Center for Cultural Technology

Cafe y Atole, english

El Trovo del Atole y el Café/The Trovo of Atole and Café.

There are two published versions of El Trovo del Atole y el Café, one by José de Jesús López and one by an unknown or anonymous author. The one here is a third version and is unpublished. It was written by Elva Vigil Valdez of Capulin, Colorado. In it, while Atole defeats Coffee, Atole invokes the sentiment of reconciliation and also leaves open the possibility of continuing the dialogue in the future.

The bilingual graphics in comic book format were created in 2020 by Natasha Vasquez, design intern from New Mexico Highlands University. She envisioned a conversation between a grandmother and her grandson, which morphs into a dialogue between coffee and atole. The recorded performance is by David Garcia and Thelma Argüello.

According to information provided by folklorist Enrique Lamadrid for Folk Music of Hispanic New Mexico: The John Donald Robb Collection, traditionally trovos are musical duels in improvised verse between two trovadores (troubadors). Originating in the courts of medieval Spain and Portugal where topics centered on such lofty themes as theological arguments, trovos migrated to the Canary Islands and were popularized in the Americas throughout parts of Mexico, the Caribbean, and beyond, including New Mexico and Colorado. They were often performed for travelers along the Camino Real and the Old Spanish Trail to California.

According to information provided by Estevan Rael-Galvez, trovos are often a form of political protest, addressing contemporary issues creatively. El Trovo del Atole y el Café is one of the most interesting from nineteenth-century New Mexico -– a battle of wits between a cup of coffee and a cup of atole, a traditional Mexican hot beverage made from masa. One interpretation proposed by Dr. Lamadrid could be What are the virtues of coffee versus atole? What is more valuable, oil or water? But according to Dr. Rael-Galvez it could also be interpreted as a critique of capitalism and colonial imposition, juxtaposing coffee as elite, foreign, and urban with atole as Indigenous, rural, and of the people.

Center for Cultural Technology

IN COPYRIGHT

Natasha Vasquez, animator

Elva Vigil Valdez, author

2020

mov

English

Cafe y Atole