Conjunto Sounds in a Company Town: Decolonizing Movidas, San Antonio’s Quarrytown, and “La Piedrera” Polka

Abstract

Through an analysis of conjunto dance, music, and performance venues, I address Xicanx identity, cultural memory, and decolonial movidas, or struggles, across time and space. That is, who are we as a people? How are we shaped and how do we shape our histories? And how do we restore and reclaim our humanity through five centuries of colonialization, as guests as well as upon our Native lands? As Karleen Pendelton Jiménez reminded us during the 2021 NACCS opening plenary, we are still in colonial times, and as such we must wrestle with the question of decolonization of land, of space, of knowledge.