AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We’re joined now in New York City by Ana Tijoux. She’s the French Chilean musician and hip-hop artist, known for her socially conscious lyrics. Her parents were exiled to France during the U.S.-backed Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. She returned there in 1993 and has been making music almost ever since. In the 1990s, she was part of the Chilean hip-hop group Makiza. As a solo artist, she had a breakthrough album called 1977 and has won multiple nominations for three Grammys and five Latin Grammys. Her work explores topics we address on Democracy Now!, from immigration to radical joy. She has a new album, Vida, which was released last year, her first album in a decade; now a new EP called Snake of Wood. As we speak, she’s releasing a new single from it, which is called —

ANA TIJOUX: “Retome la Pluma.”

AMY GOODMAN: Which means?

ANA TIJOUX: It’s to take the pencil once again to write.

AMY GOODMAN: Ah. Ana Tijoux, it’s great to have you with us again, after a decade. What an honor!

ANA TIJOUX: Thank you so much for inviting me. It’s more than an honor.

AMY GOODMAN: I actually want to go way back in time, as we enter this new era in the United States, going back to Chile. You actually weren’t born in Chile. You were born in France.

ANA TIJOUX: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about why?

ANA TIJOUX: Because we had a dictatorship in Chile, so my parents were exiled and —

AMY GOODMAN: Imprisoned before?

ANA TIJOUX: Yes, so that’s the reason a lot of us, like kids, we say the kids of the dictatorship, we was born and raised in other countries. In my case, it was France at that time.

AMY GOODMAN: For people who don’t know what happened on another September 11th, September 11th, 1973 —

ANA TIJOUX: 1973.

AMY GOODMAN: — if you can explain what the transition from a — well, you weren’t born yet, but from a democratic country, led by Salvador Allende, who died in the palace, on to Pinochet, and what that meant?

ANA TIJOUX: So, basically, Chile is a country in the end of América Latina, and we had the first socialist president-elect in democracy. And then there was all this intervention with — in Chile, because I think it was — Chile was dangerous, in some way, politically for the rest of América Latina. So, young people, as my parents — they were in university — begin to be organized, because there was feeling that something was going on, like. So we had a dictatorship, and all those people begin to be in jail, tortured or disappeared. And that’s the reason I was born in France after.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ana, could you talk about your new EP, the Serpiente de Madera, the symbolism of a wood snake?

ANA TIJOUX: I think I took the snake because I think, as an animal, it’s very interesting, the way that — of mutation and change; and wood from its family, and perhaps not the conventional family, but I mean about the community. And I think, in some way, it was interesting for me to — I think in this historical moment, we are in constant movement. And when we see the news everywhere in the world, everything goes so fast and so violent that we got to move all the time. I think everything is quick right now. And sometimes we — for me, it is important to come back to my community, to my people, to not lose that hope that make you continue to walk in this crazy life, basically.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk a little bit about your initial move into music, what drew you there, and what you hope to do with your music?

ANA TIJOUX: I fell in love with music when I was very young and because I had incredible parents that always put music at home. So I think that music for me always has been a way to meet other countries and understand the history of other countries, through music or through lyrics. And then I began to write when I was, I don’t know, 18 years old, something like that. And it was very therapeutical for me, in some way, like to understand myself in the world through lyrics. And it was a role for me, but also to understand who I was, really. And then I met this amazing community called hip-hop, and that is international, and I fell in love very quickly of all this creativity and all this energy that was there.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the new single that is just released, “Retome la Pluma,” what it means and how you wrote it?

ANA TIJOUX: Because I think I had, perhaps, like the syndromes of the white paper, we call, when you can’t write very — you have this difficulty of creativity.

AMY GOODMAN: A writer’s block?

ANA TIJOUX: Yes. ¿Cómo se llama? It’s the síndrome de la hoja en blanco. So, I think
that for —

AMY GOODMAN: Oh, you mean it’s like a blank page.

ANA TIJOUX: Yes, the blank page.

AMY GOODMAN: Ah.

