No te rajes

[Tyrn]

Hi,

This is very much translatable via Internet. The English lyrics for ¡Ay Jalisco No Te Rajes! have it as Ah Jalisco, don't back down!. Still, I have a shadow of a doubt about what exactly the singer expects from Jalisco.

What is it, in this particular case? Poetry stripped, if necessary.

[pjt33]

Some quick research indicates that the song was the title song of a film, which was itself an adaptation of a book. I've managed to turn up http://socialesyvirtuales.web.unq.ed...o-no-te-rajes/ which explains in a footnote that

La obra de Aurelio Robles Castillo pertenece al subgénero de la novela cristera. ¡Ay Jalisco, no te rajes! era el grito de los guerrilleros cristeros ante los soldados del ejército federal. Durante el enfrentamiento armado se daban valor con esa frase que supone no acobardarse, acojonarse, dirían también los mexicanos, ante una situación dura y hacerle frente. Esa expresión es de la región del altiplano jalisciense. Octavio Paz en El laberinto de la soledad dice “…el ideal de la hombría consiste en no ‘rajarse’ nunca” (1998, p 10).

So in context it's an injunction to fight to the bitter end for the freedom to practise the Catholic faith.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

In the context of the 'Guerra Cristera', PJT's intepretation must be correct. Yet, I'd say the neither the song, nor the movie have much to do the 'Cristeros'; since I don't know the book, I have no idea where or how they're involved in the story.


That said, the movie is the story of a man whose parents were murdered when he was a baby, and he grows up to become the paragon of the Mexican 'Charro': brave, manly, honest, honorable, good with guns...
As for the song, like most of the 'Rancheras', has extremely simple lyrics (and often they don't have to make much sense); it's even said that Jorge Negrete (the actor who played the main character in the movie) hated to sing it because he thought it was ridiculous.


Finally, "rajarse" means to chickent out (the origin of the expression is to lose a man's virility), and the Mexican 'Charro' archetype comes from Jalisco, where the 'Charrería' (the Mexican sport involving mastery of horse riding and cattle wrestling, similar to American Rodeo) was born.

So, as far as I understand, the expression "¡Ay, Jalisco, no te rajes!" in the song, more than "expecting something" from the state of Jalisco, is a celebration of the qualities of the territory, but mostly a praise of the bravery of the 'charro' himself, who is not shrinking to face his enemies, and he's ready to kill or to die for his honor.