Philippines, and eventually to Southern California, which I’ve been lucky to call home since 1983—when I was 10 years old—with only a few excursions north and east.

These songs are also the irresistible hooks and beats that moved me: Songs that made me acutely aware of love, even if I wasn’t on the receiving end of it. Songs that made me anxious with lust, or that offered the first stirrings of queerness before I ever gave myself the permission to be who I was destined to become. This music forced me to overcome my butch awkwardness and lack of aptitude for choreography to get on the floor and move with the people who would eventually become my community, my world.

Love songs do a lot of work, but now, squarely in middle age, I recognize the cycles of longing that evolve inside and around us. When I was young, I’d hear these songs and say, “I hope to feel that way someday.” When I became a full-fledged adult, I said, “I know now what it means to feel that way.” As someone older, wiser, happily settled into who I am, where I am, and who I’m with, now I hear the life-and-death ardency in this music and say, “Oh, to have once felt that way.” While I’m grateful that my limbic system is no longer flooded with that level of anxious uncertainty, re-inhabiting these songs sends me through and across time and space, tumbling through that cycle of unknowing, knowing, and back again. I invite you to hear it too.

“Mr. DJ,” Sharon Cuneta (1978)

This voice belongs to one of the Philippines’ grande dames of cinematic love teams and saccharine song-stylings: Sharon Cuneta. “Mr. DJ” was her breakout hit back in 1978, the year my mom and I first left the Philippines to move to Hawai’i. I was 5, and Sharon was 12.

Sharon Cuneta was my first unrequited crush. Her crooning on “Mr. DJ” sounds mature for its age, yet it’s still a little coltish. She asks Mr. DJ (quite politely, peppering her refrain with lots of thank yous and apologies) to play her favorite love song, just in case her dear-heart will hear it and remember their time together. Sadly, her beloved is with someone else now, and the song itself has grown old.

“Mr. DJ” was the score for my many movements back and forth across the Pacific before I finally made it to the mainland in 1983. Even though it is in Tagalog, something about it always anticipated “America” for me. Maybe it’s the lilting, waltzing heartbreak that could very well be out of a Doris Day song. Cuneta’s scooping, mellifluous voice is on the verge of falling completely into rubato, like the old timey voices on the radio she sings about. That resemblance makes it a song accented by empire—by that ’50s All-American girl next door, as well as by her more wan, cinematic echo in 1978: Olivia Newton John as Sandy in Grease. But there’s also something undeniably and persistently Pinay about it. Maybe, the lilt is not simply a waltz, but the doubled upbeats of a folk dance from the Visayas.

“The Ghost in You,” Psychedelic Furs (1984)

When I was 11 years old, only a year into living in a tract home in Riverside, my parents saved up to buy me a banana yellow 10-speed from Sears with a brown pleather seat and handlebars. I deeply appreciated the fact that my dad insisted I get the boys’ version of the bike with the bar that ran straight across, instead of the girls’ with the scooped frame, which I always found weirdly patronizing—one’s femininity shouldn’t be threatened by throwing one’s leg over a bicycle bar. But then again, I was never the type to wear a dress or skirt while riding a bike.

Once—I don’t remember why—we were somewhere in the woods, and my parents let me ride freely across the flat trails with my Walkman on. I’d recorded this song off the radio and listened to it over and over and over again as I rode, flush with my first sense of freedom while simultaneously lulled into contentment by Richard Butler’s accented British voice telling me that “ayngels foll lyke rayn…”

“A Ray of Sunshine,” Wham! (1983)

I’ve never quite sorted out whether my love of Wham!, and of George Michael specifically, marked the dawn of my homosexuality or the peak of my heterosexuality. At the very least, my adolescent lust for George was an elaborate pantomime of what I thought straight behavior was: thirsting over a naturally hirsute man who was meticulously manscaped to show off his tanned, toned leg muscles.

A child of the ’80s, I didn’t know much about disco, and knew nothing at all of the leather gay aesthetic of Tom of Finland, so, I didn’t register that the “boys like you … so bad through and through,” white-rapping like they were Blondie on tracks like “Bad Boys,” were actually disco-dancing leather daddies in capri jeans who “woke up every morning with … a bass line, a ray of sunshine.”

Now, I joke that George Michael was my first gay love. This song taught me so much about myself and my desires, and it continues to do so.

“Lover to Fall,” Scritti Politti (1985)

Green Gartside’s voice—legibly post-pubescent, yet indeterminately gendered—became my proto-queer siren song in the mid-1980s, as I was transitioning out of my pubescent attachment to the tortured, whiny virility of New Ro’ tenors like Simon Le Bon and, of course, George Michael.

When music writers gush about Cupid & Psyche ‘85, the album “Lover to Fall” appeared on, it’s for its airtight samples and soulful-but-robotic pop sound that would become ubiquitous by 1988. But relatively little is said about the strange power of Green’s voice, an oddly thin and flaccid one for a white male singer to brandish in the pop landscape of the mid-1980s, which was ruled by the turgid Miller-Lite rockism of Huey Lewis and his Sports-bros.

Green gushes in “Lover to Fall” (which bears a spiritual resemblance to Madonna’s 1989 song “Cherish”): “I found a new hermeneutic; I found a new paradigm; I found a plan just to make you mine.” This song made seduction as a wordy enterprise part of my proto-queer toolkit, showing me how to transpose gender trouble into beautifully gnarled, stupefying phrases (like this one). It’s a tool I still use today as a queer scholar and writer.

“Good Beat,” Deee-Lite (1991)

I became a bona fide queer when Deee-Lite came into my life. Though “Groove is in the Heart” was the track that became an unofficial anthem for my 1991 high school graduating class—alongside Color Me Badd’s “I Wanna Sex You Up,” and C+C Music Factory’s “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now),” which was performed at my grad night at Disneyland—“Good Beat” wins a spot on this list because it created the occasion for my gayness to fully blossom.

