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Las Hijas de la Madre is a self-described queer Xicanx feminist punk band fronted by performance poet and writer Amalia Ortiz.
The band’s name embraces what would traditionally be an insult about somebody’s mother, and twists it into a proud embrace of women.
We’re talking today with Ortiz and with the band’s bassist, Lilith Tijerina, about their newest album.
Ortiz says the band’s origins date back to a punk musical she developed in 2019.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
ORTIZ: So, Las Hijas de La Madre actually comes straight from my second book, The Canción Cannibal Cabaret, which was my graduate thesis and it was a punk rock musical.
And so, I wrote this poetry concept album that's about an apocalyptic future where there is a rebel who is known as “La Madre Valiente.” She begins to organize women, children and marginalized folks to protect themselves. So, it's an army, but mainly because they realize that the people who pay the highest price in a war are women and children. And so, their leader is only known as “La Madre Valiente,” and so their followers are Las Hijas de La Madre.
And so that book, Canción Cannibal Cabaret, as I mentioned, it was my master's thesis. It was a punk rock musical. And once I graduated, I started performing it. I think I wrote it thinking someone else would perform it. But then for my graduate thesis, I performed it. I'm like, “Okay, I can handle the vocals.” I wasn't sure. That was at UTRGV [University of Texas Rio Grande Valley] in the Valley.
And then I moved to San Antonio not long after I graduated, and started performing it here in San Antonio, and one of the first places I presented it was at the Guadalupe Theater — they have their Teatro Salon. For that I had auditions and at that point Lili joined the band.
We’ve had various lineups throughout the years, but the lineup that we've settled on now we've been working with for a while.
So, during the pandemic, that project won an award, but I wanted to apply for a COSA [City of San Antonio] grant and they specifically said they wanted to fund a new project. So, I was like, “So what do I want to do?” I want to keep working with the band.
And so, with the band, it really is a more collaborative process. We have been collaborating to write this whole new album, Diatribas Punk.
So, we didn't want to rename the band. I think we had going by the name of The Canción Cannibal Cabaret, because that's the name of the book and the punk rock musical. But as the band, we are not that. We are something else. And so, keeping along with that theme, we are Las Hijas de La Madre.
MARTINEZ: Well, Lilith, I want to talk a little bit about this lead track that is on this new album. It's Hocicona, Peleoneras [translated: big mouth, troublemaker]. Hocicona, again, if you come from a Mexican American household, you'll sometimes hear callate el hocico, cierra el hocico [shut your mouth]. Hocico is kind of a Spanish slang word for your mouth. But Hocicona, Peleonera starts with this really driving bass line. And so, I can you tell us a little bit about that song inside of your approach to it?
TIJERINA: So Kip, he's our guitarist as well, and he also plays bass. He does the bass line for that song that I'm trying to learn a little bit. But I mean, honestly, I feel like that song was, as Amalia described earlier, it's kind of like our thesis of our project, entirely.
I feel like in general when people hear us sing that song, when we're performing it, and as soon as that bass line starts, people are a little hooked and then they start hearing that chorus, it just drives people into our shows. We've performed it as an opener before, and I could see the shift in the audience when they hear that, especially from the women in the audience.
And I think growing up, too … I think it's so funny that this is like a full circle, but growing up, me and my friends, we would call each other, like the boconas, because we were like, whatever. We were gonna start our own little band. We were like, we're boconas. I was like, we're big mouths. This is how we always are. So, it’s funny kind of coming back to that.
But, yeah, I don't know. I feel like it's definitely a theme of who we are and I think our audience really connects with that.
MARTINEZ: And so Amalia, is there a reason why punk is the medium to go to get these messages across of speaking on behalf of people who can't be spoken for and for your constant themes of social justice in these songs?
ORTIZ: So, I started playing around with punk … I've always been a punk fan, but specifically writing punk lyrics in graduate school, I think because coming from spoken word, I was being told that my writing style was didactic. Maybe I felt preachy and reminiscent of, like, the `60s Chicano movement. I felt really angry.
