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Sometimes people in Texas marvel at how few others have heard the Tejano Conjunto music that they are so passionate about.

Well, I think Conjunto is an extraordinary music.

It's an exciting music. It's part of our American culture because it is an American music, born here in the United States. But a lot of people don't know that.

And so I'm hoping that through this documentary, people will learn and embrace the music as much as we have here in Texas.

Conjunto or Tejano music, for a long time was kind of seen by younger generations as like old folky music, you know, the stuff that your papas would listen to, but not necessarily something that you as a teenager would listen to.

That's right. It was pretty amazing. So what happened that there's suddenly been this refound or this renewed love for this music among younger Latinos?

Well, I think basically the history of Conjunto music is, especially here in Texas, sort of reflects the history of America.

You know, there was a time when Tejanos, Mexicanos were segregated, you know, in the state.

And for a lot of generations, say in the 40s and 50s and 60s, that music became something associated with something that you were running away from, meaning accordion-based Conjunto music.

For a lot of people who were assimilating into the United States, it represented something that they wanted to get away from.

I think now that we're in, you know, the 2000s, the young people are rediscovering, the music has always been there. It has never died. For a while, people thought it was going to be forgotten. Unfortunately, it has died in some other communities where accordion was real strong.

But it's these young people, the Tejanos, that have re-embraced this sort of as a cultural symbol of music, of an original music. It's sort of an identity that they're re-embracing. And now they're taking it to different limits and they're keeping it and maintaining it.

And it's interesting because they'll listen to accordion music, but then they'll also listen to, you know, American pop or rap and sometimes incorporate it into the accordion music.

Now, when I interviewed Valerio Longoria in your film, Accordion Dreams, you call him the great innovator of Conjunto music. What struck me, and this was in 1985, but what struck me about him was that he was so humble.

And the notion of Conjunto music really being a roots music, a working class music, a real pueblo music.

And I'm wondering, is there a concern as Conjunto music becomes more popular and more commercialized that somehow it might become diluted and lose those roots?

Well, that's always the big question because I think since it is Spanish language-based music, people a lot of times say, well, is it ever going to go mainstream? And I think that's one of the key questions that people had with Tejano music when it was exploding, say in '95, 96, '97.

My feeling is that if it does go mainstream, then of course it loses its uniqueness and its beauty. Fortunately, I was able to meet some of these young people in Accordion Dreams.

It's young people like those are maintaining the traditions of Valerio Longoria started. Some of the pioneers that created new forms of playing the accordion are innovators like Paulino Bernal and some of these great accordion players. They are maintaining those traditions.

Now, yes, they do experiment and dabble in different areas, but that key music is still there. And that's what gives me hope that it will stay and it will be what it is.

So I had to begin to write to my reality. And so agitprop and the acto level, and later the mito and the corrido, was the way that I could survive as a theater artist by not overtaxing, if you will, the preparation of my actors and my audience.

Political theater made perfect sense. It was free. That makes a lot of sense to an audience.

But it was passionate. And it was pointed at an action that they could also participate in. So that allowed our survival.

Poor, you know, in the sense that they won't have a huge budget, but it will be a labor of love and a labor of commitment, a political and social commitment, human commitment, which I think really explains who Cesar was. So maybe that's the way it'll get done.

[Music] In Old New Mexico, way before the advent of the railroad, candle flames danced in tin sconces on white plaster walls. Tin flames lit the faces of Christian saints. Tin crosses led processions of worship.

In those days, traders brought in small tin items. Then in the mid-1800s, the railroads began to haul in large sheets of tin. It became plentiful for the first time, inspiring the golden days of tin making for the next 75 years.

Sadly, we don't know much about tin's history. Few artists signed their work, and much of it has been lost. But today, tin making is popular once again in New Mexico.

There's two ways of making the tin. One is the way we learned here, where you do each little indentation into the tin on your own by doing each one individually, while nowadays they're making that with machines. But I think it's more unique when you take the time and make your own piece.

If you're going to make it into a nightlight, you're going to need a very pointy tip. We have different ones here, and yours is going to be a nightlight, right?