My friend David Diaz introduced me to Deee-Lite. I’d known him for as long as I’d gone to school in SoCal. When we were in sixth grade together, people tried to pair us up, assuming that his effeminacy and my tomboyishness would make for an appealing and respectable straight couple. But neither of us would surrender to the social pressures of bearding. By the time we started community college together, and just before I transferred to UCLA, we were having house parties all night, transforming ’80s-era Spanish-style tract homes in the Inland Empire into mini rave dens, where we flaunted our thrift store finds and consumed Boone’s Farm by the gallon.

It was on one of those nights, riding the high of “Good Beat” in my sequined “wizard dress,” that I first kissed a girl and liked it very much.

“First of the Gang to Die,” Morrissey (2004)

No matter how you cut it, Morrissey was going to end up on this list. And if my California-inspired Anglophilia wasn’t problematic enough (read all about it in the Inland Empire chapter of my first book, Relocations), I’ve picked a song on the cusp of the “Bad Morrissey” era, when he began to speak all too freely about his disdain for immigrants and pop artists of color. Writers like Melissa Mora Hidalgo and others have gone deep into why his music and his popularity endure amongst the communities he insults most, so I needn’t go into that here.

Suffice it to say, this song made it to my playlist because it captures the moment I returned to Los Angeles after seven years of graduate school in the Bay Area, where I lost touch with the queer-of-color worlds that had nurtured me in my Southern California adolescence. Animated by new friendships, especially with writers and performers like Raquel Gutiérrez, Claudia Rodríguez, and Mari Garcia (who collaborated on a performance project called Butchlalis de Panochtitlan), I spent those first few years back in Los Angeles reveling with them in the lights that never went out, watching “the stars reflect in the reservoirs …”

“Maroon,” Taylor Swift (2022)

Like any basic butch, for the better part of the last 17 years I benignly appreciated Taylor and enjoyed most of her hit songs. But it wasn’t until March of 2023, when my sister-in-law invited me to my 5-year-old nephew’s first concert—the opening night of the Eras tour in Glendale, Arizona—that I fully blossomed into a “Swiftie at Fifty.” Not only was I properly stunned by the breadth and depth of Taylor’s oeuvre, I was impressed by her capacity to entertain us for over three hours, with a set of 44 songs that barely scratched the surface of her catalogue.

Shortly after that, I spent some time in Australia as a visiting scholar at the University of Sydney—including several nights out on the town during World Pride, dancing at the Stonewall Hotel to remixes of Taylor, Miley, and, of course, Kylie. Building on my transcendental experience at the Eras tour, these excursions morphed me into one of those most twisted and passionate over-readers of the Swiftian universe known as “Gaylors.” While it’s unlikely I—or anyone—will ever truly verify Taylor Swift’s “gayness,” the veracity of such claims is far from the point. Listening to Taylor Swift’s music feels gay to me because it keeps bringing me back to myself: to the longings, hopes, disappointments, and painful outcomes irrevocably bound up with some of our happiest moments.

In this sense, Taylor Swift is a consummate writer of torch songs. More than a century ago, Oscar Wilde committed many clever and intricate sentences to describing how romance and realism are interwoven. “Maroon” does this splendidly, elevating “your roommate’s cheap-ass screw-top rosé” into an accidental totem of intimacy that reaches its peak just before it spirals toward a shattering end. “That’s a real fucking legacy to leave.”

“Getting to Know You,” Julie Andrews (1992)

In her final hours, barely able to open her eyes, my grandmother Linda Katindig waved one of her hands in the air in time with the music on a playlist I had made of her favorite songs. A smile crept over her face as she gently slipped away into the embrace of a familiar melody. Or at least that’s what I told myself then, to soothe my unbearable grief.

Call me morbid, as Morrissey used to say (before we knew what he really thinks about to eschew the earworms he wrote), but I’ve been thinking a lot about what songs might welcome me when I am eventually “called home.” I don’t necessarily mean when I die, though I don’t NOT mean that either. I’m talking about the music lodged in our unconscious. The tunes that live “rent free in our heads,” as the youth (or at least people younger than me) like to say—in the inner landscapes of ourselves. These unconscious terrains of attachment, longing and love are also, at least for me, the pathways to material environs: the real places and hardscapes that shape our lifetimes.

The post Karen Tongson’s Diaspora Jukebox Playlist appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

When I sat down to write my memoir FIRST GEN, I was struck by the music that regularly played in my head as I sifted through decades worth of memories: ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, ’00s, ’10s.

The songs that came rushing back were specific, eclectic, and almost contradictory. In many ways, they mirrored the twisty, nonlinear journey of being a “First and Only,” the term I use in my book to describe those who are the first in their family to cross a societal threshold.

It’s why I wrote FIRST GEN in the first place—to challenge our inclination to smooth over the emotional cost of social mobility for those who are First and Onlys, as well as to normalize an experience that can feel deeply isolating, despite being widespread.

I eventually came to understand that these songs symbolized and encapsulated too much to serve only as inspiration. They were meant to be chapter titles, laying out the musical soundtrack of my book.

In honor of National First-Generation College week, I invite you to journey with me through these songs that, in many ways, are sense memories—evoking sights, smells, tastes, sounds, and feelings related to particular moments in time that I revisit in FIRST GEN.

