While growing up in Forest Grove in the early 2000s, Charlie Garcia had heard snatches of mariachi music. “But I never paid much attention to it,” he remembers. “Mariachi was just part of the culture. I would see it at family parties, church or quinceañeras.”

Ever since he’d begun violin studies in third grade, Garcia’s main musical focus had been Western classical. But something changed some years later, when his grandfather died. At the funeral, he saw other teenagers, from Hillsboro’s Mariachi Una Voz, playing mariachi music in celebration and remembrance, and directly linked to his own family. For the first time, Garcia felt an emotional connection to the music of his Latino heritage. 

“It was something different,” from his usual musical diet, he recalls, “but at the same time, it felt familiar. That familiarity was calling to me.”

He heeded the call. When a mariachi program started up at Forest Grove High School, Garcia joined. Soon he was performing with the school’s new band, Mariachi Tradición, in community events and even at national competitions. Now he’s pursuing his mariachi muse in college, performing in a major Texas mariachi band and studying mariachi in music education. 

This Saturday, Garcia is back in Oregon to perform with other alumni and current members at the ensemble’s tenth anniversary concert, alongside one of the country’s most renowned professional ensembles. The performance at Beaverton’s Patricia Reser Center for the Arts offers an ideal opportunity for both mariachi mavens and newbies to experience a vibrant centuries-old art form that draws on tradition while embracing contemporary influences — and cultivating new generations of performers and listeners. It also represents onstage the emergence of a valuable form of musical and cultural education.

From Mexico to Oregon and beyond

Mariachi music emerged in western Mexico in the 18^th century, and diversified as it spread throughout that country. Like so many other Western Hemisphere musical forms, from blues to Broadway, rock to hip hop, it blended influences and instrumentation from many cultures to create a sturdy hybrid that’s steadily increasing in popularity in the United States as our population diversifies. Now, the term “mariachi” encompasses a wide range of musical styles, from sentimental ballads to some of the most upbeat, joyous sounds on the planet.

Today’s bands in the U.S. usually contain violins, guitars and other string instruments such as vihuela and guitarron, trumpets, and singers. The musicians traditionally sport flashy elaborate uniforms called trajes or charros.

Although some major touring acts perform in concert halls, mariachi bands are more commonly seen playing at private or public community events like birthday parties, confirmations, quinceañeras, and, yes, funerals.

And it’s moving from its original oral tradition to formal educational settings. Mariachi programs have been springing up in American schools for decades now, starting in Los Angeles and then South Texas in the 1960s, and spreading to other states with substantial Latino populations. 

Mariachi reached Oregon schools in 2003 when band director Brian Gingerich created the pioneering program at Woodburn High School. The Willamette Valley town, a hub for migrant farm workers for decades, boasts one of the state’s highest percentages of residents of Latino heritage, including a majority of both the city and the high school’s population. Its Fiesta Mexicana stretches back six decades. School administrators wanted to celebrate Woodburn’s multicultural heritage and attract more Latino students to band. When Gingerich retired in 2019, he was succeeded by Nadia Maksimova, a former Woodburn student who’d played in the school’s mariachi program and whom Gingerich had mentored. 

As Oregon’s oldest school mariachi band, the Woodburn ensemble plays about 40 gigs a year at community, college, and private events, including Portland’s Schnitzer Concert Hall, Moda Center (at Portland Trail Blazers games), and the state capitol. Proceeds help raise funds for its travel expenses, colorful charros, and instruments. Some students have maintained their interest even after graduation, such as the young members of Mariachi Luz de Oro, whom you might have seen performing last weekend at Multnomah County Fair. 

Mariachi education soon spread to other Oregon schools. When the Woodburn mariachi band performed at Springfield High School in 2007, the experience inspired that school’s students to ask Multicultural Services Coordinator Elena Espinoza to start a program there. Band director Christopher Holt had the same idea, and the next year, they created Mariachi del Sol, Oregon’s second oldest school mariachi program. 

