Drawing on her expertise as a folklorist and her previous research on pulga culture, Norma E. Cantú, Ph.D., Murchison Professor of the Humanities, connects Paper Tiger’s Pulga Market to centuries-old traditions of Aztec open-air markets. In an article in the San Antonio Current, Cantu explains that pulgas are widespread wherever Latino communities flourish and serve social purposes beyond buying and selling: People gather, eat, listen and dance to music, celebrate traditions, and recreate a sense of community.
“It has to do with fulfilling the sense of community that migrants often yearn for. After mass, you go to the pulga and walk around, dance, listen to music. I see the Paper Tiger as parallel to that,” Cantú said. “The music is the essential element. And food, that’s the other part.”
At the Paper Tiger, that looks like a monthly “music flea market,” where you can find booths selling records, cassettes, VHS tapes and band merchandise. Read the full article here.