“Fast Car” (Tracy Chapman)/Chapter 1

When I was a child, my grandmother Abi (short for abuelita) and I would sweep the leaves off of the sidewalk outside of our apartment building, as fast cars whizzed by on Lincoln Boulevard. I remember watching the cars and wondering about the people inside of them—who they were and where they were going. At the time, there were seven of us crammed into a three-bedroom, and financial insecurity engulfed our daily lives. While we swept, I’d imagine I was Cinderella—poor, yet only temporarily. Unknown, yet soon to be discovered. I was convinced that one day, I’d be a part of something that truly mattered in the world. It’s the same feeling of blind faith and hope amid struggle (and despite the odds) that is evoked when I hear the melancholy guitar and lyrics of “Fast Car”—“I had a feeling that I belonged. I had a feeling I could be someone.”

“Born on the Bayou” (Creedence Clearwater Revival)/Chapter 2

My mom loves telling stories about her time as a teenager in Tecate, Mexico. Back then, she would often ride her bike to the U.S.-Mexico border and raise her cheap transistor radio over her head in the air until it picked up the signal from American stations. The fact that she didn’t speak English at the time made no difference. She loved listening to Janis Joplin and the Beatles, and would sing along despite not understanding the words she was saying. One of her favorite songs was Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Born on the Bayou.” You can’t help but feel a sense of anticipation, defiance, and adventure when you hear the first few notes of the song. For those of us who are First and Onlys, ancestral inheritance—the place where we are born (and to whom)—can feel especially complex. “Born on the Bayou” captures the spirit and audacity of the women who came before me and the constellation of legacies—both difficult and inspiring—that were set into motion decades before I was born.

“Amor Eterno” (Juan Gabriel)/Chapter 2

It’s hard for me to hear this song and not tear up. Same goes for my mom. “Amor Eterno” and Juan Gabriel are so closely associated with our memories of my grandmother Abi. In my childhood apartment, we had a record player with a little stack of beloved and well-worn records. Al Green, Billie Holiday, and the most threadbare of them all: Juan Gabriel. Abi played this record when she cleaned, when she cooked, when she did pretty much anything. Often, we’d find her cleaning with tears in her eyes because the song “Amor Eterno,” in particular, brought back a tidal wave of memories of her mother. Little did she know that one day, my mom and I would play “Amor Eterno” and our eyes would swell remembering her.

“Keep Their Heads Ringin’” (Dr. Dre)/Chapter 4

I remember exactly where I was sitting the first time I heard this song. I was a sophomore at Saint Monica High School at the time and my boyfriend Spider and I were watching music videos on MTV in my living room. All of a sudden, “Keep Their Heads Ringin’” came on, with its unmistakable G-funk sound and bass line. As Spider and I sat on the couch bobbing our heads, he started throwing up gang signs to the beat. I thought he was the coolest guy I’d ever met. Falling for Spider is one of the central stories of my teenage years, a time when I struggled to balance bicultural identities that felt contradictory at times. G-funk remains on heavy rotation in my car and home to this day, yet few songs bring back memories as vivid “Keep Their Heads Ringin.’”

“Crash Into Me” (Dave Matthews Band)/Chapter 5

Several artists stand out from my undergrad years at USC—Jimmy Buffet, Sublime, AC/DC—but no one seemed more ubiquitous in those days than Dave Matthews Band. I had never heard of them before I set foot on campus in the fall of ’97, and it wasn’t the kind of music I normally listened to. Soon I had no choice. It echoed out of open fraternity house windows on sunny California days, set the mood late at night for many a hook-up, and would come on as the “last dance” song at themed house parties. I heard “Crash Into Me” a lot during those college years, so much so that its smooth guitar riffs instantly take me back to the precariousness of that time. It was a time when I crashed into a new social class and foreign environment on every level, including the music.

“On the Bound” (Fiona Apple)/Chapter 6

Fiona Apple put into words many of the twisty and confusing emotions that were coming up for me in my post-college years. I thought graduating from college meant I’d be set with a great job, financial security, and a sense of direction. Instead, I found myself taking a string of random jobs, sleeping on a futon in my friend’s living room, and waiting tables as I tried to figure out how to stay afloat. It was an approach that fell apart when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Imagining she’d die soon after her diagnosis (like Abi had) and leave me with an 11-year-old sister to raise as a single mother in my early twenties, I saw the time to pursue my dreams as having run out. I’d drive around L.A. in my Jeep Wrangler blasting Fiona Apple’s album When the Pawn..., and the song “On the Bound,” in particular, and feel a hybrid cocktail of demoralized, desperate, and disappointed in myself. The pounding drums and Fiona’s wailing cries gave voice to the pain I was swallowing. “Maybe some faith would do me good” she says at the end. And I had to agree.

“How to Save a Life” (The Fray)/Chapter 7

I associate “How to Save a Life” with going to the laundromat in the snow. It’s perhaps not the most romantic of scenes but to a born-and-bred Angeleno in awe of the changing seasons while attending graduate school at Harvard, I felt like I was living in the most beautiful of snow globes. When our hampers overflowed with sweaters and sweatshirts, my roommates and I would pile into a car and head to the laundromat, doing weeks’ worth of laundry at a time. I remember “How to Save a Life” playing while we drove home at night, as snow flurries floated in the air around us like magic. I had a feeling that everything was about the change yet again, but I wasn’t sure how yet. This was a time when I took number of calculated risks rooted in intuition—Harvard, the ’08 Obama campaign, dropping out of business school. It’s reflective of that ambiguous in-between time when First and Onlys often find ourselves in the magic dark.

“Everlong” (Foo Fighters)/Chapter 8

There were many pinch-me moments during my time in the Obama White House. Some were serious, like the night we toasted the passage of the Affordable Care Act on the Truman balcony. And some were just plain fun, like the night Foo Fighters played on the White House South Lawn for the Fourth of July. White House staff, various elected officials, and other guests were invited to celebrate the holiday, and I don’t know if I’ll ever have a more symbolic Fourth. As the unmistakable opening guitar riff of “Everlong” blasted out of speakers just feet from the White House, fireworks exploded across the sky over the Washington Monument and the First Family looked on from a balcony. “And I wonder … if anything could ever be this good again,” Dave Grohl cried out. All I could think of was “nope.”

