Mexico City – Most members of the bilingual band Kumbia Kings carry U.S. passports, but as a manager of the musicians put it, “They pretty much work, eat and breathe Mexico.”
So when the Tex-Mex group appeared on a nationally televised Mexican talk show last month – with a guitar emblazoned with the colors and symbols of Mexico’s national flag – they thought it would be clear the guitar was a gesture of pride in their Mexican heritage.
Wrong.
Since that fateful mid-September appearance, bass guitarist A.B. Quintanilla III, brother of the late singer Selena, and the rest of the Kings have been answering to news reports in Mexico City that the Mexican government took offense at the guitar.
According to sources in Mexico’s Secretariat of Government, somebody in the bowels of an obscure subagency called the Department of Civic Promotion saw the Kings play on TV and decided the guitar violated Mexico’s law of protection of national symbols.
Not only that, a secretariat spokesman who asked not to be identified confirmed that somebody in this same department concluded the guitar violated two international treaties, including something called the Treaty of Paris on trademark protection.
The violation could result in a diplomat letter of complaint from Mexico to the U.S. State Department, or a fine levied against the band.
“Wow … really?” is all band assistant Bert Trevino could say at first when he was reached at his McAllen, Texas, home and informed that the band struck a sour note with the bureaucracy.
“A.B. loves Mexico, man. He didn’t do it to disrespect anybody,” a dumbfounded Trevino added.
The Kumbia Kings are developing a huge following among Latinos in the United States and in Latin America, where they travel this weekend to play in Bolivia. Next week they are scheduled to play at least three sold-out shows in Mexico City.
Unwittingly, the band also seems to have wandered into the thorny divide between officialdom in Mexico City and the culture of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans who live in the United States.
Some Mexican officials have trouble coming to terms with mounting U.S. influence in Mexico, including that of Mexican-Americans.
“You must always keep in mind we have a hate-love relationship with the United States. We want the business, but there is resentment, too,” said Rossana Fuentes, who has explored the U.S.-Mexico relationship as deputy director of Foreign Affairs magazine in Spanish. She called the flap over the flag on the guitar “stupid.”
“Who’s minding the shop over there? What kind of a priority is that?”