So, all of this was pre-Trump, but also this was me moving from Los Angeles back to my home in the lower Rio Grande Valley, and there's this [border] wall, and I would ask, “Well, why aren't you angry? Why aren't you yelling? Why aren't you filled with rage living in this in this region, seeing the militarization of the border?” And so, I think they wanted me to tone it down and be more … write a softer, subtler style.
And I doubled down and started turning in punk lyrics because, I really felt like if you see something, you should say it. And I was just kind of shocked that all of these border residents were not outraged by the atrocities that I was seeing along the border.
And so that carried on into this album with Hociconas, Peleoneras. I say “I can't keep my mouth shut if I see an injustice.”
This song specifically, when I first started writing it…I saw something happen. I'm like, I gotta say something. And somebody else was there, and they're like, “Oh, you know, Amalia, she likes to fight.” And I felt this moment of exhaustion. It was like, I don't like to fight, but I'm also not going to stay silent when I see some sort of injustice. I'm actually tired of fighting. But I have to say something.
MARTINEZ Do you feel, because this is sort of a grant-funded project, this band, that you may have to operate under certain constraints? Or were you really granted a lot of liberty to write and sing about what you really feel?
ORTIZ: So, I'm really grateful to the Democratizing Racial Justice residency, which was through UTSA [University of Texas at San Antonio]. Because I remember reading through the contract and asking, these are some hot button political times, and I don't want to be halfway through the project and have funding revoked. And this was in the very first meeting with all of the artists who were part of the residency. They said, “No, you have complete artistic control.”
I think the same with the City of San Antonio. I haven't heard any response, but I read through the contract and like, okay, well, for that part of the project, I was really just turning in pages, and so I didn't know how far someone would dig into… at that point the project is over when I'm turning in pages. And so, what are they going to do? Revoke the money after the thing has been written?
But I am very grateful along the way, especially organizations like Alternate ROOTS, where they are social justice organization. at that point it was written. And so, they had the lyrics. They knew exactly what they were funding. And so, I'm really grateful that they stood behind the whole project.
MARTINEZ: Well, Lilith, what input do you have when Amalia is writing these songs? Do you have input in the composition of the songs, in perhaps in how you want some of the lyrics to play into the music? How does your involvement in Las Hijas de La Madre exemplify itself in the music?
TIJERINA: I think, yeah, as Amalia stated earlier, it's kind of more of a collaborative process, as opposed to, like the Canción Cannibal Cabaret. I think we've all had, like our hand in this somehow. I feel like I have a little bit of an ear for lyricism and like the musical composition -- sometimes just about the way things sound.
With our song Periphery, there was a moment where it sounded one way when we were writing it, and I think we all were just kind of like, not satisfied with the way it was sounding. And I was playing a certain bass line, and then Amalia and Leti were singing a different, a totally different melody. But then it kind of meshed into one. Somehow they worked together, as opposed to alone.
So, I feel like we all kind of have our own vision as to what we see the song sounding like. When it came to the recording process, I felt very vocal in that sense, as well. I was very honest about how I felt about the harmonies, and how I felt about the way … maybe the tempos and things like that because this is what we're putting out permanently.
So, I felt a little more emboldened to say some things there.
And I think we all just kind of, like, have that vibe where if you have something to say just say it because it kind of benefits the band as a whole, versus kind of keeping it in.
MARTINEZ: So, well, you brought up the song Periphery. Let's talk about that one. You said before the interview that's one of your favorites. It's one of my favorites as well. Essentially, it's about women and people of color and the queer community being lost in the periphery of history. So, can you talk a little bit more about that song?
ORTIZ: So, oh gosh, it's a really long story, but I will say I'm trying to protect people.
I received a butt dial and heard someone kind of laughing about needing to get more women into their project. And then it was two guys talking and then kind of laugh, “Well, we don't really need women, but no, we should get some women.”
They convince themselves — they should for this historic project and (they said) “Oh but I can't think of any. They're all ... like on the periphery.”
And so, I was the person who got the butt dial. Once again, going to Hocicona, I'm like, “I have to say something. This is my friend. I have to say something.” But I heard this right before I was getting on a flight. I was flying to Spain for a conference, and so 24 hours later, 38 hours, probably about 48 hours later, I went to Spain, went to southern Spain.