“La Trenza” (Mon Laferte)/Chapter 9

My mom introduced me to this song. I was already a fan of Mon Laferte but I’d never heard “La Trenza” before. “You have to listen to it. It reminds me of us and always makes me cry,” she said. When I listened to it, I understood why. It’s about braiding a child’s hair and imagining that when she grows up, she will live a free and beautiful life; unlike the one of the braider, whose own options and dreams were clawed away by misguided love. Yet the song is also meaningful to me for a parallel reason: my journey has been intertwined, even integrated, into my mom and grandmother’s lives and lessons. Like the pigtail braids my mom weaved into my hair as a child. Inextricably linked and generationally experienced through time. A braid. La Trenza.

“It’s Only Love That Gets You Through” (Sade)/Author’s Note

In “It’s Only Love That Gets You Through,” Sade’s voice echoes softly over the sound of church-like organs. It’s a raw and unadorned song that feels powerfully intimate, as if she’s speaking directly to you. “Girl you are rich, even with nothing. You know tenderness comes from pain.” I first discovered this song during my years at the White House and it’s been a musical “hug” to the soul during difficult times ever since. Listening to this song soothes and centers me. I shared the fireplace Abi built me out of cardboard and foil when I was a child. It was significant in its symbolism at the time and it was also one of the ways Abi showed me what unconditional love truly felt like. She may not have realized it at the time, but she steadied the ground under my feet by demonstrating that this kind of love existed, and that I was worthy of it. It was one the many gifts she left me with.

The post Alejandra Campoverdi’s Diaspora Jukebox Playlist appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

In 1979, as Iran was in the throes of a violent revolution, my mom, my sister, and I came to the U.S. on a day’s notice. We went from couch-surfing with relatives in Tel Aviv to moving in with my grandmother in suburban Los Angeles, until my dad finally fled Iran to join us here. I’ve lived in Los Angeles all my life, and I’ve never returned to Iran. But as one of nearly 140,000 Iranian Americans—and 50,000 Iranian Jews—in Southern California, I have stayed tied to my homeland through food (I’m currently working on a cookbook of recipes by Iranian Jewish matriarchs), and music.

Life in Los Angeles can’t not be a mishmash: I have birria with my matzah (and dip it in consomé), and Taiwanese noodles are as much a taste of home to me as my mom’s gondi. Music is no different: Once I graduated from the alt-rock sounds of KROQ, I’d drive around listening to Superestrella, the local Spanish pop station, with a Spanish-English dictionary in the passenger seat so I could look up unfamiliar words at red lights. Persian music was my parents’ music, and I was a rebellious third-culture kid who favored Tori Amos over Mahasti. But you can bet that at every bat mitzvah, every wedding, as soon as certain songs started playing, my hands would shoot up, and I’d run to the dance floor.

Viguen—“Baba Karam”

In the early ’80s, as new immigrants finding our way, what grounded us the most were family gatherings. Whether it was Passover seders, our strange takes on Thanksgiving meals, or just a simple dinner with family, getting together with my aunts and cousins created that rare space where we could speak our native language and be fully understood.

Now, here’s the thing about Iranians, in my experience: It’s perfectly normal, at even a casual gathering, for everyone to get up and start dancing in the middle of the living room. Hear a certain beat and we all break into gher—that near-subconscious groove of the hips essential to Persian dance. At my Auntie Mohtaram’s house, this was also the moment when her husband, Nasser Khan as we called him, would pull out a tombak and join in with his own percussive drumming.

“Baba Karam” is a classic Persian song with a slow-like-molasses beat that has moved people to gher for decades. This version, by the beloved white-coiffed Armenian Iranian singer Viguen, is my favorite.

Bijan Mofid—“Avaz, Agha Moosheh” from Shahr-e Ghesse

We did a lot of road-tripping as a young family in a new country—up to Sacramento and Yosemite, or out to Las Vegas. And the soundtrack was always cassette recordings of musicals by the great Iranian playwright and theater director Bijan Mofid. His most famous, Shahr-e Ghesse (City of Stories), appears to be a children’s story populated by singing animals—but this avant-garde show was actually a dangerous act of resistance, exploring the clash of Iran’s traditional values with rapidly approaching modernity.

I didn’t understand all that as a child, but I definitely picked up on the sad, discomfiting undertones—including the heartbreak of the Mouse character on this song. I connected to it as a small child, and I still tear up listening to his squeaky, high-pitched voice.

Morteza—“Del Beh Tou Bastam”

My bat mitzvah was a great party. I recall a delicious spread of herbed rices and grilled meats, cocktails flowing freely, and a dance floor filled with family who’d come from Chicago, the East Coast, London, and Israel.

There is no line between pop stars and banquet singers in the Iranian community. My bat mitzvah singer was Morteza, one of the foremost Persian pop stars/wedding singers of the late 1980s. This song, with its gher-inducing tombak and violin intro, pulled the whole party—kids, grannies, and everyone in between—into a multi-generational dance party for the ages.

Alabina—“Alabina”

Los Angeles Iranian Jews’ musical tastes aren’t limited to Persian music, but there is a very specific mix of genres and nationalities that make up a typical Iranian Jewish party playlist. Obviously Persian dance songs reign supreme, but you’ll also find the Turkish singer Tarkan’s “Kiss Kiss,” Gipsy Kings’ “Bamboleo,” Omer Adam’s “Tel Aviv,” the Egyptian pop classic “Nour El Ein” by Amr Diab, any Ricky Martin banger, and of course, “Despacito.” Alabina brings this world of influences together in one band.

