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High School Mariachi on Top in Texas
Traditional Mexican Music Brings Teens Honors and Pride
 Listen to John Burnett's report.
Listen to Mariachi Santander perform a medley of tunes arranged by music teacher Yamil Yunes.
Members of Roma High School's Mariachi Santander
Photo: Ricardo Perez
 View a photo of the full band (46K)
Listen to Mariachi Santander perform a medley of tunes. The selections include "El Cascabel," "El Preso #9," "Vengo Desde Muy Lejos," and "Tierra Mia."
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The Mariachi Tradition
In Mexico, mariachi is a quintessentially oral tradition, passed from old to young in places like Plaza Garibaldi in Mexico City, and in villages in the mariachi heartlands of Jalisco and Guadalajara. The music came into being in the 19th century; Indian and mestizo musicians picked up Spanish violins, guitars and harps, and gave them a distinctly Mexican flavor. They played in counter-rhythms and sang about two-timing women, drunken husbands, and brave bulls.
Ever since it became popularized in movies and radio in the 1930s, mariachi has been the unofficial national music of Mexico. As Mexican Americans migrated throughout the United States, they brought mariachi with them. The idea of teaching mariachi in a classroom setting, though, is uniquely American. School-based mariachi programs are now found in such unlikely places as Wenatchee, Wash., Lansing, Mich., and Greenville, N.C. -- but they remain most popular in the southwest border states.
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April 21, 2002 -- Mariachi. For some people, the word evokes "loud trumpets in small restaurants, and the time they spent more on one song than the cost of an entire Number Two Enchilada Dinner," says NPR's John Burnett.
However, says Burnett, "When mariachi is good, it can be sublime -- a 13-piece orchestra of guitars, violins and horns playing fast and high-spirited, and singing from the depths of the Mexican soul." For Weekend Edition Sunday, Burnett reports on a music teacher in a small Texas border town who's helping keep mariachi alive and pass it on to the next generation.
The Mariachi Santander ensemble, from Roma High School in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, is "arguably the best high-school mariachi in the country," says Burnett. The band dominates every contest it enters. Every fall in San Antonio, there's a competition for Texas' 100-plus public-school mariachi ensembles -- and last fall, for the third year in a row, the Roma Mariachi placed first.
One reason is the spirited, committed musical director: 53-year-old Yamil Yunes, born in Monterrey, Mexico, to a Lebanese father and Spanish mother. He started out as a guitarist and vocalist for Latino pop bands, then converted to mariachi.
Another reason is Roma musicians' determination to rise above stereotypes about their school -- just 300 yards from Mexico -- and their hometown. When Roma (population 7,000) is mentioned in the newspapers, Burnett says, "it’s usually because of a major drug bust, or because Starr County has again made the list of the nation’s poorest counties." Members of Mariachi Roma are acutely aware of their town’s bleak reputation, says trumpeter Jorge Yunez: "Maybe that’s why we try so hard." Violinist Myra Martinez agrees: "Because they see Roma as this little town, what can come from it? They don’t think we can become anything. And so we try really hard because we want to prove that we can do this."
As the prize for winning in San Antonio, Mariachi Santander will travel to Atlanta next month to play concerts throughout the city, and to open for the world famous Mariachi Vargas.
Other Resources
• Find photos and schedules of mariachi conferences and concerts, and a state-by-state list of mariachi groups, at the Puro Mariachi Web site.
• Read more about Mariachi Santander's trip to play in Atlanta at the Mariachi Vargas Web site.
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