LATINO ROCKERS

Regarding Yvette Doss’ article on L.A.’s Chicano underground (“Unbound by Tradition,” Jan. 11), she may have nailed the reason why so few Latino bands have broken into the mainstream rock scene. She says, “Once a musician decides to call himself or herself a Chicano . . . he or she is generally considered too ‘ethnic’ or too ‘Latin’ for any mainstream record company.”

The perception that somehow being Latino makes you a “Latin band” regardless of what type of music you play is alive and well. An excellent example of this sort of thinking is BAM magazine’s nomination of Union 13 as outstanding rock en espan~ol artist for 1997. Had anyone at BAM had bothered to listen to their debut album “East Los Presents . . . ,” they would have discovered that most of the songs are in English. Just a quick read of their bio on Epitaph Records’ Web site (https://www.epitaph.com) reveals that the band members themselves have no desire to jump on the rock en espan~ol bandwagon.

Epitaph Records deserves credit not only for signing Union 13--which until very recently was playing the same East L.A. backyard parties as Teenage Rage, Majority Rules and many of the other bands featured on the F.O. Records “Propaganda” compilation mentioned in the article--but also for signing and supporting ska-punkers the Voodoo Glow Skulls, a mostly Latino band out of Riverside. Epitaph even went so far as to allow them to release an all-Spanish version of their Epitaph debut, “Firme.” If other record companies were as open-minded as Epitaph, maybe we wouldn’t be asking why more Latino rock bands aren’t being heard from.

VICTOR ESTRADA

Playa del Rey