Led by an Israeli vocalist of Egyptian and Moroccan Jewish descent, and backed by a band of Spanish-speaking Gypsies from Montpellier, France, Alabina performs in Hebrew, Arabic, French, Spanish, and English, and the band’s live performances bring out the Los Angeles Middle Eastern constituency (Iranians included) in droves.

Omid Walizadeh—“Asemoon”

For years, I lived a double life. My friends from school would not have recognized the brainy, quiet girl they knew running to the dance floor in heels to get down with cousins, aunties, and even her own mother to unabashedly saccharine Persian pop songs.

So my first visit to Discostan blew my mind. At a dark, divey bar called Footsies, tucked away in Los Angeles’s Cypress Park neighborhood, DJs spun a mix of Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian songs. Blond hipsters sidled past the pool table to the tiny dance floor to groove to the very songs that played at our bat mitzvahs decades ago. The decidedly uncool soundtrack of my brown girl family life was suddenly hip!

Omid Walizadeh frequently spins at Discostan events, and I can’t get enough of his modern mixes of nostalgic sounds.

Galeet Dardashti—“My Flower (The Bride)”

A guiding principle of my work is to fight Ashkenormatism—the idea that Eastern European Jewish traditions are the only Jewish traditions. So many people know about the Yiddish language, but there are countless Judeo-Iranian dialects, including Kashi, the Judeo-Kashani language my grandparents spoke. During a series of virtual presentations from the Jewish Language Project, Galeet Dardashti performed this song in Judeo-Isfahani. It’s the wailing plea of a young bride to remain in her father’s home, and feels like an auditory time capsule from my grandmother’s generation.

Backed by an estimable Iranian Jewish musical heritage—her father is a cantor, her grandfather was a renowned singer of Persian classical music—and a PhD in anthropology, Dardashti brings traditional music to a new generation. Her latest album, Monajat, blends recordings of her grandfather singing traditional Yom Kippur prayers with her own vocals.

Adja Pekkan—“Viens Dans Ma Vie”

I was recently at a potluck dinner for “creative, artsy, blacksheepy Iranian babes,” and amid a playlist by one of our hosts, Rose Ghavami, aka DJ Rose Knows, was a French song with very eastern riffs and a definite ’70s sound. I couldn’t tell you a thing about this song, but I instantly recognized it from when I was a kid.

It turns out it’s a 1977 song by Turkish pop star Ajda Pekkan. Surely it was on one of the many bootleg cassettes my dad would ship to my mom in the U.S. while he was still in Iran. A core memory I didn’t know I even had—this French song from Turkey that was popular in Iran over 45 years ago—made its way back to me in a backyard in Lincoln Heights at a dinner for misfit Iranian women like myself.

Hooshmand Aghili—“Vatan”

As part of my culinary research, I attended a ladies’ lunch this spring in the West Los Angeles home of a Jewish woman from the Kurdish city of Sanandaj. All of the guests were in their 70s and up, and sported blown-out hair, manicures, and the chicest outfits. They chatted and gossiped in a mix of Persian and Judeo-Kurdish Aramaic as they took tea and Kurdish Passover sweets, then beer and cocktails, then a spring feast crowned with huge platters of fragrant herbed rice. After lunch, they gathered in the living room and to my delight, started singing.

One woman with a professional-level voice belted out a song I’d never heard, entitled “Vatan,” the Persian word for home. The lyrics loosely translate to, “This city is beautiful, I know. Its colors are bright and its waters clear, I know. It’s like a picture postcard, I know. But it’s not home, it’s not home, it’s not home.” Forced diasporic life in one verse.

Shervin Hajipour—“Baraye”

Last September, I sat, astonished, as images of Iran’s mass protests erupted all over my Instagram. For the past few years, social media has offered me a window into contemporary Iran—chic cafe culture, bustling Tehran city life, old men selling handicrafts in tiny shops. Now, it showed me courageous women fighting the same oppressive regime that forced my family out of the country so many decades ago. “Baraye,” young singer-songwriter Shervin Hajipour’s somber ballad of freedom, quickly became the anthem of the movement, and captured hearts all around the world. I cried the first dozen or so times I heard “Baraye,” and over a year later, it still makes me emotional.

Chloe Pourmorady Ensemble—“Elohai Neshama”

On October 8, 2023, I hosted an intimate event in my living room spotlighting Iranian Jewish culture. This was supposed to be a night of joyful cultural exchange, with delicious home-cooked food and a performance by L.A.-based vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Chloe Pourmorady. But after the brutal attacks on Israel the night before, everyone felt shaken and frightened for what might come next. For a moment we considered canceling. Then Chloe—whose work blends her Iranian Jewish roots with a diverse set of global influences—said, “We will hold each other up and hold space for healing.” Her music did just that.

“Elohai Neshama” is a daily prayer of gratitude for the purity of our individual souls. That night, while it couldn’t fix anything, Chloe’s ethereal rendition was a timely reminder of our shared humanity and a needed moment of unity.

The post Tannaz Sassooni’s Diaspora Jukebox Playlist appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

The only music I remember listening to (not counting church songs, oh god) before my family arrived in Los Angeles when I was 10, was Julio Iglesias, ABBA, and the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. This was all from my time in Paraguay. Don’t ask me about music from Korea. I have zero recollection of my life in my hometown of Seoul. I was 5 when we left.

When my family came to L.A. in 1980, our first home was in Koreatown, a six-unit apartment just off Olympic and Wilton Place. Our next-door neighbor had a daughter my age whom I was madly in love with from fifth grade all through junior high. But that’s a whole different story I would like to not get into right now, OK? Anyway … her big brother had an AC/DC record, Highway to Hell, that blew my mind. (The only reason AC/DC is not on this playlist is because I rarely think of a single track, just memories of sitting at Margaret’s place listening to Highway to Hell and then Back in Black.) Soon after, I was exposed to R&B and hip-hop through the Black kids who were the first (and only, for a while) people to accept me.

