Author - Ericka Verba

About The Author

Ericka Verba

Ericka Verba is Director and Professor of Latin American Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. Her research interests include the cultural Cold War, the role of music in social movements, and the intersection of gender and class politics in twentieth-century Latin America. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Fulbright, and the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. She is a founding member of SCALAS (Southern California Association of Latin American Studies) and the recipient of the E. Bradford Burns Award for service to the Pacific Coast Council on Latin American Studies.

She is the author of the book Thanks to Life: A Biography of Violeta Parra. Her interest in Violeta Parra dates back to her early teens in the 1970s when she became friends with a Chilean family of musicians and artists who taught Verba her first Violeta Parra songs and guided her political awakening to the brutality of the Pinochet dictatorship and the role of the US government in installing and supporting it. As a musician and founding member of the US-based New Song groups Sabiá and Desborde, she has been performing Parra’s music since 1976. In 1980, she wrote her undergraduate senior thesis on Parra’s autobiography in verse. In 1996, she was the musical director and arranger for a tribute concert to Violeta Parra, supported by an Artists in the Community grant from the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department and recorded and released as Desborde, Tribute Concert to Violeta Parra. As a professor of Latin American History since 2004, she has welded her research on the history of women in Chile with her interest in Parra to acquire a deeper understanding of the social context and gender dynamics that shaped Parra’s life. Suffice to say, Verba’s book represents the culmination of a decades-long curiosity about Violeta Parra and engagement with her work.

Timeline

A biographer is always in relationship with their subject. My relationship with Violeta Parra goes back five decades. Here is a timeline.

1973 – 1976

High School Years

I first encountered Violeta Parra’s music in my early teens when I became friends with a family of musicians and artists from Chile. Like me, they had recently moved to the town of Brookline, MA, where Miguel, Sebastián, and I attended high school together. My Chilean peers taught me my first Parra songs and guided my political awakening to the brutality of the Pinochet dictatorship and the role of the US government in installing and supporting it. Miguel, Sebastián, and I have remained in contact over the years. Miguel is a composer and film producer (https://latinosbeyondreel.com/about/miguel-picker/), and Sebastián is a painter (www.sebastianpicker-retrospective.com/).

1975

Miguel Picker, Sebastián Picker, and Ericka Verba

1976 – 1981

College Years

During my college years, I was part of the US-based New Song group Sabiá. I first met fellow founding Sabiá members Cindy Harding and Mari Riddle at a gathering hosted by the Spanish Department during our freshman week at Brown University in Fall 1976. We were joined by Sue Kalt and Rachel Royce in 1977. We decided to name our all-women ensemble Sabiá after the Brazilian bird whose song is said to announce the springtime. Sabiá performed a repertoire Latin American folk music and New Song, with an emphasis on songs by and about women, including several by Violeta Parra. On the academic front, I wrote my undergraduate senior thesis on Parra’s autobiography in verse.

1978

Sabiá performs a set of Violeta Parra’s songs at the Conference of Inter-American Women Writers, held May 21-24 at the University of Ottowa, Ontario, Canada.

1978

Photo of Sabiá after performing at commencement, June 6 (back row – Mari Riddle, Sue Kalt; front row – Cindy Harding, Rachel Royce, Ericka Verba).

1980

Undergraduate senior thesis, “’Buscando el Oro Macizo Salgo Volando al Camino…Violeta Parra, her Life and her Poetry”

1982 – 1989

Touring with Sabiá

After graduating from college, I moved to L.A. with other members of Sabiá. The band became full-time, performing at festivals, universities, and schools throughout the United States and Canada. We toured Central America in 1983, playing in Salvadoran refugee camps in Honduras under the auspices of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and in Nicaragua by invitation of the Association of Sandinista Cultural Workers (ASTC). We released three albums: Formando un Puente/Building Bridges (Redwood Records, 1984), Portavoz (Flying Fish Records, 1986) and Sabiá Live! ¡En Vivo! (Flying Fish Records, 1989). Violeta Parra’s songs formed part of our repertoire throughout these years.

1982

Sabiá opens for Isabel Parra (Violeta Parra’s daughter) at a Chile Democrático fundraiser, held at a private home in the Los Angeles area.

1982

I give my first academic presentation on Violeta Parra at the Second International Conference on Women in Music, held at the University of Southern California, April 1-4.

1983

Sabiá (Cindy Harding, Libby Harding, Mari Riddle, Ericka Verba)

1984

Sabiá (Libby Harding, César Torres, Mari Riddle, Cindy Harding, Ericka Verba, Reyes Rodriguez)

1985

Sabiá opens for the Chilean New Song group Inti-Illimani, Robert Frost Auditorium, Culver City.

1985

Sabiá performs at a “Nueva Canción Symposium and Peña” held in May at UCLA.

