This essay chronicles the career of pioneering Mexican rock band Maldita Vecindad y los Hijos del 5 [degree] Patio. I argue that in a post-Chicano movement period, Maldita has become a borderless cultural institution influencing a generation of Mexicans on both sides of the border. Maldita has sought linkages with Mexicans from north and south through manifestos and music and through the revitalized figure of the pachuco. With its rock anthem "Pachuco," Maldita looked back to Mexican film actor German Valdes and his hybrid pachuco character, el Tin Tan, to explain a new rebellious Mexican punk spirit that drew inspiration from past musical fusions. Maldita returned to the same working-class musical milieu, the "quintopatiera" tradition, that gave rise to 1940s music of the pachuco phenomenon evident in compositions by Mexican Americans Don Tosti and Lalo Guerrero. Thus Maldita combines rumba, mambo, bolero, and danzon with new rock genres, infusing its music with cultural openness. (Contains 6 figures and 10 notes.)