Remembering East L.A. Chicano Band "Tango"
‘70s Chicano music often defined itself through qualities of strength, defiance, and unity.
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When discussing Tango’s early catalog, most of the attention naturally gravitates toward “I’m Brown,” the powerful, politically charged anthem that has become one of the group’s defining statements.
Through your conversations with Mark and everything he’s written on his website, it’s clear how central that track is to his artistic identity and to the Chicano consciousness of the early 1970s. However, what often gets overlooked, despite sitting just two tracks away on side one of the 1973 album, is its quieter companion piece: “I’m Human.”
Recorded during the transitional period when Mark was still essentially a solo artist backed by his friends Ernie Hernandez, Richard Rosas, and John Valenzuela, the track offers a fascinating window into the emotional and philosophical foundation that would later give his culturally specific work its depth.
Political Edge
Before Tango was a signed band on A&M Records, before the sharper political edge of songs like “I’m Brown,” Mark had already written eight original recordings in 1972. These early works, crafted with the same circle of friends who later helped give Tango its signature sound, reveal an artist wrestling with identity, personal contradictions, and the full spectrum of human feeling.
“I’m Human,” the third track on side one, comes directly out of this era—and it feels like a conceptual prelude to the self-definition and cultural assertion that explodes in “I’m Brown” two songs later.
Where “I’m Brown” is a rallying cry, “I’m Human” works as the grounding pulse beneath it. It approaches identity not through the lens of ethnicity or political struggle, but through universal contradictions. Every line expresses duality: “I’m a hero and a villain / A wise man and a fool… I’m a lover and a hater.”
This constant oscillation between opposites presents humanity as inherently paradoxical. Rather than offering a clean or stable identity category, the song embraces the messy, inconsistent, emotional landscape that sits underneath anyone’s cultural identity, Chicano or otherwise.
This matters in the context of early ‘70s Chicano music because the movement often had to define itself through qualities of strength, defiance, and unity, which were necessary for political visibility, but which can overshadow the softer, internal, or contradictory aspects of identity.
“I’m Human” subtly pushes back against that narrowing. It insists that being Chicano does not mean fitting into a rigid archetype or performing one version of oneself for the sake of cultural representation. The song’s focus on contradiction becomes a statement of liberation. One can be vulnerable and proud, conflicted and confident, flawed and worthy.
Musically, the song reflects that interiority. Compared to the more assertive tone of “I’m Brown,” “I’m Human” is gentler, built around melodic phrasing that gives space for reflection. The lyrics are almost mantra-like, each line balancing its opposite: “I’m down, and I’m up,” “I’m somebody, and I’m nobody.”
What keeps it from drifting into vagueness is the emotional clarity behind the contradictions. Mark isn’t simply listing opposites—he’s recognizing the whole human spectrum within himself. And the final line of the first verse—“I’m a human, and I wouldn’t have it any other way”—lands not as resignation, but as acceptance.
The affirmation is simple but powerful, especially for an artist who would soon be writing explicitly political material. It’s a reminder that before one can claim cultural identity publicly, one must understand oneself fully in private.
This layering becomes even more interesting considering the sequencing of the album. “I’m Human” arrives early, establishing a base of shared humanity before the sharper cultural self-assertion of “I’m Brown” on the same album side. It’s almost as if Mark is guiding the listener: first, understand me as a person, then understand me as a Chicano navigating a world marked by politics and racialization.
Seen in that light, “I’m Human” enriches “I’m Brown” by giving it emotional context. The pride expressed in “I’m Brown” becomes more nuanced—not just a declaration of ethnicity, but the culmination of a broader journey of self-discovery.
The second verse expands the metaphorical scale dramatically: “I’m oceans, and I’m rivers… I’m an active volcano… I’m fire, and I’m sand.”
Here, Mark reaches beyond personal contradictions into elemental imagery. His identity becomes linked to nature itself, suggesting a kind of universality. These contrasts—water and land, fire and sand—evoke the coexistence of creative and destructive forces within one person.
Being Human
Again, the point isn’t to resolve the contradictions, but to illustrate the vastness of being human. The natural imagery also mirrors the movement of Chicano art at the time, which often tied cultural identity to landscape, earth, ancestry, and cosmic symbolism.
By the final verse, the contradictions move into moral, psychological, and existential territory: “I’m darkness, and I’m light… I’m blind, and I’m sight… I’m crazy, and I’m sane.” These lines suggest someone acknowledging not just emotional complexity but the complete moral ambiguity of being alive. This depth is what makes the song so crucial in relation to “I’m Brown.” The cultural pride of that track hits harder precisely because it comes from someone who first acknowledges that identity is not one-dimensional.
In the end, “I’m Human” stands as one of the most quietly significant pieces in Mark’s early catalog. It humanizes the artist before he becomes a symbol. It speaks to universal experiences while coming from a musician deeply rooted in Chicano life. More than fifty years later, “I’m Human” still resonates.
In its gentle honesty, it bridges the personal and the political, showing that before any label, before race, class, or movement, we are human beings capable of feeling, growing, and creating. It’s the calm before the storm, so to speak, the personal affirmation that gives power to the political one that follows. It reminds us that beneath every struggle for equality lies a simple truth: we’re all human—and, as Guerrero sings, we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Sammy blends sociology with hands-on experience in music research, documentary filmmaking, and journalism. With a talent for in-depth research and a knack for finding compelling narratives, he aims to shed light on stories that resonate and reveal the pulse of societal change. He also brings a unique sociological perspective to all things pop culture.
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