1988

Sabiá celebrates its first decade at 10th anniversary concert, June 1988, Robert Frost Auditorium, Culver City, CA.

Four of the original members of Sabiá performing “Volver a los 17” (To Be 17 Again) at the concert. In order of appearance, Sue Kalt (charango and vocals), Cindy Harding (quena and vocals), Ericka Verba (guitar and vocals), and Mari Riddle (bombo and vocals).

1989 – 1999

Performing with Desborde / Doctoral Student in Latin American History

When Sabiá broke up in 1989, former Sabiá members Mari Riddle, César Torres, and I formed the L.A.-based New Song group Desborde together with Mercedes Márquez, Carl Byron, Julio Ledezma, and Rick Moors. Desborde performed at festivals, universities, and community centers throughout California across the 1990s. Our repertoire always included songs by Violeta Parra. I also earned my doctorate in Latin American History at UCLA during this same period.

1996

Desborde receives an Artists in the Community grant from the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department to put on a tribute concert to Violeta Parra. I serve as musical director and principal arranger for the concert, which features the participation of fourteen musicians from four continents. We present the tribute at Barnsdall Gallery Theater and in a reprise performance at the California Plaza in downtown Los Angeles. The concert is recorded and released as Desborde, Tribute Concert to Violeta Parra (Desalambrar Recordings, 1996).

1996

Tribute Concert to Violeta Parra

1996

“Pick of the Week,” LA Weekly, August 16-22

1996

Concert flyer

1998

Sabiá reunites to open for Isabel and Tita Parra (Violeta Parra’s daughter and granddaughter) in concert, October 23, in Los Angeles.

1999

I earn my PhD in Latin American History from UCLA.

(From left to right) Gabi Torres, Sidney Verba, Cynthia Verba, Margy Verba, Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Ericka Verba, Martina Verba

2000 – present

Professor, Latin American History

As a professor of Latin American History, I have welded my research on the history of women in Chile with my interest in Violeta Parra to acquire a deeper understanding of the social context and gender dynamics that shaped her life.

2004

I join the History Department at California State University, Dominguez Hills.

2007

I publish my first article on Parra, “Violeta Parra, Radio Chilena, and the ‘Battle in Defense of the Authentic’ during the 1950s in Chile,” Studies in Latin American Popular Culture.

2008

The original members of Sabiá are invited to the Celebration of 25 years of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Brown University, where we perform several songs by Violeta Parra.

2013

My article “To Paris and Back: Violeta Parra’s Transnational Performance of Authenticity” is published in The Americas.

2013

Members of Sabiá and Desborde perform songs by Violeta Parra at the Peña organized to mark the 40th anniversary of the Chilean military coup, held at SPARC (Social and Public Art Resource Center) in November.

2013 – 2014

I receive a National Endowment of the Humanities fellowship for 2013-2014 to research and write Violeta Parra’s biography.

2015

I start my current position as director of Latin American Studies at Cal State LA.

2017

I participate in International Colloquium Violeta Parra commemorating the centennial of her birth, held in August in Santiago, Chile, by invitation from the Chile’s National Council of Culture and the Arts and the Violeta Parra Foundation.

2017

My chapter “Back in the Days When She Sang Mexican Songs on the Radio…Before Violeta Parra was Violeta Parra” is published in Lorna Dillon (ed.), Violeta Parra: Life and Work.

2018

I participate in the colloquium “¡Gracias a la Vida! Celebrating Violeta Parra” at UCLA in March.

(From left to right) Rubén Hernández-León, Juan Pablo González, Ericka Verba, Nancy Morris, David Spener

2018

My chapter “Violeta Parra and the Chilean Folk Revival of the 1950s” is published in Patricia Vilches (ed.), Mapping Violeta Parra’s Cultural Landscapes.

2019

My article “‘Une Chilienne à Paris’: Violeta Parra, auténtica cosmopolita del siglo veinte” is published in a special issue dedicated to Parra of the on-line journal Artelogie, http://journals.openedition.org/artelogie/2963.

2020

I teach the December inter-session on-line seminar “Vida y poesía de Violeta Parra” for the Universidad de Santiago, Chile.

2021

I write the entry “Violeta Parra: Her Life, Work, and Legacy” for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, Oxford University Press.

2022

Sabiá and Desborde musicians Cindy Harding, Libby Harding, Gary Johnson, Ericka Verba, Mari Riddle, and Mercedes Marquez come together to perform Violeta Parra’s song “Volver a los 17” (To Be 17 Again) at Mari Riddle’s retirement celebration from her position as director of Grand Performances, held May 19 at the California Plaza, downtown Los Angeles.

2025

Publication of Thanks to Life: A Biography of Violeta Parra, The University of North Carolina Press.