ANA TIJOUX: Yes. And this song talk about that, to come back to write, and how important it is to write, and even write, because we are with our cellphone, and just write through papers, like what we used to do before, no? And this deep necessity, I think, of express and to find the correct words when you got this apotheotic confluence of stuff to say and you don’t know how to express. So, there’s some talk about that, basically.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about Víctor Jara. You know, it’s interesting. I was just on a plane to Indiana, and I sat next to a Chilean American, a man who was shocked that I knew the name of Salvador Allende, that knew about the whole history. He was going to a firefighters’ convention in Indianapolis. He was — but he said, “My god! I left there because of that.” And we talked about Víctor Jara, the great singer-songwriter who died at that time. What did his music mean to you? Of course, before you were born, but how did that inform you or inspire you?

ANA TIJOUX: I think Víctor Hara is the confluence of a lot of stuff. And I will talk about myself, but also about what is interesting about him. And it’s because he’s got something very special in the way of his poetic and be very consciousness through words. And I think that sometimes I talk with people that make hip-hop or rock or folklore, and everybody becomes super emotive, emotional with his music. So, it goes through something. And even I talked once with my friend Shadia Mansour, when we made the song, and she told me, like, “I love Víctor Jara. And I don’t understand everything, but I understand when” — of course, after she translate. And there is this energy of conviction, but also a lot of, cómo, sensitivity, I think, and then his music that is the complement with his lyrics.

AMY GOODMAN: Those lyrics you rap, just translated, “I don’t sing for the sake of singing or for having a good voice. I sing because the guitar has sense and reason.” You incorporate him into Vida.

ANA TIJOUX: All the time, all the time, because Víctor is like those people that influence who I am. And sometimes I think we’ve got to come back to this kind of musician and their music to not lose ourselves, because there is so much noise that — to remember who we are in some way.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Could you talk about the — you returned to Chile in the 1990s. Chile has one of the largest Palestinian diasporas outside of the Arab world. And your relationship to the Palestinians and also the ongoing genocide in Gaza?

ANA TIJOUX: Yes, I mean, I’ve got to be honest, my connection with Palestine, it was already in France, because a lot of Palestinian friends used to come at home in Paris, and my parents always talked to me about that history, since I was very, very young. And then, it’s true. When I came back to live in Chile, I realized that huge community of Palestinians in Chile is the biggest in Latin America. I think it’s the third biggest, after Jordania. And we got even the soccer team Club Palestino. We’ve got Estadio Palestino. And there is three cycles of immigration, the '20s, los cuarenta and the ’70s. So it's a huge community, and that made that we got this mix of culture between Chilean and Palestinian, and, of course, a solidarity, a natural solidarity, also.

AMY GOODMAN: In fact, the last time you were on, we talked about Shadia Mansour —

ANA TIJOUX: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — the Palestinian hip-hop artist, and the collaboration you did together, “Somos Sur,” “We Are the South.”

ANA TIJOUX: Yes, “We Are the South,” because, with Shadia, we had a friend in common, which name is Narcy, that is an Iraqian rapper that live in Canada. And so, I meet Shadia through — I don’t remember. It was an email. And basically, we connect very quickly, because, as me, she was born in England. I was born in France. But her parents are Palestinian. And so, it was this connection between our country and music and politic, and I think also, yes, and the way that we see the world.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, clearly, migration and anti-immigrant fervor has swept throughout not just Latin America, but Europe, as well. You were in — a rapper in Makiza, a hip-hop group in Chile, that had a hit song, “La Rosa de los Vientos.”

ANA TIJOUX: Uh-huh.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Talk about that song.

ANA TIJOUX: Basically, it’s a song that talk that I come from the world, and the importance of — about identity, and more right now that we live in this moment where immigration is the big anthem or the big topic around the world. Every government, when they make a campaign, they talk about anti-immigration. And we are all immigrants. So, this song talk about that, that I was born in another country. I came back to the country of my parents, which is my country, but there’s this multiplicity of countries that live in ourselves. And this talk about that, like a more — yes, I would say more identity, and this importance of that.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk, as well, about radical joy and whether you see art as a means of resistance?

ANA TIJOUX: Because I think we can’t give them our joy, to them, to the power. I think they want to take us, our happiness. And I’ve got a very good friend that is a clown in refugee camp, and he always told me, like, “Our biggest revenge against death is life, and to be full of life. And we fight because we are full of humanity. And we talk against the genocide because we are convinced that life is more important, always is more important.” And I think it’s the legacy of the history of my parents, what they teach me since I was a kid, and to have an internationalist vision about the world.