Now directed by music teacher Jon Bridges, the ensemble has performed with major touring bands, won numerous awards and grants, and was even featured on Good Morning America in 2023. It plays around 40 shows a year, including last year’s National Memorial Day Parade in Washington DC.

In 2010, Hillsboro elementary school teacher and jazz musician Dan Bosshardt founded and still directs Mariachi Una Voz, open to all Hillsboro School District middle school and high school students. Although they have similarities and differences, these school curricula are devoted to cultural as well as musical education, both for the students who participate and the community members who hear and see them. 

Mariachi is even reaching the halls of higher ed. Una Voz leader Samuel Castro brought mariachi education to Portland State University last year. He now directs PSU’s new Mariachi Rosa Real, which performs around the Portland metro area, including at last week’s Multnomah County Fair. Participating PSU faculty, staff, and community members can earn course credit. 

New Tradition

Lesslie Nuñez brought mariachi to Forest Grove schools in her first year teaching at Neil Armstrong Middle School. In 2015, the Southern Oregon native was hired to build the orchestra program. “I wanted to hear something I wish I’d had growing up in grade school,” she remembers. 

Nuñez began violin study at age seven. A few months later, her teacher told her, “You’re ready for your first gig.” She played at a wedding, and realized it was possible “to have fun making music,” she recalls, “and get paid.”

Nuñez studied mariachi as a teenager, performing as a violinist with several Oregon mariachi groups, and also participating in folkloric ballet. She went on to earn her Bachelor’s degree in music at the University of Oregon and later a Master’s degree from Portland State University.

After starting mariachi as an after school club at Armstrong, Nuñez quickly established elective classes there and at Forest Grove High School, where she serves as mariachi and orchestra director. Along with those two schools, she was also teaching at an elementary school in the district, but now works at the high school full time.

At first, Nuñez taught students to play by rote, but soon “started reaching out to more folks in the mariachi community, sharing more resources, getting access to sheet music,” she says. Hillsboro’s Bosshardt provided method books and other advice, as did other Northwest school mariachi teachers. 

Like the other Oregon schools where mariachi education has gained a foothold, Forest Grove has a sizable Latino population. But the students’ musical backgrounds vary. “Some come from families that listen to a lot of mariachi,” Nuñez says. “Some have parents who were professional musicians but didn’t continue playing full time. They may be familiar with three or four classic mariachi songs.” 

Nuñez recruits from the school orchestra program, so all performers have at least a year of musical training. Many start music study in fifth grade. Some also come from the schools’ ballet folklorico programs.

They embarked on constant fundraising, including selling everything from baked goods to tamales, needed to buy instruments, trajes (uniforms), and music, and, soon enough, to travel to conferences, competitions, performances, and festivals. 

“What’s really motivated and inspired this specific group are the opportunities to go to international conferences,” Nuñez explains. Those journeys in turn provided more contacts and educational resources for the Forest Grove program. 

In 2018, the schools’ performing ensemble, Mariachi Tradición, performed at Tucson’s International Mariachi Festival and the next year at another festival at University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, which hosts one of North America’s pre-eminent mariachi music programs.

That same year, the audition-based 14-member band opened for George Lopez at Portland’s Keller Auditorium, and for the major touring band La Santa Cecilia at Revolution Hall. It’s since played Oregon’s Pickathon festival, collaborated with the Metropolitan Youth Symphony, Oregon Symphony, and Portland chanteuse Edna Vazquez, and opened for other major touring ensembles such as the venerable Mariachi Vargas and Flor de Toloache at the PDX Jazz Festival. Nuñez says the program is “constantly getting requests” to perform at public and private events. 

Last year, Mariachi Tradición placed first in the state high school music competition among large string ensembles, competing against groups playing classical music. Nunez says competition administrators then decided to create a new mariachi category. 

