The Streets of Laredo

Arguing that the well-known cowboy ballad “The Streets of Laredo” is an early expression of “discontent with an encroaching modernity,” author José E. Limón draws upon ethnomusicology, folklore, history, contemporary literature, and other sources to provide a deeply contextualized analysis of the song. He explores its place in the imaginative construction of the American West and its role in the interpretation of both Anglo-American and Mexican American identity in the Texas borderlands and beyo