For students:

• Connects students with their history and culture.

• Increases awareness of diversity and the value of tolerance.

• Teaches teamwork, time management, critical thinking skills, public speaking skills, discipline and other core skills for any real-world jobs.

• Makes students want to come to school.

• Keeps grades high (mariachi and folklórico students are often among a school’s top achievers).

• Connects young people with core community issues and involves them in working towards solutions from an early age.

• Creates an atmosphere of gender and race parity and equality for students with a range of disabilities.

• Encourages planning for the future and empowers students with the tools to make their dreams come true.

• Often provides college scholarship for time spent in the group.

• Attracts other college scholarships.

• Creates life-long network of friends and associates.

• Instills pride and confidence.

• Bilingual component drives brain development related to communications skills.

• Musical and dance elements increase mathematical and spatial aptitude.

• Creates the habit of lifelong learning.

• Gives personal experiences of the broader world through travel and encounters with other cultural groups.

• Provides the example of real-world achievement for generations to come.

For schools:

• Instills community pride.

• Increases schools’ overall performance

• Decreases truancy and criminal activity

• Gets parents involved in educational issues

• Increases graduation and college matriculation rates.

• Helps make schools better for all students.

• Brings new, more diverse blood to administration.

• Improves learning overall.

For parents:

• Increases bonding with their children

• Connects parents with teachers and schools, increases involvement.

• Empowers parents to become involved in boards and tap into their own potential beyond the time when their kids are in school.

• Leads to leadership opportunities elsewhere in the community.

• Connects entire family with the broader community.

• Connects generations of family and increases family pride.

• Creates a lifelong network of other mariachi and folklórico family members.

For communities:

• Creates an educated, skilled, diverse and motivated workforce.

• Increases community economic power.

• Helps defuse racial tensions.

• Brings a more collective approach to community problem solving.

• Brings qualified and diverse leadership to the community.

• Decreases poverty.

• Aids in gang and youth crime abatement.

• Creates a more cohesive and proud community.

• Boosts tourism.

• Generates new support business opportunities.