The Mexican American orquesta is neither Mexican nor American music. Relying on both the Mexican orquesta and American dance band for repertorial and stylistic cues, it forges a synthesis of the two. The ensemble emerges historically as a powerful artistic vehicle for the expression of what Manuel Pena calls the "dialectic of conflict". In this book, the author traces the evolution of the orquesta in the Southwest from its beginnings in the 19th century through its pinnacle in the 1970s and its decline since the 1980s. Drawing on 15 years of field research, he embeds the development of the orquesta within a historical-materialist matrix to achieve the optimal balance between description and interpretation.