Clad in red trajes de charros, all 13 members of Sam Houston High School’s varsity mariachi bowed their heads in a cramped dressing room Saturday morning to pray. In minutes, they would be on stage at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo’s Invitational Mariachi Competition.
“Dear God, we’re gonna be amazing today,” said Diana Navarro Castañeda, head director of El Mariachi Tejano. “Please give all my kids the confidence that I know they have deep down.
El Mariachi Tejano is Arlington ISD’s only mariachi program. In 2020, Navarro Castañeda took over the group at just 21. Three years later, she led them to becoming one of 29 6-A mariachis in Texas to compete in the University Interscholastic League state competition.
With strong ties to Mexican culture, mariachis are ensembles usually consisting of various string and brass instruments. The art form incorporates other elements like singing and staging
While attending Stephen F. Austin State University, Navarro Castañeda was in a euphonium and tuba ensemble. One of her friends who did mariachi in high school wanted to start one at the college and to her surprise, asked Navarro Castañeda to join.
“I was like, ‘What are you talking about, dude? I've never sang in my life,’” she said.
Since her friend didn’t know any other Spanish speakers, Castañeda accepted the offer and soon fell in love with mariachi. For her, mariachi felt like a combination of every fine art.
“I had no experience with guitars and strings and I was really scared to try something new, but I decided to take a leap of faith, and I'm really glad I did because now I super love it,” she said.
After graduating, Navarro Castañeda got an email from SFAU’s band director, offering for her to teach mariachi at Sam Houston High School.
Beginning with 20 students, she said getting to grow the mariachi to its current size of almost 50 has made her really happy. Besides varsity, El Tejano Mariachi has a junior varsity and beginner ensemble.
Many students are also in different organizations including athletics, National Honor Society and student council, while others work jobs outside school. Some members even organize practice sessions at each other’s houses on their own accord, which she’s thankful for. Since she’s the group’s only director, Navarro Castañeda said she can’t hold as many practices as she’d like.
“They wouldn’t do it if they didn’t enjoy it,” she said. “And you get to see it when they finally get to play. Even though we play multiple songs and the same songs for different events, they love it.”
Maritza Lopez, El Mariachi Tejano social officer and junior trumpeter, has loved mariachi since childhood.
El Mariachi Tejano was invited to perform at Lopez’s elementary school years ago, and since laying eyes on them, her future was set in stone. She said she loved the way they looked, played and sang but noticed not many girls were in the ensemble.
“I made a promise to myself that I was going to join mariachi when I came to high school,” Lopez said.
Now as a social officer for the same mariachi she looked up to, it’s her job to keep the group together and help every member feel at home.
She said the best part of fulfilling her promise to herself has been the environment she gets to be in — one filled with close bonds.
“Everybody has different backgrounds,” Lopez said. “Everybody has different situationships and we all just come together. Everybody sets that aside — we call ourselves a family.”
The students’ problems are far from limited to mariachi. The music and environment serve as an escape for some.
“A lot of them have family problems and jobs [where] they got to pay their own bills and things like that,” Navarro Castañeda said. “This is a good place for them to just relax and work on something that distracts them from that.”
She said being in mariachi is hard work and can be stressful at times. Despite that, it’s closer to a fun activity rather than a job for them.
Castañeda said she remembers how intimidated her students were by the crowd and professional stage the first time she took a group to the stock show. The more competitions they attended, the easier it became. Eventually, Castañeda started taking younger students too.
El Mariachi Tejano’s hours of hard work and practice impact how they perform at competitions, which they view as a test of knowledge.
Now, she uses the stock show competition as practice for UIL. For the students, competitions mean everything.
Friday evening before the stock show invitational, El Mariachi Tejano gathered in their school’s auditorium for a final afternoon of practice.
Sounds of strings and brass mingled with exuberant voices. Navarro Castañeda describes mariachi music as freeing — the students chased that feeling in their last full run before the Jan. 18 competition.
Xochitl Salto, El Mariachi Tejano president and senior guitarist, is pushing not only for the group to make it to the UIL state competition but to also develop a strong foundation for the next varsity team.
Salto joined the mariachi as a freshman, and while already familiar with the music, she remembers being intimidated by the new experience. Despite that, she quickly grew close to her peers.
“After that first year, everything kind of was solidified in the sense of, ‘Oh yeah, these are my friends. These are my family,’” she said.
It brings Salto pride to be a part of mariachi.
That same pride was carried by every member heading into Saturday’s competition.
In a small alleyway backstage, some students watched keenly as other mariachis performed before them. The air was damp with anticipation as they relished and studied every note, song and gesture of their peers.
Eventually, it was El Mariachi Tejano’s turn to take to the stage. When walking across the stage, they were greeted by several audience members there to support them, from junior varsity and beginner mariachi members to family and alumni.
Angie Jimenez, El Tejano Mariachi vice president and senior violinist, felt honored to perform in front of the audience.
“In that crowd, my sister was right there,” Jimenez said. “She’s part of the beginners, and I wanted to give it everything I could for her.”
For the duration of their nine-minute performance, no eye in the auditorium shifted away from the bright red trajes de charros, pride etched into the stitching. With each passing note, the mariachi grew more confident and in sync. Each song brought more energy than the former.
The audience cheered and clapped as different members completed solos. Their gritos, spontaneous shouts and bursts of emotion done in mariachi resonated with the crowd.
The performance wasn’t flawless, but regardless of what happened — be it a microphone crackling or a missed note — their heads never lowered. Voices pushed until the last measure, being met with praise and cheers from the crowd as they took their bow and exited the stage.
They weren’t selected as one of the three finalists, but they weren’t just playing for the judges.
“[When] I saw my sister out in the crowd, realization hit me, and I simply just started to feel more emotion,” Jimenez said. “Because all those thoughts came back to my head, flashbacks from how I got to see the past varsity play on that same stage where I was at now.”
Navarro Castañeda said she felt nervous watching up until the students played their first note. From then on, she was excited to hear the music the mariachi worked on for so long.
In performances like this, Navarro Castañeda said unexpected things are bound to happen. One of her favorite parts of watching her students is seeing them overcome obstacles in real time.
“It makes me happy seeing them fight through those feelings and show the passion that they play with,” she said.
Lopez said despite not making it to finals, she believes everyone did their best. She knows how important this performance, and this mariachi, is to the students. With UIL coming up, the group is prepared to leave everything on stage one more time.
“I know we may joke around a lot, we don’t sometimes [take things] seriously,” she said. “But everybody here, their heart is true for it.”
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