SDXCO Massachusetts 2024

Collin Luu, Buddy Program, Aspen, CO
Professor Benjamin Salinas
Indigenous Flow: Introduction to Indigenous Studies through Hip Hop

Pat Boy –“Hijos del Sol”

Pat Boy Rap Maya (aka Pat Boy) is a Mexican song writer, rapper and singer. Through his use of Yucatec Mayan and Spanish he unfolds the layers of modern-day Indigenous identity. His song “Hijos Del Sol” (“Children of the Sun”) explores the conflicts of being Native American, and touches upon historic grievances and the beauty of his ethnicity in today’s world.

I have pasted some of the lyrics in Mayan, Spanish and English below. Pat Boy leverages Mayan and Spanish to demonstrate important ideas.

• Descendants of people conquered by Europeans will not relinquish their culture by
  recognizing the impact of colonizers on their culture and identity.
• Popular culture and music trends can be used to recognize the impact colonization has
  on culture and identity.

Often, society views the forced assimilation of Indigenous people as a force that must be rejected entirely. However, Pat Boy utilizes his colonizer’s language – Spanish – to push back on that generalization. In Kyle May’s book, Modernity and Hip Hop in Indigenous North America, he touches upon how hip-hop challenges the preconceived notions of how Native American people actually live. Similarly, Pat Boy utilizes hip-hop to represent the lives of the Mayans, but not necessarily to extinguish a part of his identity that is shaped by colonization. His layered identity is not something to be ashamed of or rejected. By using Spanish, he allows the beauty of who he is and who his people have become to be shared with non-Indigenous people and those people of Indigenous decent who don’t speak Mayan.

He repeats the same lyrics in his lineage’s language – Yucatec Mayan – to convey that while his people have been changed by the superseding of their culture, Yucatec Mayan is still deeply engrained in who he is and cannot be easily erased. By using Mayan language, Pat Boy critiques one of the colonizer’s goals of homogenizing his people, and instead finds pride in his ability to call himself Mayan.

Ultimately, the significance of the song, “Hijos Del Sol,” by Pat Boy Rap Maya lies within the undertone of acceptance and its recognition of the history of suffering. The colonizer’s history is riddled with injustices, yet Pat Boy accepts all parts of himself. Conforming to the romanticized stereotypes of each ethnic group would be easy; however, that is not his story, and there is beauty in allowing his dual identity to be what it is.

Hijos Del Sol – lyrics

U YAALEN IN KAAJAL
U yaalen in kaajal noj jo’ch siijilten
Ich ya’ab paak’alo’ob sáansamal kin waajalteen,
Kin náajaltik in kuxtal tu yáanal chokol k’iin
In woot’el ku tóokik, in meyaj le kin bin
Kin meetik, kin náajaltik, ki meyajtik in lu’um
Ku jóok’ol in k’íilkab, ku ch’ulik in p’isk’in
Tu náachil ku yu’uba’al in xuxbik ki’imak óolal
Tu síijil tu ka’aten uláak’ túunben k’iin

Táan a wu’uyik xan u k’aay xnuk k’u’uk’en t’eel
Wáaxak u taal u sáastal in yuum u ch’a’amaj in beel
Sáansamal ku yaajal ti’al u yik u sáastal
U jóok’ol le yuum k’iin u yaalo’on in kajtal
Ch’ilib ts’íib yéetel ju’um ku chíikbesik
in yaj óolal Be’elak tuláak’ k’iin kin k’ayik kuxtalo’ob
To’on et k’íik’elo’on, leti’ maaya , azteca, náhuatl,
Huichol, totonaca, mixteco, zapoteco, tzotzil, tzeltal.
SOY EL HIJO DEL PUEBLO,
NACIDO Y CRECIDO ENTRETANTAS COSECHAS
CADA DIA DESPIERTO, MEGANO LA VIDA
BAJO EL CALIDO SOL QUE LA PIEL BRONCEA
MEGUSTA EL TRABAJO, LO HAGO Y GANO
COSECHANDO MI TIERRA, FLUYENDO EL SUDOR
A DISTANCIA SE ESCUCHA QUE CHIFLO DE ALEGRIA
A NACIDO UNA VES MAS UN NUEVO DIA
ESCUCHA EL CANTO DEL GALLO EN PLUMADO
CUATRO DE LA MAÑANA MI PADRE MI ABUELO
ESTAN SIEMPRE DESPIERTOS PARA VER EL SALUDO DEL SOL
SOY EL HIJO DEL PUEBLO
MI PLUMA Y LIBRETA EXPRESANDO SENTIDO
Y PARA SIEMPRE YO CANTO MI VIDA MI VIDA
SOMOS DE LA MISMA SANGRE MAYA AZTECA
NAHUAT, TOTONACA, WICHOL Y OLMECA
SOY EL HIJO DEL SOL

I am a child of the people
Born and raised among the harvests
I wake up every day and work the hardest I can
under the hot sun that tans my skin
I like to work, I do it and I win
Harvesting my land, the sweat flowing
In the distance, my whistle of joy is heard
A new day is born again
Listen to the song of the plumaged rooster
At four in the morning my father and grandfather

Are always awake to see the sun’s greeting
I am the child of the people
My feather and letter express my sentiment
And I always sing it, my life, my life
We are the same blood: Maya, Aztec
Nahuatl, Totonac, Wichol, Olmeca
I am the child of the sun.