You don't want your holes too close, but you don't want them too far. So you can keep that distance away from each one of them and go all the way around your piece and see how it works.

Tin work in our community hasn't been around lately these last years, but the thing about it is that it's been done many years before, and I think it's great that we can introduce it back into the young kids and keep it going for the years to come.

Start stamping out any design that you want. Create your own. Do you have a plan? Let's see. You know, it's just mostly design and shapes. It's easy on you, especially as a beginner.

What you're going to do is draw the line all the way around your image, okay, and keep it a certain distance away from the edge.

[Music] It's a musical hybrid.

Electrónica meets down-home Mexican music. [Music]

It's also Tijuana and the border.

Actually, it's its own world, a hybrid world where cultures clash and reinvent themselves.

This musical fusion is called Nortec, Norteño and Techno.

Nortec is not only music, but a collective. And with us today on Latino USA is one of its founders, Pepe Mogt.

So how was Nortec created?

We were like making an experiment of using the traditional sounds of the border, which is the Norteño music, Tambora and all these original sounds. The sounds that you commonly hear on the border.

Then I come back to my studio and then I started experimenting with this track. And then I like the result of that.

You know, I'm going to call all my friends that I have that they are doing electronic music.

So I invite them just to create a compilation that doesn't have any name and nothing. It's just, you know, fusion these sounds.

You guys say that the Electronica comes from an inspiration, from a long way back like Kraftwerk and like the original techno-technos.

So there was a radio station and some DJs and some programs, for example, a program called Listen to This and we grew up influenced by those special programs on the night and they put electronic music. So we grew up mostly with that. [Music]

So then people that were in other disciplines like graphic designers, painters, and then they say, you know, 'I'm working with the image from the border, an image from Tijuana, and I fusioned this in my works. Can I use your music?' Yeah, of course.

And then the word spreading out too fast because when the name came out of the compilation, the people start calling us the Nortec Collective or Collectivo Nortec, the Nortec guys, and then even clubs that invite us to play, they say, 'are you going to play your techno stuff or you're going to play Nortec?' You know, like they say, like if it is, you know, some kind of style or whatever. [Laughter] [Music]

Where do you see Nortec going next? I mean, if it's a movement, if it's a multidisciplinary atmosphere and attitude, what comes next then in terms of where Nortec goes?

And even like what we were doing today, like with these people now as Nortec, with fusion, it's happened before with Santana, you know, Santana, which he was mixing the music of their age, you know, of the seventies with all the Mexican stuff that were there, you know.

And earlier than Santana was, you know, like Herb Alpert, you know, fusioning the jazz, the American jazz with all the sounds happening in that moment in Tijuana.

So I think it's always Tijuana has this vibe, you know, the border, the fusion of two cultures, the sounds that are flying around the radio waves and all these television channels, you know, back and forth from the border.

It's like kind of a, that's a way to broke the border, you know.

And Ojala is also the name of a unique duo that combines both Spanish and Middle Eastern influences.

And later on, of course, coming to Texas, I got exposed to Andean and Latin American music. And that was the beginnings of my contact with Javier's culture.

For me, when I arrived in Houston in '78, I used to go to a club named the Acropolis. And I started getting to see Greek bands, Turkish bands, and all sorts of different foreign music. And I got really fascinated by it.

When I moved into Austin, the first band that I got to see that had a Middle Eastern music was 1001 Nights, which is the band that Kamran had in those days.

What's the response that you get, Javier, when it's your version? People say, oh, my God, imposible. Or do they say this is extraordinary?

[Music] What I found interesting was how, for example, in the song Corazon Loco, you've got the very Arabic intonation and yet the singing is in Spanish.

That's right. And what you will find interesting is that that song actually originally was a Persian love song that Javier translated the lyrics into Spanish. [Music]

So I want to know what dreams do you have of pushing this even further? I mean, are you thinking of Arabic salsa or mariachi with Arab lyrics? [laguhter]

Right. Actually, Kamran had somebody talking about it. Why don't we go into something like salsa?

That would be one level. We're actually making it a dance, much more of a dance music. Of course, we don't know where it's going to go. We did this because we really loved to do it. But where it goes, it's God willing.