Northward Bound argues that the folksong is a viable and important document chronicling the history of Chicano/as in the United States. It traces Mexican emigration to the United States from 1848 to 1991 through the lyrics of Mexican ballads (corridos) and contemporary popular songs (canciones). These autobiographical songs reflect the relationship between individual experience and the history-making process.Over a century of Chicano history unfolds in the more than 150 folksongs Herrera-Sobek has gathered: lives of cowboys and outlaws; construction of the railroad; the Mexican revolution; the Roaring Twenties and subsequent Depression; the bracero experience; the CŽsar Ch‡vez farmworkersÕ union movements; responses to racism; Border Patrol brutality and border-crossing strategies.