When I sat down to make this playlist, memories like these came to me surprisingly fast. And soon after, the feelings. Ohhhh, the feelings.

It makes sense once you think of it, but it’s so easy to forget that there is a soundtrack to your life. Just like in the movies, specific songs are played in varying volumes to accompany the moments you’re living through, to accent them.

I just didn’t know until I wrote this that the audience was me.

“Doo Wa Ditty” by ZAPP

No matter where I am or what I’m doing, no song instantly takes me back to Los Angeles better than this song by ZAPP. It might be the first song I fell in love with, but I’m not sure. Because 1982, two years after my family arrived in L.A., had some songs for me. It is the first time a song made me want to dance.

“You Dropped a Bomb on Me” by the GAP Band

Another ’82 classic. This song always makes me think of my older brother because it might be the last pop song that he and I ever bonded over. He loved this song, which looking back now, seems almost like fiction (he’s a classical music aficionado). I miss this time when he and I would sit in front of the stereo in our apartment on Gramercy Drive in Koreatown, our minds blowing each and every time the song came on.

“Nasty Girl” by Vanity 6

Um … sex. Pure sex. To me at this time (1982 is like “Another one!”), it was a wake-up song, except for parts of me that I didn’t even know existed. Vanity’s voice, way beyond even her physical beauty, made me feel like I was entering a different world, one that I’d never experienced before. You could call it the American Dream, the U.S., life in the West, the Global North, Hollywood, puberty, sexual awakening, possibility … Yes, I think possibility.

“Bizarre Love Triangle” by New Order

High school. ’80s. Parties. Drogas. This is a song that is the center of my playlist called “80s 5AM COKE MUSIC” because in the soundtrack of you walking out of a West L.A. apartment at 5 a.m., those Pyrus calleryana spewing jizz into the atmosphere, your body about to murder you for all the Bartles & Jaymes you used to wash down the drugs, your heart broken by, well, you don’t even remember exactly what or who did that to you.

“Feel Good Hit of the Summer” by Queens of the Stone Age

Driving around with my childhood friend George in his black IROC convertible until we hit Torrance for no reason. We weren’t even talking. But we understood our lives were about to take drastic turns and we wouldn’t see each other much anymore—a friendship that began with a fight by the handball courts at Wilton Place Elementary in Koreatown, continued through his crack years, his shooting incident, his Boston exile and subsequent Boston prison term, his return to L.A. and his opening of a successful sushi restaurant in Palmdale.

“Walking Away” by Craig David

I couldn’t stop singing this song in the summer of 2001, and it continued into summer of 2002 as I was getting ready to leave L.A. for N.Y. It was for grad school but I didn’t think I was coming back. There was, as Mr. David says, too much trouble in my life in L.A. and all I wanted to do was run away and disappear. The canceled engagement. The post-canceled-engagement-self-destructive Eurotrash Era. The Why I Wouldn’t Date You List that I was given over dinner at Nobu when I asked a woman I was in love with why she wouldn’t date me. But …

“Ship Song” by Nick Cave

… I came back to L.A. in 2004, with Judeth, who I met at NYU. And we got married in DTLA, on the rooftop of the Oviatt Building on Olive Street. It was a Sunday night because it was cheaper to rent on Sundays. And street parking was free. This song was our first dance. Therefore, this song is ours. Nobody else can have it.

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Los Angeles, often dubbed the “melting pot” of cultures, is a city brimming with stories, each one as unique as the chords and beats that flow through its streets.

As a Panamanian American living in South L.A., this varied tapestry makes my personal playlist eclectic and dynamic. Growing up, my home was filled with the vibrant sounds of Spanish music, as my parents exclusively conversed in Spanish and were engrossed in Latin media. Yet, outside our doorstep, the urban heartbeat of L.A. pulsed with hip-hop.

Amid this diversity, I grappled with my identity. My parents, with their deep skin tones, predominantly spoke Spanish, but when they did converse in English, it was infused with Patois. My father would sometimes interject with phrases in French, and photographs of my great- grandmother, adorned with a striking red bindi on her forehead, hinted at even more cultural intricacies. The swirl of potential identities—Spanish, Jamaican, Indian, Black—left me confused and at a time when cultural identifications felt more rigid, usually limited to Black, white, or Hispanic.

Yet for all the moments of alienation I experienced, this very duality of my heritage also became my strength. It allowed me to traverse all kinds of spaces with ease from Leimert Park—a neighborhood pulsating with the rich African American heritage and resonating with elements reminiscent of my Panamanian roots—to the iconic lights of Hollywood—a melting pot of cultures, reflected in its food joints to avant-garde art galleries—to the bustling streets of DTLA, where contemporary influences blended with historic undertones.

Over time, I’ve come to understand that identity isn’t confined to rigid boundaries. Instead, like the music on my playlist, it’s a fluid dance of acceptance, understanding, and evolution.

 “Rica y Apretadita (feat. Anayka)” by El General

El General left an indelible mark on the musical landscape of Latin America. In the 1990s and early 2000s, it was almost a given that the rhythms of El General would reverberate through homes, adding a sense of joy to mundane life (or Saturday chores). For me, his song “Rica y Apretadita” is especially iconic. Whether it was attending a festive quinceañera, a lively neighborhood party, or a casual gathering, this song was the go-to anthem, binding generations with its universal appeal. Today, El General’s music remains a unifying force within the Panamanian community and beyond, creating shared memories and experiences that are fondly reminisced upon today.

