Become part of the Mariachi Miracle support team!
There are three easy ways to support The Mariachi Miracle:
- Tax Deductible donation:
Want to make a tax-deductible contribution of any size through our fiscal sponsor, La Frontera?
Make your check payable to La Frontera Arizona, Inc. and (very important) WRITE THE MARIACHI MIRACLE IN THE “Memo” line on the bottom left of the check.
Mail the check to
La Frontera Arizona, Inc.
Attn. Kathy Wells
504 W 29th St.
Tucson, Az. 85713-3353
- By credit card (not tax deductible) through PayPal
If you don’t need a tax deduction and would like to just make a credit card donation now, click the Donate button on any page of The Mariachi Miracle website.
The Mariachi Miracle has been a ten-year project examining how youth mariachi and folklorico groups have, over nearly sixty years, helped transform the socio-economic, educational, political and artistic fabric of our city. Nearly 250 interviews were conducted with the people who lived it – former and current mariachi and folklorico students, parents, educators, administrators, political leaders and more. In addition hundreds, if not thousands, of community events, concert performances, workshops, school sessions and of course the Tucson International Mariachi Conference events have been filmed for this project, generating just shy of 1,000,000 still images as well as a mother lode of video content. All of this will go into future spinoff projects, as well as the Mariachi Miracle.
The goal of The Mariachi Miracle is to make the case that these important music and dance programs from private programs and public schools do so much more than merely teach music and dance. They connect students to their cultural roots. They make school a place students look forward to going every day. They connect students and families to their communities and make them active agents in problem solving from an early age. They help create a more civil society. They decrease gang and criminal activity. And most of all, they put kids on a path to their dreams through college scholarships and through the life skills that become engrained in the students as they become great musicians and dancers.
In addition they show parents that they have the skills to organize and get things done in their communities. And often they give back in unexpected ways to other cultural communities in Tucson.
Tucson is a very different place today from 1964 when Mariachi Los Changuitos Feos became the nation’s first youth mariachi. Our youth mariachis and folklorico dance communities have helped create those transformations and have earned a place alongside the saguaro cactus as symbols of modern Tucson.
While the film and book focus on Tucson, the lessons carry over to other communities where youth mariachi and folklorico programs have taken root. It’s hoped that the film and book will become a resource for both Tucson groups and other communities to make the case for how important these programs are everywhere, and how the mariachi movement is changing America.
