
Honduran singer-songwriter Karla Lara performed at the Mission Cultural Center on July 10 as part of a U.S. tour. Lara sang to a crowd of people from Honduras and other Latin American countries as well as Americans who praised her performance. Through song, she told the stories of pain that are the results of Hondurasâ history of oligarchic oppression and the struggle engaged by millions of people. Her lyrics, clear and ingenious, elicited laughter and tears from the crowd. Lara spoke with El Tecolote reporters Alejandra CuĂ©llar and Agustin Caballero about her music, last yearâs coup dâĂ©tat to oust Honduran president Manuel Zelaya and her U.S. tour.
What has this tour meant to you and what is the sense of your music in the context of the recent coup in Honduras?
One of the good things about looking at my musical trajectory is realizing weâve been in resistance for a long time now. Although some of the songs we played were born in the context of the coup, the whole repertoire of songs is from before the coup. Weâve always made music for resistance.
People tell me things like, âKarla your music has enough to it for you to be able to come here and stay a while.â My sisters tell me, âKarla get out for a bit, take some air,â but I canât see myself outside. What gives my music meaning is that itâs coming from there [Honduras], and that it has that link. For me itâs fundamental.
For me it has meaning because it has political meaning. For me, if singing was not being done in service to what Iâm doing, you can imagine what that implies.
Is there a consolidated group of artists against the coup in Honduras?
Itâs been the coup that has landed us there. There have been thousands of attempts [of artist organizing] but the most recent one was two years ago. We had formed a thing called MAR, Movimiento de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras del Arte (Art Workers Movement).
[At that time] we didnât agree with the law proposed by the Department of Culture to foment culture and arts, and in order to bring it down we had organized this movement that included all different artistic disciplines together. It had been terrific. We had gotten some victories but nothing else was happening and MAR had stayed floating in the air.
With the coup came the beginnings of the birth of the artistsâ resistance. First we called ourselves Artists Against the Coup and then since we all came to bear the name of resistance, then we became ANR, Artistas en Resistencia (Artists in Resistance).
I was walking by and someone yelled, âKarla, tomorrow thereâs a meeting!â I read the poster; it said the meeting was planned to define our position against the coup.
So I went and spoke to one of the organizers and said, âIs this a piñata party or what is it youâre thinking about doing tomorrow? Define our position? The ones who donât have their position defined are called golpistas. Iâm not gonna get called to a meeting to see people I canât bear to see to define a position. The position is [already] defined.â
âNow, in terms of what weâre going to do about our position against the coup, thatâs a good reason to call for a meeting. And what is this about inviting all the colors? Donât kid me, this is not a piñata party or is it?â
Several of us reacted in a similar way.
What was the coup like?
It was just like that, the 28th of June 2009 we were all getting up to go and vote for the referendum of the fourth ballot box [which would have called for a public consultation concerning an assembly to re-write the constitution], and at the end we were all in front of the presidential house horrified.
I was going to sing that day, because since much of what I sing about deals with womenâs rights; I have always been close to the feminist movement independently. In service of the fourth ballot box [referendum], we had a presentation there [at the presidential house].
The whole day before, everyone was in service of the referendum, some were going to be observers, others would be in charge of different tasks, and we all woke up [that day] confused [about what to do after we heard about the coup].

How did you hear about it?
Well I heard through a phone call because there was no radio since there was no electricity because they cut everything so that we wouldnât find out about what was going on.
So someone called on the phone in the morning, I think it was my older sister, and she said, âLook, thereâs been a coup dâĂ©tat.â And I was like, âSo now what? What is that like?â
I lived in a low-income neighborhood in La Vega by el Pedregal, a neighborhood with lots of pedestrian walkways, and everybody on the block was asking, âWhat is going on? What is it like?â
And everyone went around to buy groceries; we said we have to buy things.
And itâs like you donât know. What is a coup dâĂ©tat? I mean, what does it mean? How does it translate in your life?
I remember we went to the grocery store. We bought what we could and we went home to my sisterâs and it was very confusing. And then everyone went to the presidential house and I remember my kids asking me, âMom, whatâs going to happen?â Right? You also donât know how to explain whatâs coming.
And then everyone has that need; everyone is looking for information, so you looked for the Internet, and what Internet was there? There was no electricity in the entire country â they cut it for a long time â and you could hear planes and helicopters and you felt like a little fear; [hereâs] this thing and you donât really know what it is.
And itâs that. What does a coup dâetat mean? Whatâs going to happen? And also the uncertainty, because not having electricity, and for no one to have lights, itâs a really shocking thing.
Everyone is asking each other, âIs there light in your house? Is there light in your house?â
Also this democracy thing, so-called âdemocracy,â is so recent. Itâs only been since [19]82 that weâve had democratically-elected governments so it was also like, âDamn, the military again? It just canât be.â
What happened after the coup? Did it force people to define themselves on a certain side?
Those who say the coup divided Honduran society â I donât believe that. What happens is that with such radically grotesque situations, what they define is pretty clear â what the struggle is about.
But one has to wonder, âDid it divide people?â This society has grown divided between the rich, and the poor and really poor and the poor who donât realize the reason or the origin of their poverty, and what the coup does is it shakes your head so you can say, âOh itâs true. You can get killed for thinking differently.â
Because another one of the characteristics of the resistance is that it isnât even organized resistance. I would say that 60 percent of the resistance is people who of their own will without belonging to anything â boom â they went and there they stayed resisting.
The social movement in the country has been asleep, but asleep for year and years and the country is [now] reactivating.
The country has changed a huge deal in a year. No one could have imagined [the changes]. Before, what was it like to talk about politics in Honduras? You were either liberal or nationalist and that was that and you were nationalist or liberal genetically. If your grandfather was liberal and your father was liberal then you were liberal.
When in Honduras did you hear the word âleftâ like we can say now? Although they might kill us for it, we dare say it â âleftâ, âfeminismâ, âthe oligarchyâ â questioning that the system doesnât work.
You see sixteen year olds getting their political schooling, questioning the system, saying itâs the system that doesnât work, and this has only been a year. Can you imagine how recent it is?
If your partner in a protest is gay, you realize you donât have to scream out to the golpistas [coup supporters], âÂĄCulero!â, which is gay in its pejorative. Because someone says, âDonât call them âculeros,â donât insult them with that; call [the golpistas] âmurderersâ but if you call them âculerosâ you are insulting me.â
And for them to have respect for sexual diversity, that is totally new.

Have you experienced censorship since the coup?
There has always been censorship from the commercial media, total censorship. It happened to me with my first album.
But I must say, we have to value the new spaces that alternative community radio has opened, and all those webs of radios on the Internet and those great Latin American networks.
And we also have to value the phenomenon of community local radio in a different dimension because people have to go through great toils to have their community radio, not just because of the problem with resources, but because, how the hell do they make it so that your radio exists with the kind of repression they live under? They are positioned in the mouth of the wolf in those small communities and there they still hold their radios. How do they do it? I donât know.
But we have to value that space because it also shows that small Latin American towns are looking for that way of connecting, coming together and creating a new identity, and itâs also a challenge to the great transnational [media] that lies. That way we can break the media fences.