Mariachi Tradición musicians have gone on to play and study mariachi at universities in Oregon and beyond. Two alumni play with professional Portland area mariachi bands. 

Educational Vehicle

One of those star alumni is Charlie Garcia, whom Nunez recruited for the nascent program from the school orchestra, where he played viola, in 2017, his junior year. After the music resonated with him so much at his grandfather’s funeral, Garcia was intrigued. 

“I had this curiosity about mariachi, wanting to learn more about the history,” he says. “Growing up, I loved classical music and still continue to love and appreciate that music. As a Mexican American student, I didn’t see myself represented in those programs. When I joined mariachi, I immediately felt this sense of being comfortable. Everyone you play with speaks the same language. It kind of gave me a sense of belonging.“

And a sense of excitement. “When I joined, the program was barely getting started,” Garcia remembers. “We were building it from scratch. Every performance was something new for us to experience. From practicing during lunch time at the high school to performing in Arizona for a national mariachi competition, there were so many moments when I felt so grateful.”

Mariachi continues to enrich Garcia’s life. After graduating from Forest Grove High School, he enrolled in the nation’s premier mariachi studies program at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, near the Mexican border, where he’s completing his Bachelor’s degree studies in Music Education with a concentration in Mariachi Studies. He’s explored the multiple educational values of learning the music and the culture that produced it. 

“One of the main things that’s really special about [mariachi education] is that it shifts the focus from classical Western European music to other styles and forms of music,” he explains. “By doing that, we can invite a greater diversity of students into school music programs, make them more representative in music education.” Moreover, that sense of belonging Garcia mentioned attracts a wider variety of students, who might not otherwise feel welcome, to studying music.

Mariachi also offers students a broader range of artistic study than most classical music oriented studies. “In comparison to other music programs, mariachi combines aspects of orchestra, band, and choir into one little group,” he says. “Mariachi is not just all party music. That’s an important part of it — but it’s not the only style of music you can play. Mexico has a great variety of folk music styles and techniques” and students benefit from exploring that diversity. 

As mariachi has spread (with help from the internet), the music has incorporated influences and even instruments from different regions than the western Mexican roots of most mariachi North Americans encounter. For example, Garcia notes that some Sinaloa-based big bands incorporate a variety of wind instruments, not just the strings that dominate here. 

“Mariachi doesn’t just come from one place anymore,” he explains. “It’s common across the whole country, and mariachi can adapt to all these different styles — classical, jazz, folk.” Those elements in turn become part of the curriculum for students.

Along with his violin and viola, Garcia himself now plays guitarron, guitar, and vijuela, performs in the school’s Mariachi Aztlán (which has performed across Mexico and the U.S.), and serves as music director at a Mariachi STEAM Camp (STEAM stands for Science, Technolog, Engineering, Arts, and Math) he once attended himself. He plans to continue learning all he can about the art form and its educational components in the South Texas mariachi hotbed before eventually returning to Oregon and teaching in the schools here.

Celebration Concert

Garcia will be back in Oregon to perform with the current Forest Grove High School ensemble and other program alumni in Mariachi Tradición’s 10th anniversary celebration concert at the Reser Center on Saturday. The show features the dazzling East LA band Las Cafeteras, which brought its signature blend of traditional folk, Afro-Mexican rhythms, and cumbia, and toured the world with their unique blend of traditional folk, Afro-Mexican rhythms, and cumbia. 

The performance also includes collaborations with Ballet Folklorico Mexico en la Piel Academia and other guest artists. It’s a fine opportunity to experience mariachi’s colorful past, rich present, and expansive future, and to celebrate a burgeoning, multicultural approach to music education emerging from one of Oregon’s most artistically vital cultures. 

The Forest Grove Mariachi Tradición 10th Anniversary Celebration Feat, featuring Las Cafeteras, is at 7pm this Saturday, May 31 at Beaverton‘s Patricia Reser Center for the Arts. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit the Reser Center.