MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Mariachi is growing in popularity in the United States. In the last decade, at least 10 colleges and universities have started offering degrees in the traditional Mexican folk music - the latest, Denver's Metro State University. Colorado Public Radio's Juanita Hurtado Huerfano reports.
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JUANITA HURTADO HUERFANO, BYLINE: Los Correcaminos, Metro State's mariachi ensemble, is practicing "Mexico Lindo" in a classroom on its Denver campus.
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HUERFANO: Ruby Flores, who is playing guitarron, joined the ensemble two years ago. She learned about them when she signed up for a mariachi class two years earlier. She was looking for a place to belong.
RUBY FLORES: I grew up a no sabo kid.
HUERFANO: Meaning that she grew up in a Spanish-speaking household but did not learn the language - something very common in first-generation kids. Her parents immigrated from Mexico.
FLORES: Being in the United States, my mom really wanted me to be, you know, a United States citizen and, you know, kind of conform to their norms. So the mariachi class was where I tried to reconnect it, and then I instantly fell in love.
HUERFANO: Professor Phil Ficsor saw in students like Flores an opportunity to expand the program. Mariachi classes and ensembles are becoming more popular in Colorado K-12 schools. They need teachers. And Ficsor's students are eager to enter the industry.
PHIL FICSOR: I took a poll - kind of just a straw poll of my students, and every single hand went up.
HUERFANO: He was trying to recruit a student from a city a couple of hours south of Denver.
FICSOR: When I said, hey, we're doing - we're starting a mariachi degree, his first thing was, like, I'm there.
HUERFANO: Metro State's degree, launched this year, is called a Bachelor of Arts in Mariachi Performance and Culture. It allows students to dive into the music's history and cultural impact and learn the skills to run their own mariachi businesses. Faculty say the degree will also allow them to charge more for gigs because it proves their experience. They can even earn a teaching certificate.
FICSOR: I want one of our students to graduate and have the ability to say, I want to create my own mariachi ensemble. How do I do that? Where - how do I fill out the paperwork? How do I invoice? How do I do all the things that help a business run?
One, two, three.
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HUERFANO: Professor Ficsor takes a lot of pride in the business aspect of the mariachi degree, but he thinks using the program to elevate mariachi's history and cultural impact is what will make a great mariachi musician.
FICSOR: You know, Beethoven once said that music is poetry without words. And in a way, mariachi music is the poetry of the Chicano culture.
HUERFANO: The degree is available to all incoming students this fall. For NPR News, I'm Juanita Hurtado Huerfano in Denver.
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LOS CORRECAMINOS: (Singing in Spanish). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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