Chris Batterman Cháirez, a new assistant professor of ethnomusicology at the University of California, Berkeley, is focusing his research and teaching on how music moves across borders and cultures. Growing up in Mexico City before moving to the United States, Batterman Cháirez noticed early on how music accompanied people as they migrated between countries.

“The music moved with my family,” said Batterman Cháirez, reflecting on his experiences living between Mexico and the U.S. He later lived in Atlanta and Brazil, performing as an upright bass player in jazz groups. During graduate studies at the University of Chicago, he returned to Mexico’s Michoacán state to study pirekua, traditional music of the Indigenous P’urhépecha communities.

At pirekua performances in Michoacán, Batterman Cháirez observed that concertgoers would livestream events for relatives who had migrated to U.S. states such as California, North Carolina, and Illinois. “Seeing this confirmed music’s importance and the fact that it’s always in motion with people,” he said.

This fall semester at UC Berkeley, Batterman Cháirez is teaching a course titled Music, Movement and Migration in Latin America. The class examines how musical genres have traveled with migrants across borders—such as between the U.S. and Mexico or Venezuela and Colombia—and explores transnational genres like reggaeton that arose from exchanges between New York hip hop scenes and Caribbean traditions.

Batterman Cháirez emphasized that migration is a pressing topic for students today: “We’re in a moment in U.S. political history where the discourse around migration is so vitriolic, and migrants themselves are in such a precarious position,” he said. He noted that many Berkeley students have personal or familial connections to migration due to the Bay Area’s long history as a destination for newcomers from around the world. “Many Berkeley students have a connection to migrants in some way, whether it’s through their own parents or their friends and families, and I’m hoping everyone can see themselves in the course a little bit.”

Students enrolled in his class will be asked to create musical movement maps tracing either global journeys or more local relocations—for example from Ohio to Berkeley—to reflect on their own connections to migration.

“I hope people will explore their own connections to migration, and reassess their relationship to music and movement and how it has impacted their lives,” Batterman Cháirez said. “Music is in everyone’s life in some way.”

He hopes students will consider how music shapes social experiences: “How does this change the way I think about music?” By broadening knowledge of diverse musical forms, Batterman Cháirez aims for students not only to recognize cultural differences but also shared similarities.