If trauma results from loss of control and the threat of annihilation, what results after centuries of violence? If an individual develops self-destructive habits to cope with the pain, is it the same for whole families and communities? What power do psychohistories of violence have on the bodies of the living? At what point do the wounds of history become self-inflicted? If acts of violence are rooted in feelings of rejection and shame, how far and for how long will the waves of destruction crash across the Southern landscape?

In the dark, smoky, raucous space of Tejano cantinas, degradation commingles with resistance, destruction with regeneration, life with death—all twisting together like lovers in a dance of phantasm and violence. Through collective intoxication, in the spirit of Dionysus, one transcends self, hierarchy, power. One embodies the words of sixteenth-century Aztec poet Nezahualcoyotl:

I am intoxicated, I weep, I grieve
I think, I speak
Within myself I discover this:
Indeed, I shall never die
Indeed, I shall never disappear.