What do a crawfish, a cowboy mouse, and a 100-year-old woman have in common? They are all characters in Fiesta Mexicana: Mexican Songs & Stories for Niños & Niñas and their Papás & Mamás (release April 24, 2010), the latest recording by Sones de Mexico Ensemble. The same band that three years ago ventured into uncharted waters with Mexican folk retoolings of Led Zeppelin's "Four Sticks" and J.S. Bach's "Brandenburg 3-2" for their GRAMMYTM and Latin GRAMMYTM nominated album Esta Tierra Es Tuya (This Land Is Your Land) now digs deep into Mexican folklore. The sextet, formed by Victor Pichardo (music director), Juan Díes (producer), Lorena Iñiguez, Juan Rivera, Zacbé Pichardo, and Javier Saume offers something new to a generation of kids that is growing up in a globalized world: a bilingual, double album for the 21st Century with 44 tracks that include songs over 300-years-old, fantastic characters, and children's entertainers Dan Zanes and Ella Jenkins as special guests singing in Spanish.
As Mexico celebrates its 200th birthday in 2010, Fiesta Mexicana addresses a "gap in quality educational programming," says producer and bassist Juan Díes. According to a recent Pew Research Center report, "Hispanics now make up 22% of all children under the age of 18 in the United States-up from 9% in 1980-...A majority (52%) of the nation's 16 million Hispanic children are now ‘second generation,' meaning they are the U.S.-born sons or daughters of at least one foreign-born parent." "Parents and educators often complain about the lack of quality programs and materials to help kids of Mexican ancestry maintain a connection to their family's roots," says Díes. "Our response is Fiesta Mexicana."
But Fiesta Mexicana does not only address Mexican-American kids, says Díes. "It's for everyone who lives in this bilingual and bicultural environment." The lessons are universal, not just about Mexican culture; he adds, "kids learn about tempo in music, about loving animals, and about the importance of balance in the world and in one's self." "We are educators at heart," says music director Víctor Pichardo, who was brought to Chicago 17 years ago by an arts education organization and conceived Fiesta Mexicana to teach children about Mexican heritage through story and song.
Sones de Mexico Ensemble began performing this educational program in Chicago schools in 1994 and as demand grew took it to audiences throughout the country. "Over the years," Díes remarks, "this program has been polished like a pebble in a stream, evolving as the band has responded to the reactions of kids." Taking audiences of all ages on a musical tour of Mexico, the program incorporates a diverse range of acoustic folk music and folklore from several regions of the country, even including lesser-known Aztec, Mayan, Zoque, and P'urhépecha traditions. "We have a profound respect for the indigenous peoples of Mexico," Pichardo says, "because their art expresses something very deep. One way to honor them is to include these kinds of works in our program."
To also address the needs of American children who are growing up in an increasingly bilingual nation, Fiesta Mexicana is a double album, one disc in English and one in Spanish. "Kids are being exposed to both languages," Díes notes, "in a way that their parents were not. This is not only happening in big cities but also smaller U.S. towns. Many older generation Mexican Americans who grew up in the U.S. 20 or more years ago regret that their parents or their schools never encouraged them to cultivate Spanish or their Mexican heritage; some of them even try to regain both as adults. We see them among our fans, and we open our arms to them. Remarkably, we now run into (non-Hispanic) white or African American children in the schools who walk up and speak Spanish to us because they think it is cool. Clearly and increasingly, it's not shameful for kids in schools nowadays to have a foreign identity. You don't have to check it at the door at Ellis Island."
In this spirit, Fiesta Mexicana invites anyone interested in good, fun music and stories for any age to join this musical adventure. As a showcase of traditional and classic Mexican folk tunes, it can also work as a celebration of identity and pride for young Mexican-Americans. "Sometimes after a show," Díes recalls, "a kid will come up to me and tug on my shirt, and say ‘Hey, I'm Mexican!' After seeing our show, they feel proud to be Mexican, maybe for the first time." Sones de Mexico Ensemble dancer and percussionist Lorena Iñiguez recalls that during a workshop, when she was asked how she got started, she replied that she began dancing with Grupo Netzahualcóyotl (named after the pre-Columbian poet-king), and a child jumped up and said, "Hey, that's my name!" "Apparently," she remarks, "the boy had always suffered with this Aztec name because it was different and hard for others to pronounce, and kids made fun of him. But, for this moment, the boy could feel proud of his name and heritage." "When we perform at schools, students from Mexican parents go out of their way to raise their hands. It brings them a sense of belonging."
