Mariachi Strikes a Chord With Bay Area Youth, Preserving Tradition

This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. Click here to subscribe.

Santa Clara native Abril Dorado has loved mariachi music for as long as she can remember. Every time she saw a mariachi perform, she thought, “I want to do that, too.”

The 19-year-old picked up the violin in middle school. Her parents steered her toward classical music, but her interest in mariachi didn’t wane. She proved her talent when she surprised her parents at her quinceñera by performing two songs: an instrumental track and a cover of Solamente una Vez.

“I made them cry,” she said with a tone of satisfaction.

I met Dorado on a recent Friday morning when she performed live with Mariachi San José on Forum at KQED, the show I work on as a producer. She was the first to arrive, wearing her elegant black charro outfit.

“I started with classical music, but I love my culture and I wanted to play mariachi music so bad,” she said. “I’m doing what I love most.”

Dorado, a student at De Anza College in Cupertino, is among a growing number of young people in the Bay Area pursuing mariachi music. More Northern California schools are adding academic programs in an effort to catch up to more established offerings in places such as Southern California and Texas.

Mariachi San José is based at San José State University, which last year hired ethnomusicologist Jose Torres-Ramos to establish a mariachi studies program in the School of Music. The ensemble appeared on Forum to promote Fiesta Del Mariachi in San José on July 26. The perennial event draws local and nationally recognized mariachi groups.

“(Mariachi) is very infectious music because it has a lot of energy. It has a lot of sentiment,” Torres-Ramos said. “It sounds so cliche, but it’s very true that once you start playing mariachi, you fall in love with it and it becomes a passion.”

Mariachi is considered Mexico’s most popular musical genre, with fans and devotees spanning the globe. It’s also an older style that originated in the 18th century in the western state of Jalisco — and yet it is constantly evolving, keeping it fresh and relevant to young people.

Torres-Ramos, a Texas native, is well-versed in the intensity of high school mariachi programs there, where regional and state competitions are just as competitive as football. This dynamic is beautifully captured in the 2024 Netflix documentary Going Varsity in Mariachi, which you should definitely watch if you haven’t.

“If you’re Latino like I am, my father’s from Puerto Rico and my mother is of Mexican heritage, it’s a music that’s very much identified with Latino culture in general because its popularity spans throughout all of Latin America, not just in Mexico,” Torres-Ramos said. “When I started playing it, it was the one place where I could go and practice my culture. It made me feel like I could sing in Spanish.”

Like Dorado, I grew up hearing mariachi at special events or at home on the radio. I have a deep love for many of Mexico’s music genres — cumbia, nortena and banda — for dancing and parties, but when it comes to music that really encapsulates the emotionality of life, no other genre can match mariachi.

Many people associate mariachi with background music at a Mexican restaurant. In fact, one listener wrote into Forum to ask if mariachi was only happy and festive. “Are there any sad mariachi songs?” the listener wrote.

Mexican culture tends to prize stoicism, valiance and strength during hard times, but it’s perfectly acceptable to sob loudly during a mariachi song. The lyrics and melodies provide an outlet for complicated feelings.

My family has hired mariachi bands for weddings, funerals and milestone birthdays. In 2020, we had planned a big party for my mother’s 80th birthday, but had to cancel those plans because of the pandemic. Instead, we surprised her with a private mariachi concert in our backyard with just immediate family.

Hearing one of my favorite ranchera songs in the car, such as Amor Eterno (Eternal Love), a standard about losing a loved one, can bring me to tears.

Besides its emotional resonance, “there is so much pride in listening to and singing mariachi,” Dorado told me. This kind of music isn’t just an artistic and cultural import; it also affirms cultural identity and combats the erasure of Mexican heritage in the United States.

Mariachi education is especially important when the current presidential administration has attacked diversity programs, and California is walking back its plan to require high school students to take one ethnic studies class before graduation.

In the Bay Area, school districts in Castro Valley, Pleasanton and Alum Rock in San José offer mariachi instruction. Los Cenzontles in San Pablo, Mariachi Academy of Music in San José and Gilroy and Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa offer private programs.

A group from Sonoma County recently placed third in the California State Fair’s Viva El Mariachi youth competition on July 20, which drew nine teams from counties across the state.

“Opportunities for youth groups to compete and perform in public are less common in Northern California than they are in the southern part of the state, yet they are vital to a music education,” said Ashleigh Worley, director of education and community engagement for Luther Burbank Center, the organization that trained and sponsored the Sonoma County team, which was the only ensemble from the Bay Area that participated in the statewide competition.

Dorado wasn’t sure how to follow through on her desire to play mariachi until one of her instructors from the youth symphony connected her with Torres-Ramos to see if she could practice with Mariachi San José. She ended up joining as a member.

The group’s performance at the Fiesta del Mariachi was exhilarating, she said. Even practicing for eight hours a day for weeks leading up to the performance was “fun.” She plans to transfer to San José State to pursue a career as a speech pathologist and to continue learning and playing mariachi.

“I am going to take mariachi as far as I can. I would love to perform on big stages,” Dorado said. “I just want to do it. It makes me happy whether I play with a big professional group or a small group.”