Abstract: My approach to the Romancero, the Pan-Hispanic ballad tradition, crosses the boundary between medieval Iberia and modern Latin America and bridges the gap between national, chronological, and geographic divisions. The reasons for the Romancero's continued existence become readily apparent when it is examined in relation to the individuals who have preserved and molded its very character. In this way, we can better see the vital role that individual singers---particularly women---have played in the continuity of the tradition. As oral texts, many of the romances celebrate the power of female speech to subvert and transgress, while the singers themselves typically continue to conform to these cultural paradigms. The Romancero's oral form makes it an excellent medium for discussing women's roles, both within and outside the text, and for demonstrating that female voices can speak to us on a variety of levels. My study focuses on Delgadina, a father-daughter incest ballad of medieval origin that still survives in the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking worlds, and has many variants and cognates, including folktales, legends, and the romance of Silvana. At first glance, a ballad such as Delgadina seems to portray women as victims of male hegemony. Yet the poem can also be viewed as a way for women singers to express the power they may be denied in their own lives. The ballad's continued existence is a testimony to the power of oral narrative as a tool of affirmation for subaltern subjects. In the second part of my study, I examine how Delgadina adapts and survives in various Latin American contexts, particularly in Cuba and in Mexico. During fieldwork conducted in Cuba, I found that Hispanic ballads often co-exist as both romances sung by adults and as children's songs. In Mexico, Delgadina was adapted as a popular corrido (a Mexican and Mexican-American ballad) and became a part of Mexican folklore and popular imagination. The continued existence of Delgadina in oral tradition not only reveals people's ongoing fascination and horror with the incest taboo, but also embodies the highly ambiguous and problematic status of the female speaking subject.