News from the Narciso

A documentary series will air on BBC America featuring Brownsville and one of the Narciso’s house bands, The Chicken Club.

The series is hosted by Simon Schama*, a popular British historian and is entitled “The American Future: A History by Simon Schama.” This is a four-part series and Episode 3, “What is an American?”, deals with immigration focusing on Mexican, Chinese and Middle Eastern populations. This series aired all over Europe in the BBC and will air in the U.S. on Mon. 19 & Tues. 20th.

Episode 3 will air on Tuesday, Jan. 20 at 7:00 and 10:00 PM, CST

The Chicken Club is a tongue-in-cheek name for a group of musicians who gather each Tuesday to jam and barbeque chicken. They are led by Mr. Juan Lugo, accordion instructor at the Narciso. The BBC crew, and Mr. Schama himself, filmed the session in Mr. Lugo’s home in the border community of Laureles where they played norteño music for the film.

This film series is significant because of the stature of the host and the timely topics it covers as the U.S. goes through so many changes. Immigration and the discussion of “who is an American” continues to be at the core of that.

More information is available at BBC America.

*Hailed as “tv’s most popular historian” by the Telegraph of London, Dr. Simon Schama is a professor of history and art history who has written many books on history and the interface of history and culture; he was an art and cultural critic for The New Yorker. He is best known for writing and hosting the 15-part BBC series documentary, A History of Britain, which became one of the BBC’s best selling documentary DVDs. He received a record breaking advance of $5.3 million to produce three more programs, out of which came another documentary and book, Simon Schama’s Power of Art.