Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/637605
February 2016 isea.org • ISEA Communiqué 8 COVER Ramos has put down his helmet, picked up a guitar and joined his other team – the kids from the mariachi band – who are on the football field for the first time in school history playing under the Friday night lights. "Yeah I was really nervous," Ramos recalls now, a good two months after the mariachi band made its football game debut. "It was something I wanted to do. I didn't want to see the mariachi band out there without me." Unique The Iowa Department of Education doesn't keep records on what extracurricular programs are offered in individual districts and Denison High School Band Director and DEA member Ruben Newell couldn't find any other such program among his circle of band instructors when he started planning a program for 2012. As far as anyone knew, it was the only school-run mariachi band in the state. It quite likely still is. Mariachi bands are common throughout Latin America. They're routinely part of weddings, funerals, la Quinceanera celebrations (which are coming out parties for 15-year-olds) and a host of other social gatherings. To be sure, school mariachi bands are quite common in the west and southwestern United States. There are regional, sectional, state and national competitions with states like Texas, Nevada, California and Arizona fielding hundreds of teams. In Iowa, school culture's different. School bands are of the marching and jazz type. Non-school bands are country, rock, hip-hop and some deejays. Still, if mariachi was going take hold anywhere in Iowa, Denison was the likeliest of spots. The town of just under 8,500 is known for its meatpacking industry which attracts a sizable immigrant workforce. According to the United States Census Bureau, Iowa's statewide Hispanic population is 5.6 percent. Nationwide, the Hispanic population is 17.4 percent. In Denison, it's 42.7 percent. "Jazz is an art form that was started in the United States, has grown up here and an art form associated with America," Newell says. "Mariachi is like that for Mexico." Heritage Gustavo Flores has been with the band since it started when he was an eighth-grader at the middle school. He had become interested in mariachi music about two years prior through his father's fandom. Both his father and mariachi come from Jalisco, Mexico. "Learning about mariachi has taught me about my culture. There are parts I never would have known if I didn't start playing," says Flores, who, in addition to mariachi, runs on the cross country and track teams and is a member of the student Senate. He has his eyes set on Iowa State University for college. Newell says he's talked to a few band fellow band leaders who've asked questions and expressed some level of interest in getting programs started in their districts, but, so far, none have taken off. Most have reasons for their reluctance from the impossibility of expanding arts programs in a time of tight school budgets to concern over the lack of student interest, or community support, fear of prejudice or just plain old resistance to change. Newell says he thought about all of these and more when he began but if his group is any indication, mariachi will take off in other places, too. "We're a perfect cross section of this town and the students have really embraced us," he says. "I was nervous the night of the football game. But we had everyone clapping at the end, even the people from Harlan." BAND Jonathan Ramos plays the guitar during an October rehearsal. When the band took the field for the first time last fall, Ramos made sure he could play with his band mates as well as his football teammates. Denison High School Band Director Ruben Newell takes his students through the paces during an October rehearsal. The mariachi band has grown to 160 students since 2012. Gustavo Flores plays a guitarron during rehearsal. Flores joined mariachi while at Denison Middle School and says he hopes to find a way to continue to play while he attends Iowa State University.