AMY GOODMAN: So, tell us what it’s like for you to come to the United States right now, during this time, two months into the Trump administration. As you were preparing to — as we were preparing for this interview today, you heard our show.

ANA TIJOUX: Yes, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: We were talking about this person picked up by masked agents in Vermont, this other person picked up in New York, this other person picked up on the streets of Massachusetts, hundreds of people losing their visas, hundreds of people being deported or simply sent out of the country, either to Salvador, to a supermax prison, before that, to Guantánamo. What do you think as you travel through the United States?

ANA TIJOUX: I was feeling these — I feel, because I just arrived two days ago, this bizarre curiosity. When I’m saying this, because I’ve got a lot of friends in this land. I’ve got friends from everywhere, different country, people that was raised here, other was born here, third generation from everywhere. And my father tell me, like, “Be careful.” And then, like, I was talking with my cousin today, and you’re talking about disappeared — ¿Cómo se dice desapariciones forzadas? — they make disappear people. And there is something that we know in América Latina about that mathematical violence. That’s something not new for us. That’s the way the North America make all the dictatorship in América Latina, with the same topic: disappear people and under the name of peace and a good economy. So, it’s terrible to say this, but I’m not surprised. That doesn’t mean that doesn’t violent me. That is violent, but that’s not a surprise me. I think it will be interesting how people will organize, the organization that will — the response of the community. I think that is the goal that right now as — of the people here, how to respond against this violence. And that’s the complexity, I guess.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to end by asking you about music and resistance. In the first weeks of the Trump administration — I mean, he knows the power of culture, and he’s often felt mocked by it. You know, during his rallies, one musician after another would say, “Cease and desist. You cannot use my music.” I also think back to World War II, to Hitler, who went after the cabaret scene almost immediately, because that’s where he felt most ridiculed. So, President Trump comes into office, and among his first acts was taking over the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He fired most of the board of directors, among them Jon Batiste of Stay Human.

ANA TIJOUX: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: And he installed his own people in the board. And then he became chair of the board and then went to the Kennedy Center and held a board of trustees meeting on the stage of the opera house. There’s just a portrait of John F Kennedy, because that’s who it’s named for. He installed four new portraits: the first one, of course, of himself, then of Melania, his wife, then of JD Vance, the vice president, and Usha Vance, his wife. And he said he’s going to usher in a new period of music and culture. One after another, artists and musicians canceled, or if they didn’t cancel, they held up signs or they made statements. Talk about the power of culture and resistance.

ANA TIJOUX: Those people is afraid of culture, because a culture is an answer, is an answer, a collective answer, to something. If you see all the dictatorship, genocide, it’s always a culture response all the time. And once again, this is a bit odd to say, but I’m not surprised that this person, like, is buffet, is creating this, “Oh, this is the lord. This is the way that we are going to put, like, the culture of what kind of music we are going to listen, the establishment of what is good and what is bad.”

And I think looking in the world has been interesting. I mean, for me, what happened in Palestine, like, the silence of our community in music, everybody is afraid to talk, and the silence is full of noise. Full of noise. But I think it’s interesting the answer. And there is a lot of people that is breaking that fear, because, of course, you’re afraid to lose work or whatever, and that is a point of resistance. So, to who we are — for who we are doing music? Why we are doing music? And where we want to go with our music? So, I think that the big question that we are answer, all of us, and how to organize ourselves in all the possible way.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you so much — 

ANA TIJOUX: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: — for being with us, Ana Tijoux, French Chilean musician, hip-hop artist known for her socially conscious lyrics. Her parents were imprisoned before going into exile in France during the U.S.-backed Pinochet regime in Chile. He reigned for some 17 years. Thousands of Chileans were killed, among them, in the first days in a stadium in Santiago, Víctor Jara. Ana returned to Chile in 1993 and has been making music almost ever since — in the 1990s, part of the Chilean hip-hop group Makiza; as a solo artist, had a breakthrough album called 1977 and has won multiple nominations for three Grammys, five Latin Grammys. Her work explores topics we address on Democracy Now!, from immigration to radical joy, launching her U.S. tour now, has a new album, Vida and a new EP called Serpiente de Madera. This is Democracy Now! To see this interview in Spanish, go to democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.