Chulas Fronteras

Portrays the Rio Grande border area's Norteno, or Tejano, style of folk music by alternating between scenes of performance and lifestyle in order to place the music in its cultural and historical context. Profiles a number of individual performers--accordian players, bajo sexto players, and a female singer--and records several particular events such as a Christmas Eve preparation of hogs-head tamales, a 50th wedding anniversary celebration, and a cockfight. A film by Les Blank., A complex, insightful look at the Chicano experience as mirrored in the lives and music of the most acclaimed Norteño musicians of the Texas-Mexican border, including Los Alegres de Teran, Flaco Jimenez, and Lydia Mendoza. Chulas Fronteras was selected by The Library Of Congress to be added to the National Film Registry list, of the 400 motion pictures to be preserved in perpetuity.