“Dedication” by Nipsey Hussle feat. Kendrick Lamar

Especially for those of us who grew up within the Crenshaw district, “Dedication” is more than just a song; it’s an anthem of motivation and an ode to authentic hustle. The late Nipsey’s legacy is celebrated not just for his music but also for the significant impact he had on his community. He is the epitome of rising from humble beginnings and making it big. With this track, he brought forth a message that went beyond the typical narrative of street life. He championed the idea that it’s not just about making it out, but also about uplifting where you came from. “Dedication” is about entrepreneurship, supporting family, and reinvesting in the community. It captures the essence of the commitment and drive needed to transform one’s circumstances while staying true to one’s roots.

“Cha Cha Slide” by DJ Casper

“Cha Cha Slide” is not just a catchy tune; it’s a cultural phenomenon that bridges generations and backgrounds. As a journalist who’s covered countless community events, I’ve witnessed firsthand the transformative power of this track. Its instructive lyrics and invigorating beat not only compel any gathering into a synchronized dance fest, but also pull people from all walks of life to the dance floor. No matter the culture, background, or age, when this anthem plays, there’s an undeniable sense of unity. It’s the kind of feel-good music that reminds me of the power of song to connect and uplift communities.  Many songs in hip-hop and beyond have incorporated call-and-response elements, but few have done it as effectively as the “Cha Cha Slide.” It actively engages listeners, turning passive audience members into active participants.

“Suavemente” by Elvis Crespo

“Suavemente” deeply resonates with my experience as a dark-skinned individual with a Spanish-speaking family. It stands out as a unifying anthem, especially since it’s one of the few Spanish tracks universally recognized and beloved by the Black community. As a part-time bartender (and someone who frequents various L.A. bars), I’ve observed firsthand the song’s power in cutting across genres. Amid DJ sets dominated by rap, hip-hop, or Afrobeats, “Suavemente” invariably finds its way into the mix. And every time, without fail, I watch Black individuals in the venue not only recognize the tune but sing along passionately, celebrating its infectious rhythm.

“Top Shotter” by DMX feat. Sean Paul and Mr. Vegas

Growing up, my parents’ unique blend of Spanish and Patois often made me feel self-conscious amid the dominant American English around us. However, the release of Belly in 1998 changed that for me. The movie, written and directed by Hype Williams, wasn’t just popular because of its star-studded cast featuring DMX, Nas, and T-Boz, but also because it introduced and celebrated dancehall music to a wider audience, like with “Top Shotter,” a powerful fusion of American hip-hop and dancehall culture off the soundtrack. The film’s widespread acclaim made me feel more comfortable embracing my Caribbean side. For the first time, I could proudly sing along to dancehall tracks in public, relishing the fact that the genre was gaining the recognition and appreciation it deserved.

“Essence” by Wizkid

I see “Essence” as a bridge, introducing the Afrobeats genre to L.A.’s music scene. Afrobeats, echoing dancehall and reggae yet carrying a distinct melody and more tempered lyrics, had been around for some time when “Essence” began to circulate widely in 2021. But this track felt like something new and fresh, and with its Sunday brunch vibes, it’s become synonymous with relaxation and good times.

“You” by Lucy Pearl

As the sun sets over the L.A. skyline and the palm trees sway, there’s a certain rhythm and flow that “You” taps directly into, echoing the heartbeat of the city. I feel like this song brings back memories of backyard parties and house parties in the hills—Windsor Hills—when my parents finally allowed me to go be outside with my friends. It also reminds me of going skating because the song always played at the now-shuttered World on Wheels. Whenever this song comes on, it effortlessly connects Angelenos of all ages—old heads, millennials, Gen Z-ers—together, reminding us of sun-kissed days, warm nights, and the shared experiences that bind us to our city.

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To be a zacatecano in Southern California—someone with roots in the central Mexico state of Zacatecas—is to belong to one of the oldest, largest, and yet most unassuming diasporas in the region.

We’ve been going back and forth between here and our motherland for over a century now to the point that there’s at least half a million of us in the Southland alone. We’re all across SoCal’s landscape: Hollywood (Jessica Alba, my third cousin once removed), literature (Helena Maria Viramontes), media (Pulitzer Prize-nominated cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz, L.A. Taco editor Javier Cabral), and political scandal (disgraced ex-L.A. councilmember Jose Huizar, who was born in the rancho—village—in between those of my mom and dad).

Our culture, however, remains largely a mystery to outsiders, barely filtering into Southern California’s conception of what a “Mexican” is. Our songs don’t make it onto movie soundtracks, like son jarocho does from Veracruz. Non-Mexicans flock to Oaxacan restaurants, are increasingly sipping on sotol from Chihuahua, or gorge on Michoacán-style carnitas and Sonoran flour tortillas — but rarely to our food.

As my dad once put it, we’re never the charros; we’re always the chalanes—the help.

I’ll take it!

Among Southern California’s Mexican diaspora, we’re known for our work ethic, our unapologetic bootstrap mentality, our love of the sharp, stinky orange-tinted cheese lovingly nicknamed queso de pata (foot cheese), and our fondness for partying. My childhood was a moveable feast of weddings, quinceañeras, baptisms, birthdays, and funerals spread across the diaspora’s main SoCal hubs: Anaheim, Montebello, and the San Fernando Valley. College graduations and baby showers were added to that mix once I became an adult. Nowadays, we’re also celebrating landmark anniversaries for our elders, like the 80th and 79th birthdays my dad’s side of the family held for my Tio Gabriel and Tio Jesus, respectively, and the 100th birthday of my grandma Angelita, who we said goodbye to this summer, last year in Uptown Whittier.

I barely go to any of those parties anymore—though by “barely,” I mean I go to one or two a month. When I do, the soundtrack to those Saturday afternoons and evenings is like a time machine whirlpool, taking my pedacito de patria (little piece of the motherland) to my childhood and back and ready for the future.

