Mariachi Academy gets New York Strumming
A pilot project in East Harlem is bringing musical traditions from Mexico to children growing up in "a land of salsa and merengue."  

Despite mariachi's familiarity in the US Southwest, most New Yorkers are unfamiliar with this Mexican musical tradition.

However, the 1990s saw a shuffling of New York's Latino groups, with the City's Mexican population moving up to third (behind only Puerto Ricans and Dominicans) by the 2000 census. And increasingly, cultural groups are responding with a greater profile for residents of Mexican descent.

Last year Ramon Ponce, a local mariachi musician, worked with the Center for Traditional Music and Dance and obtained a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to open the Mariachi Academy of New York.  Students age 8 to 15 have been taking free instrument and voice lessons, learning to read music, and starting to perform (their debut was last Oct. 31, in celebration of Dia de Muertos, the Day of the Dead). Adult classes are expected to begin soon, but the focus of the program remains American-born, English-speaking children of immigrants.

In a recent New York Times article, another local mariachi musician, Jonathan Clark, observes that in Mexico there is a stigma associated with being a mariachi musician, but that Mexicans in the US find the music to be a good way to teach their children about their heritage and Mexican identity.

Link to the New York Times article (Jan. 28, 2003)

Link to Mariachi Academy article on the community website, EastHarlem.com

Link to the Center for Traditional Music and Dance