Los Changuitos Feos ca. 1965
So often these days I look at the news and am absolutely slack-jawed. If you told me back in 1964 when the Los Changuitos Feos youth mariachi was founded in Tucson that the headlines that occur daily could ever happen at this phase of my life, I simply never would have believed it.
And that’s part of why I am so focused on this project. Because something good HAS happened and continues to happen. I look at the summer mariachi programs and folklórico dance workshops going on around my city and I see an army of kids connecting with their culture and learning skills that will propel them in life. I see generations of Hispanic youth who stayed in school, did well, graduated, went on to college and lifted their community socially, politically, artistically and more. I see a more blended community that appreciates its multicultural heritage. I see hope that defies the depressing headlines, and a promising, better future for America.
That is why I stay focused on The Mariachi Miracle and am so doggedly intent to finish the film and book project and put it in front of the eyeballs of the world. So that those who accomplished this and are in progress now can see what is being done. So the country can see a promising way of engaging youth in education and community service. And so the screaming idiots who vilify people other than their own race can see what a determined community can do to achieve the American dream by using its own culture and work ethic to solve its own problems and make the world a better place.
Right now I need help keeping this all rolling. The project is flat broke and needs to continue filming, interviewing and marching toward that mid-October deadline to wrap principal photography and move on to post production for a spring 2017 premiere. A stall out now would be devastating. The hope of major funding is welling up on the horizon, but we have to get through the next few months to get there and negotiations will take time. Without help now, we simply won’t make it.
I ask your help to make this vision a reality. I have seen what a determined community can do, and how great ideas spread like wildfire. I have seen transformational power in action. Please help me do this. Share this with your friends. Donate whatever you can. But keep The Mariachi Miracle moving.
Thank you so much for all that you do.
– Daniel Buckley
Producer/Director
The Mariachi Miracle