“Marcha de Zacatecas”

Sometimes called Mexico’s second national anthem, this bombastic instrumental is the traditional song of entry for VIPs—visiting dignitaries about to be acknowledged at one of our hometown benefit association banquets, or newlyweds about to make their grand entrance, the way my wife and I did for our big day in 2014. It’s such a standard that I’ve heard high school marching bands perform it at halftime shows, which always draws a roar from the zacatecanos in the crowd, applause from the other Mexicans, and a look of déjà vu from everyone else because they have heard the melody in their Southern California life but just can’t place when and where. Great performed by a mariachi, but sounds even better with the might of a banda sinaloense.

“Un Puño de Tierra”

For nearly 60 years, the Aguilar clan has delighted audiences across Southern California with a traveling road show featuring family members singing, horse tricks, PG-rated jokes, and more. Ranchera legend Antonio Aguilar and his wife, Flor Silvestre, started the tradition at the Million Dollar Theater in downtown L.A. in the 1960s, where both of my parents saw them when Mami and Papi were in their 20s. Aguilar and Silvestre graduated to bigger venues—the Anaheim Convention Center, the Pico Rivera Sports Arena—as the Zacatecan diaspora grew, incorporating their sons, Antonio Jr. and Pepe, almost as soon as they could walk. My parents saw Pepe grow from a toddler to a teen to a ranchera icon in his own right to the man who took over his family’s cavalcade and transformed it into Jaripeo Sin Fronteras, which now includes bull riding competitions and features his kids, Leonardo and Angelica.

The song that unites the three generations of Aguilars is “Un Puño de Tierra,” a rancho libertarian call to live life while it lasts. While Antonio made it famous, and Pepe sings it with his children as the finale to their shows, the best version remains when Pepe performed it at a USC Latino Alumni Association event in 2014 backed by members of the Spirit of Troy marching band. Zacatecas and the Trojans—can’t get more SoCal than that!

Spanish-language AM radio station

Since zacatecanos have come and gone from L.A. for over 100 years, that means our elders have been listening to rancheras and corridos on AM radio for almost as long—in the car, but especially at home. Our great-grandparents would’ve listened to Pedro J. Gonzalez and Los Madrugadores on KMPC, our grandparents, Pedro Infante and Javier Solis on Radio KALI. My earliest memories of listening to the radio are of my dad blasting Aguilar and Ramón Ayala on KWKW La Mexicana in his big rig; today, I’m the old man, and my station is KFWB 980 La Mera Mera, which I have on my car or immediately switch on when I stop by my parents’ house for a quick lunch even when no one else is there. The warmth of the crackle of the AM signal puts me in communion with my grandparents and especially my mami, who passed away from ovarian cancer in 2019 and whose transistor radio we still have.

“Arroyo Seco”

A jaunty standard of tamborazo, a type of banda music that features a trumpeter, a trombonist, a saxophone, and unrelenting snare and bass drums. This genre is almost always just instrumentals, the better to have it as background music at a family gathering or at the baseball games people from Zacatecas have held at Excelsior Park in Norwalk for nearly 50 years. The title is also a subtle nod to the poverty that drove away so many of us from Zacatecas in the first place.

“Lino Rodarte”

A swaying, if minor, corrido covered by notable acts like Los Caminantes, Las Voces del Rancho, and La Auténtica de Jerez. But it gets jerezano buzzing because, besides “Marcha de Zacatecas,” it’s one of the few Zacatecas-specific songs to have gone somewhat mainstream. It deals with the life of a man accused of stealing a horse and summarily executed by the federal government. “Lino Rodarte” shouts out my mother’s rancho of El Cargadero, and family lore always maintained that my great-great-grandfather Sabás Fernandez wrote it. I’ve got the thrice-photocopied lyrics to prove it, folks.

“Santeria,” Sublime

Trying to focus on English-language songs that represent SoCal zacatecano life is difficult, because what we listen to depends on where we live. Growing up, my cousins in East L.A. preferred New Wave, hip-hop, and oldies but goodies; my O.C. cousins were all about the Red Hot Chili Peppers and grunge and hometown heroes No Doubt and Rage Against the Machine. None of those genres really stuck with their children, but one song somehow connects us all: “Santería,” the swan song of the late Bradley Nowell. That damn song hits you like a bolero! The unrequited love. Nowell’s soulful wails. The use of Chicano Spanish like heina (chick) and sancho (cheating man). It’s an LBC jam that’s nearly 25 years old at this point, but sounds simultaneously new and timeless, the way any great ranchera should.

“I’ve Just Seen a Face,” the Beatles

The Beatles is my favorite group of all time—“Twist and Shout” is one of the earliest English-language songs I remember, and I’ve been listening to “Breakfast with the Beatles” since the days of the late Deirdre O’Donoghue. My nephew is now a Beatles fan, but the appreciation for the Beatles never trickled up to the older generations save for one person: My dad. And really, one song: For years, he would tell me that when he snuck into the United States in the trunk of a Chevy that went from Tijuana to Hollywood in the late 1960s, the hippie girl that drove the car was blasting a Fab Four song whose lyrics stated, “Tony/En San Antonio.”

Paul did sing once about a Jojo in Tucson, but that’s about all the Southwest representation the Beatles got (although George did marry a Chicana!). Then one time, my dad and I were driving somewhere, and “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” the breathless acoustic track by Paul from the “Help” album, played from my iPod.

“¡Esa es la canción!” my dad exclaimed, when we got to the chorus “Falling/Yes I am falling.” That’s the song! And he began to sing “Tony/En San Antonio.”

From Liverpool to Mexico to Anaheim, the zacatecano dream in SoCal remains.

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