Many of the foods we consider integral to Latin American cuisine were invented by the Indigenous people of the Americas. A great example of that is the tortilla.

The Aztec and Mayan people were agriculturally savvy, creating stepped irrigation methods and reservoirs. Corn was literally invented by the Indigenous people by cultivating the teosinte grass into corn.

The Aztecs dried and pounded corn into cornmeal which was used to make a flat thin bread, eaten at nearly every meal. The Spanish conquistadors gave this bread the name tortilla, meaning “little cake.”

The importance of the tortilla is evident in the Codex Mendoza, one of the primary sources of information about Aztec culture.  The Codex Mendoza was an Aztec document written in Nahuatl and translated into Spanish around the year 1541.

In this first image from the Codex Mendoza, an Aztec mother is teaching her daughter how to grind corn into dough to make masa to make the tortillas.

In the second image, Aztec men gather together to eat both tortillas and tamales.

“Mariachi is really important to our culture, it’s the way that we connect, it’s the way that… we can communicate how we’re feeling,” —Tatiana Peña, Mariachi Musician. What is it about Mariachi music that connects it so deeply to Mexican culture? In an article with Pheonix, Arizona’s 12 News  Pena adds, “We’ll be there for your quinceañera, as your birthdays or weddings, or funerals. Your divorces. You know, we joke about it because really, people want the mariachi for whatever special event that they want to commemorate,”.  

With its horns, strings, and narrative lyrics, Mariachi is a celebration music with ancient roots. It’s a fusion of cultures dating back to the earliest connections of East meeting West. Most modern scholars agree that the word Mariachi is indigenous to Mexico. The now-extinct Coca language of central Jalisco is the probable source of the word and that same region is where the music first emerged. 

But that emergence required those indigenous peoples with their own deeply held musical traditions to intermarry with the Spanish who brought in their instruments and traditions. The two groups would create the Mestizo people who merged their traditions with enslaved Black Africans. Together, and over time, these groups became one people, and their celebration music was Mariachi. 

In 1910, Mexico experienced a revolution, and in that upheaval, what had been mostly rural music, Mariachi played a central, rallying part in the revolution, and took to the national stage. In doing so, it became especially connected to Mexico City where it would grow more stylized with elaborately uniformed costumes, and become deeply tied to a new nationalism sweeping the country. Starting in the 1930s, and for the decades to follow, Mexican Radio, Television, and Film industries took on international acclaim, and at the center of it all, and starring on the soundtracks of so much of that media, was Mariachi music. 

Today, Mariachi is the most popular Latiné music format in the U.S. and it’s considered the most transnational pop genre on Earth with tens of millions of album sales and billions of online streams. It’s such an important art form in 2012 it was added to UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Mariachi has had a big impact, but it’s not the impressive statistics or the official accolades, that make it such an important musical expression of Mexico, it’s the deeply intimate sharing of celebrations – large and small-  that have made Mariachi the music of choice for the Mexican people for hundreds of years and counting.

We hope your team continues the conversation and learning experience long after our time together. With that in mind, we offer these thoughts for your reflection and dialogue.

• By changing the way we think of American history- to learn of colonization from a chronological perspective rather than geographic perspective- excludes years of Spanish-American history. What information has shifted for you with this new knowledge? How can you apply a perspective change to other situations?
• Indigenous women played a huge role in shaping Latin America, including shaping the foods we eat today, but many people don’t know or give credit to their imporant contribution. Does knowing the origin of a food change your perception of it? Do you appreciate it more? Less? How can history inform an opinion, for food or for any subject?
• Spanish and Latin music has deeply influenced American music, from the adaptation of the 5 stringed vihuela to the 6-stringed guitar, to the chart topping Spanish-only lyrics of Bad Bunny. Embracing change can lead to exciting innovations. How have you embraced and adapted to change and seen positive results, both personally and professionally?
• The concept of Manifest Destiny is taught in schools as an explanation for colonization. The personification of the United States of America as the goddess Colombia in the “American Progress” painting by John Gast in 1872 exemplifies this. Now that you know more well-rounded history of what that meant for the Indigenous people in what is now the Western United States, how does that challenge previously held beliefs and opinions about land rights and civil rights?
• The founding fathers of USA purposefully didn’t allow for an official language to be set in the United States, a purposeful act of inclusion. What’s an example of how intentional inclusion has benefited you?

Ready for More?

Our Hispanic and Latiné Heritage Month: La Identidad Virtual Tour is a celebration of Latiné achievement in the Chicano and Hispanic American Movement from the 1900s to the present day. You know we don’t do boring, so you’ll see live-streamed views of the famed Olvera Street in Los Angeles and play trivia focused on the impact of telling Latin stories on US television.

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