Surviving Sunset: Identity, Prejudice, Music, Hollywood

Abstract

My research is primarily focused on the strategies certain Mexican Americans used to overcome the racism they encountered while living in Southern California during the mid-twentieth century—hiding in plain sight, passing and tall tales—and what role Hollywood may have played in this narrative. These tactics to avoid discrimination often extracted a high price from the practitioner. Arguably what Daniel Silvermint terms ‘permissible form[s] of self-regarding complicity’, they are also capable of rupturing familial histories and, although identity may be considered a mutable concept, (dis)connection from one’s racial heritage by hiding in plain sight or denying an integral part of yourself can lead to mental health issues, shame and loss of, what Tahlia Eastman calls, an ‘ontological sense of belonging’.

I have used my creative practice to investigate the gap between intellectual discourse and emotional knowledge as, although theory provides contrasting philosophical perspectives and academically stimulating discourse about the human condition, music allows the practitioner to express something theory cannot by offering the means to express a different truth and reality than the empirical world of understanding, a reality with an(other) relationship to time and space.

The musical compositions for this thesis have a complex relationship to the past through use of ‘anamnesis’, fabricated recollection, suggested narrative, and enigmatic allegory. I question myself through work that inhabits a space of collaged ‘no time’, aural space constructed of an elusive multiplicity that offers many possible readings. Using incorrectly remembered past occurrences juxtaposed with current audio imaginings, I create soundscapes for events that never happened but might have. Consciously leveraged through nostalgia’s false golden filter and many layers of obfuscated meaning (real, false, and double bluff), these compositions offer the listener an ambiguous space where they might create their own understandings, much like Svetlana Boym’s reimagining of the Romanticist motto “I long, therefore I am”, as ‘I remember therefore I am or I think I remember and therefore I think.’

Through re-engagement with familial myth and fading recollections of Hollywood, at the intersection of truth, authenticity and multiracial identity impacted by colonial monoracial(ist) narratives, I have composed sonic dispatches offering the listener an emotional dialogue that, in my opinion, goes further than academic literature and theory, but is also meant to work in conjunction with them. The difficulty lies in defining exactly what that means and yet, within that liminal borderland of inexplicability, the ‘magical’ possibilities of music in concert with academic thought might be encountered.

Metadata

Supervisors:	Iddon, Martin and Erraught, Stan
Publicly visible additional information:	Prefatory Note: The principal output of this creative research (eight recordings meant to evoke what could be described as authentically inauthentic authenticities) is presented in the guise of a notional album entitled Surviving Sunset. What I suggest you do, dear reader, is read the written thesis up to the chapter entitled The Creative Work and then listen to the recordings afterwards. This will provide context while still allowing the creative work to speak to you directly without prior knowledge of my interpretations. You may also find it interesting to listen to the contents contained in the folder entitled Surviving Sunset: Additional Materials & Creative Practice which contains recordings of the redacted tracks ‘No Puedo’ and ‘La Gente Guapa’ in the folder Early Tracks, plus first versions of ‘Empress of the Ants’, ‘Father’ and ‘Recuerdos’ in the folder Alternative Versions of Album Tracks, music that, although not included in the completed work, evidence my progression from an earlier, more conventional compositional and arrangement style to the final experimental communiqués. There are two listening options provided: the music presented as individual tracks available on your computer or contained within zip filed folders for downloading.
Keywords:	identity, prejudice, music, Hollywood, racism, Mexican American, Mexican Americans, hiding in plain sight, passing, tall tales, discrimination, creative practice, dual heritage, colonialism, patriarchy, auto-ethnography, autobiographical, flamenco, flamenco rock, flamenco fusion, Chicano flamenco, machismo, marianismo, caballerismo, Chicano, gitanos, gypsies, queerness, queer histories, David Clark Allen, David Randall-Goddard, Practice-led, music, intersectional, intercultural, interculturality, post-colonial, white Mexican, pocho, Chicanx, Latinx, Margarita Allen, patriarchy, patriarchal, mixed race, El Cid, critical race theory, capitalism, racial shame, colorism, colourism, poverty, identity confusion, Carmen
Awarding institution:	University of Leeds
Academic Units:	The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Music (Leeds)
Date Deposited:	28 Apr 2026 13:37
Last Modified:	28 Apr 2026 13:37
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:etheses.whiterose.ac.uk:38211

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Final eThesis - complete (pdf)

Filename: Surviving Sunset - Identity, Prejudice, Music, Hollywood final accepted thesis.pdf

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Examined Content

Filename: My Contextual Video review.mp4

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Examined Content

Filename: Surviving Sunset, The Album Tracks.zip

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Examined Content

Filename: Alternative Versions of Album Tracks.zip

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Examined Content

Filename: Early Tracks.zip

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