I went to Tangiers, took the little ferry into Tangiers, and I'm in this museum and all I see are paintings and pictures of men. And this butt dial is still in my mind, and I'm like, “Where are the women? Oh my god, there's no women.” All these paintings and pictures. And so, “I saw halls full of walls full of sultans and chiefs, statesmen and priests.”
And there's a little room with a few oil paintings of women polishing pots, smiling. There's some of them where they're covered with their veils, but you can see the eyes. And one of them, the woman looked angry. And I felt her, so I took all these pictures and put them on Instagram like, “I see you queen. Not periphery players. You came from a woman.” I was so angry.
So, as I mentioned, I wrote an essay about it, and I talk about how this made me think of the Beats [Beat poets], how it made me think of the Chicana movement, and Maylei Blackwell's book, ¡Chicana Power!, and so all of that I weave into this really long essay about how women are — it's not an accident — are systematically written out of history.
And then I talk about, I think it's Casey Nicoli from Jane's Addiction. Specifically, these women who are connected to bands but then the second that the man in the band breaks up with these women, they're written out of history. Same thing I've seen happen with the female beats.
I presented this as a conference recently, and I'm like, okay, and then all of that, here is the four minute version, and then I play Periphery.
TIJERINA It's pretty cathartic. It's like a cathartic moment for all of us that we all acknowledge, whether we're in the studio or in Amalia's living room or playing live, that there's a part in that bridge where we're all just kind of screaming.
But I think another part that I really like in that song is the first time Amalia says, “I think we need more men on these walls.” Because what she does is she gets up in everybody's faces and she starts pointing to the walls wherever we are — whether it's a freaking bar, academic space, (or) in a classroom. And she's asking sarcastically, like, “Yeah, I think we need more men on these dang walls.”
And it's such a cathartic moment for me too. I'm playing and I'm like, “All right, I'm in it now. Like, all right, I'm in it.” And by the time we get to the point at the end where it's like, “I live and die on your periphery,” it becomes just a moment for all of us to just get all of that rage out.
And you asked earlier why punk? And I feel like that is the thing that calls to us the most. We're mad and we're upset
ORTIZ: Yeah, it is a catharsis.
TIJERINA: Yeah, it's a catharsis for us to do that.
MARTINEZ: Well you have a couple of events happening this month, one on Friday that you're going to be debuting the latest single off of this upcoming album. Tell us a little bit more about that.
ORTIZ: So that is "Tall Bro," and once again, inspired by real life.
I went to a show, and I understand that there, there are photographers that they have to be up front. But I'm like, “Don't you have these special lenses where you could theoretically take pictures from the very back?”
And I go usually an hour early so I could get a space at the front because I am a music fan and I'm short and I want to see. But somehow everyone has a reason to push in front of me.
And so once again, it's just me asking why it is that tall people feel the need to be in the front row? But I'm not, maybe not asking so politely (laughs).
TIJERINA So, it's this Friday (Dec. 5) at The Lighthouse. So, my other band, Fuchi, that I started kind of last year, we're going to be opening for Amalia's Las Hijas de la Madre. But it's for First Friday, and I know Strawberry Jams Vinyl is putting together the event.
ORTIZ: And so, we're trying to be strategic. We are a shoestring little-engine-that-could band. So, we're doing as much as we can to promote, to make the most of promoting the band. So, we've been releasing … it'll be our fourth single. When these gigs line up, it's like, okay, we need to release a single so that hopefully with every show and every single, we're growing an audience, but it's all leading to we are going to release all of the entire album on Dec. 18.
So, we were searching for a space for that and Artpace … I ran into Riley Robinson, and he's always been very supportive of our band. So, I approached him. I'm like, “We're looking for a place to have a CD release." And he was generous enough to offer their newly renovated rooftop terrace. So, we're excited about that.
TIJERINA: It's gonna be so awesome.
MARTINEZ Well, Amalia Ortiz and Lilith Tijerina. Thanks so much for being with us today.
