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MAYA SANTAMARIA: My name is Maya Santamaria. I am a cultural anthropologist with an emphasis in musicology. And I'm also the owner of El Nuevo Rodeo Nightclub and Restaurant.

SINGER: (SINGING) [SPEAKING SPANISH]

SANDEN TOTTEN: El nuevo Rodeo is popping tonight. Men in fancy cowboy hats are buying tequila for women in exotic ostrich skin boots. Everyone speaks Spanish. It's hard to remember you're still in Minnesota. Santamaria says, for this crowd, that's the point.

MAYA SANTAMARIA: They come here to feel like they're at home away from home. And certainly, after a long week of being a laborer in a society where you're considered an alien, going somewhere where you feel familiar and accepted and you feel that happiness of your home music, it validates you as a person. It makes you feel human and whole again, you know?

SANDEN TOTTEN: Santamaria says non-latino Minnesotans rarely show up at her club. They're always welcome, but with the high cover charge and heavy Mexican vibe, most casual clubbers feel out of place. She says this is a change from the 1970s and '80s.

MAYA SANTAMARIA: In those years, the Mexican-American community was very bicultural. The difference came right around the turn of the century, starting about 1995, when a large second wave, an influx of real regional northern Mexicans came through, and all of a sudden, it was more important to be authentic than to assimilate.

SANDEN TOTTEN: According to Santamaria, regional Mexican music packs her club like nothing else. Many of the headlining acts are coming to Minneapolis fresh from playing dusty dancehalls in Mexico. They play well-defined genres. One example is Norteña musica, a style from northern Mexico. It's heavy on accordion and features a bajo sexto, a 12-string guitar native to Mexico. Santamaria thinks of it as lonely cowboy music.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SINGER: (SINGING) [SPEAKING SPANISH]

SANDEN TOTTEN: Another popular style is called Banda music. It often features 20 wind instruments, mostly brass.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Aside from at El Nuevo Rodeo, you can catch this music at outdoor festivals all throughout the summer. The Spanish language station, Radio Ray, hosts regular concerts at places like the State Fairgrounds, and at the rodeo in Hugo just north of Saint Paul. Even though the music hasn't changed much, Santamaria says the emotions behind it have. She points to the grito as an example.

[SHOUTING]

It's a cry you'll hear wherever good Mexican music is played. Santamaria says a grito is boisterous, but for Mexicans living abroad, it also conveys a sense of nostalgia for home.

MAYA SANTAMARIA: There are a lot of different emotions in that expression. And that's found in our music, too. If you can hear the music that we're listening to right now, it's a celebratory music.

We're dancing. But the accordion is so sad. There's that real kind of longing in the music and the beat. You're marching on, but there's something that kind of makes your heart feel that little tinge of sadness while you're happy and while you're dancing.

SANDEN TOTTEN: Anthropologist Maya Santamaria says the grito says all that without really saying much at all. From Minnesota Public Radio News, I'm Sanden Totten.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SINGER: (SINGING) [SPEAKING SPANISH]