Flaco Jiménez, titan of Tex-Mex, knew how to beat back la migra with humor

The accordionist commands the stage, his eyes staring off as if in a trance, his fingers trilling out the opening notes of a tune. It’s a long, sinuous riff, one so intoxicating that the audience in front of him can’t help but to two-step across the crowded dance floor.

He and his singing partner unfurl a sad story that seemingly clashes with the rhythms that back it. An undocumented immigrant has arrived in San Antonio from Laredo to marry his girlfriend, Chencha. But the lights on his car aren’t working and he has no driver’s license, so the cops throw him in jail. Upon being released, the song’s protagonist finds a fate worse than deportation: His beloved is now dating the white guy who issues driver’s licenses.

“Those gabachos are abusive,” the singer-accordionist sighs in Spanish in his closing line. “I lost my car, and they took away my Chencha.”

The above scene is from “Chulas Fronteras,” a 1976 documentary about life on the United States-Mexico border and the accordion-driven conjuntos that served as the soundtrack to the region. The song is “Un Mojado Sin Licencia” — “A Wetback Without a License.” The musician is Tex-Mex legend Flaco Jiménez, who died last week at 86.

Born in San Antonio, the son and grandson of accordionists became famous as the face of Tex-Mex music and as a favorite session player whenever rock and country gods needed some borderlands flair. He appeared alongside everyone from the Rolling Stones to Bob Dylan, Buck Owens and Dwight Yoakam on “The Streets of Bakersfield” to Willie Nelson for a rousing version of “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.” With Doug Sahm, Augie Meyers and fellow Tejano chingón Freddy Fender, Jiménez formed the Texas Tornadoes, whose oeuvre blasts at every third-rate barbecue joint from the Texas Hill Country to Southern California.

Jiménez was a titan of American music, something his obits understood. One important thing they missed, however, was his politics.

He unleashed his Hohner accordion not just at concerts but for benefits ranging from student scholarships to the successful campaign of L.A. County Superior Court Judge David B. Finkel to Lawyers’ Committee, a nonprofit formed during the civil rights era to combat structural racism in the American legal system. Jiménez and the Texas Tornadoes performed at Bill Clinton’s 1992 inauguration ball; “Chulas Fronteras,” captured Jiménez as the headliner at a fundraiser for John Treviño Jr., who would go on to become Austin’s first Mexican American council member.

It’s a testament to Jiménez’s heart and humor that the song he performed for it was “Un Mojado Sin Licencia,” which remains one of my favorite film concert appearances, an ideal all Latino musicians should aspire to during this long deportation summer.

The title is impolite but reflected the times: Some undocumented immigrants in the 1970s wore mojado not as a slur but a badge of honor (to this day, that’s what my dad proudly calls himself even though he became a U.S. citizen decades ago). Jiménez’s mastery of the squeezebox, his fingers speeding up and down the rows of button notes for each solo like a reporter on deadline, is as complex and gripping as any Clapton or Prince guitar showcase.

What was most thrilling about Jiménez’s performance, however, was how he refused to lose himself to the pathos of illegal immigration, something too many people understandably do. “Un Mojado Sin Licencia,” which Jiménez originally recorded in 1964, is no dirge but rather a rollicking revolt against American xenophobia.

The cameraman captures his gold teeth gleaming as Jiménez grins throughout his thrilling three minutes. He’s happy because he has to be: the American government can rob Mexicans of a better life, “Un Mojado Sin Licencia” implicitly argues, but it’s truly over when they take away our joy.

“Un Mojado Sin Licencia” is in the same jaunty vein as other Mexican classics about illegal immigration such as Vicente Fernández’s “Los Mandados,” “El Corrido de Los Mojados” by Los Alegres de Terán and “El Muro” by rock en español dinosaurs El Tri. There is no pity for undocumented immigrants in any of those tracks, only pride at their resilience and glee in how la migra can never truly defeat them. In “Los Mandados,” Fernández sings of how la migra beats up an immigrant who summarily sues them; “El Corrido de Los Mojados” plainly asks Americans, “If the mojados were to disappear/Who would you depend on?”

Even more defiant is “El Muro,” which starts as an overwrought metal anthem but reveals that its hero not only came into the United States, he used the titular border wall as a toilet (trust me, it sounds far funnier in the Mexico City lingo of gravelly lead singer Alex Lora). These songs tap into the bottomless well that Mexicans have for gallows humor. And their authors knew what satirists from Charlie Chaplin to Stephen Colbert knew: When life throws tyranny at you, you have to scoff and push back.

There are great somber songs about illegal immigration, from La Santa Cecilia’s haunting bossa nova “El Hielo (ICE)” to Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),” which has been recorded by everyone from the Byrds to Dolly Parton to Jiménez when he was a member of Los Super Seven. But the ones people hum are the funny ones, the ones you can polka or waltz or mosh to, the ones that pep you up. In the face of terror, you need to sway and smile to take a break from the weeping and the gnashing of teeth that’s the rest of the day.

I saw “Chulas Fronteras” as a college student fighting anti-immigrant goons in Orange County and immediately loved the film but especially “Un Mojado Sin Licencia.” Too many of my fellow travelers back then felt that to party even for a song was to betray the revolution. Thankfully, that’s not the thinking among pro-immigrant activists these days, who have incorporated music and dancing into their strategy as much as lawsuits and neighborhood patrols.

The sidewalks outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown L.A., where hundreds of immigrants are detained in conditions better suited for a decrepit dog pound, have transformed into a makeshift concert hall that has hosted classical Arabic musicians and Los Jornaleros del Norte, the house band of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. Down the 5 Freeway, the OC Rapid Response Network holds regular fundraisers in bars around downtown Santa Ana featuring everything from rockabilly quartets to female DJs spinning cumbias. While some music festivals have been canceled or postponed for fear of migra raids, others have gone on as planned lest ICE win.

Musicians like Pepe Aguilar, who dropped a treacly cover of Calibre 50’s “Corrido de Juanito” a few weeks ago, are rushing to meet the moment with benefit concerts and pledges to support nonprofits. That’s great, but I urge them to keep “Un Mojado Sin Licencia” on a loop as they’re jotting down lyrics or laying down beats. There’s enough sadness in the fight against la migra. Be like Flaco: Make us laugh. Make us dance. Keep us from slipping into the abyss. Give us hope.