Facing the stone archway of St. Joseph’s Salesian Youth Retreat
Center outside Los Angeles, the dark wooden coffin holding the body of Juan
Jiménez was wheeled next to a band of masked mariachis. The group readied
themselves to play, simultaneously lifting bows to violins, hands to a golden
harp and fingers to pluck at guitarróns, their bass guitars.
اضافة اعلان
When the priest’s prayer ended, Jesus Guzmán led the band,
Mariachi Los Camperos, through almost an hour of music: songs that express
grief and goodbyes, like “Las Golondrinas” (“The Swallows”).
The calendars of mariachi bands nationwide used to be full of
dates for weddings, quinceañeras and serenades where the vigorous music of
Mexican culture helped enliven some of life’s most joyous moments. With the
onset of the pandemic, those opportunities disappeared, leaving behind only the
funerals, the mounting number of funerals, that have kept some mariachis from
financial ruin.
At this funeral, the playing was particularly passionate and the
musicians, sombreros off, bowed their heads as the body passed. Jiménez was one
of their own, a revered guitarrón player who had succumbed at 58 to the
coronavirus.
“His friends were all there with him, playing for him, thanking
him, continuing his legacy,” said Guzmán, a friend of Jiménez since childhood
and the music director of the mariachi band they both called their own.
To witness the number of sad events that have kept some mariachi
bands financially alive is to confront the virus’ harrowing toll on the people
who once sang to their music. Latino and Black residents caught in this winter’s
fierce coronavirus surge through Los Angeles County died at two or three times
the rate of the white population there.
The story is similar in other locations with large Latino
populations, and studies show Latinos are more vulnerable to becoming ill and
dying from the virus. Their communities and households tend to be more crowded
and to rely on mass transit, their access to health care is limited and their
jobs are likely to involve contact with the public.
So as the caskets go into the ground, many mariachi bands in
California, Texas, Illinois and elsewhere have turned to playing songs of pain
and sorrow to ease the passing. Even for the bands used to playing at funerals
before the pandemic, the sweep of death has been overwhelming. Many have lost
family and friends, band members and music teachers.
For decades, family-run mariachi bands and self-employed
musicians in Los Angeles have descended on Mariachi Plaza east of Downtown to
vie for new bookings. This is where Christian Chavez, the secretary for the
Organization of Independent Mariachis of California, has handed out boxes of
food to struggling musicians since the pandemic first upended business.
Like many musicians he met on the plaza, Chavez was not immune
to the pandemic’s financial hardships. The band his grandfather first founded
in Mexico, Mariachi Tierra Mexicana, struggled. The pandemic wiped out his
savings in seven months. The coronavirus forced Chavez and other mariachis to
make grueling decisions just to make ends meet. That led many to continue
working at events where people were nonchalant about masks and social
distancing.
But, for many, funerals and burials became the mainstay, easing
the financial pain but exacting another kind of harm, even for those used to
playing such ceremonies intermittently between other events. The weeping. The
people grasping for coffins as they were lowered. Chavez said that, at times,
these moments were so devastating he had to turn away and just focus on his
trumpet.
Of the 400 active members of the California mariachi
organization, about 80 died of the virus, possibly having picked it up
performing at events like parties and at restaurants, Chavez said. That tally
includes his godfather, Dagoberto Martinez, who played the vihuela in his
family band for 15 years.
“Every time I go to work, I pray that I’m one of the lucky ones
to return home,” Chavez, who is working events and playing at dozens of
funerals, said in a video interview. He and his family got dangerously sick
with the virus, too.
All performing arts workers have struggled during the pandemic
as unemployment had an undue influence on that sector. What is unique about the
mariachi band members, many of them said in interviews, is how much their music
became part of the ritual of passing for a population particularly affected by
the pandemic.
In Texas, back in November, Miguel Guzman of Mariachi Los
Galleros de San Antonio had to put his violin and music aside when he tested
positive for the coronavirus. Just days before, he was masked and inside the
home of a friend who was a reliable instrument dealer, buying a violin for a
student. The friend later died of the virus.
Guzman fell very ill, too, and spent a month in the hospital.
The virus winded him. He needed a constant stream of oxygen to breathe with his
damaged lungs; he dropped 18kg and lost all his muscle; he needed
physical therapy just to walk again.
At home, his fingers were numb when he repeatedly tried picking
up his violin, but it was the promise of playing in the band with his sons
again and writing a composition for his wife that kept him motivated to
recover.
Guzman finally returned to the band and played at another round
of funerals and burials. His first day back was at the funeral of a friend’s
father-in-law. The week after, it was a funeral for one of his longtime
clients, a tire-shop owner who had died of coronavirus-related complications.
Close to the coffin at that funeral, he stood with the band
playing “Te Vas Ángel Mío” or “You’re Leaving, Angel of Mine.” He could hear
the crying, yes, but he also could hear his violin, carrying life forward for
those who grieved, and for him.
“Music is the medicine, because when I’m playing, I forget about
not being able to breathe,” Guzman said.
.jpg)
.jpg)
