Original subtitles

- A lot of people don't really fully understand immigrants,

especially when they come from poor countries,

that they're kind of burdened with shame,

and sometimes that music that comes with the cultures,

people wanna get away from because they feel ashamed.

To me, it's the saddest thing in the world

because that's your connection to your strength.

Your family is your strength.

- Your father is half Mexican. How far back in--

- My father is sort of full Mexican.

- Well, excuse me.

How far back in your family tree

do you have to go before you hear

the Spanish sound in your name?

- Well, you can go back one generation on either side.

I mean, it--

Spain is not Mexican either. - Mm-hmm, all right.

The point we're making is that these are songs

of Linda Ronstadt's childhood.

These aren't just songs

that you didn't put on a Mexican costume and sing.

- Oh, no, no, no, no, no. - These are your family songs.

- We spoke Spanish in my house.

We ate tamales at Christmastime, you know.

These are songs that I heard when I was growing up,

and that we sang as a family.

It was a family project altogether, this record.

- Take it away, guys.

- My older brother had seen her on channel nine.

He was like, "Oh, my God, you gotta see this lady."

So I go and I see her, and I was just like...

I didn't know how to get her music

or her CDs or anything, so I would call channel nine,

and I would just be listening to her songs,

'cause when you'd call, they'd play the music.

It was just very inspiring. Brought me a lot of hope.

- In the '80s, with "Canciones de Mi Padre,"

in the Mexican community, Linda's music was everywhere.

- And the fact that she invested her talent

into our music-- our music--

was an enormous source of pride for people.

- During the time I had my "Los Canciones" show,

I was down by the Palace of Fine Arts,

and I saw these kids playing and dancing,

and I could tell by the way they were dancing

they were really authentic.

- So I got into a conversation with Eugene,

and I said, "Yeah, you guys are really good."

And he said, "Well, we've been trying to raise enough money

"to take a trip to Mexico 'cause I want the kids

"to learn what it is to be a Mexican, you know,

so they can feel proud of it."

I could see the value of a trip like that,

to go down for musical purposes,

for a musical exchange.

And I said, "Oh, I'll help you

with the money to go to Mexico."

So I added an extra concert into my tour

to help pay for their trip to Mexico.

And that's how we started our friendship.

- Why don't we do "San Lorenzo"?

- When I went to the center to see how the kids were trained,

I was so impressed by how much they were validated

and how much they were respected

and how much dignity they were given.

I thought the Cenzontles were really special,

and I thought they were doing a great job

teaching kids music.

Every time I would introduce another musician,

they got as enthusiastic as I was about it.

Linda told me about this guy Eugene

and that what he was doing

with his kids was really important.

- Good!

- It's important that the kids growing up

in the United States-- they're Americans.

It's important that they know that we're all immigrants,

every one of us.

Every one of us is an immigrant to this country

that isn't native.

- Linda, Linda, you tricked me. - I tricked you?

- Yeah, so I was gonna come up here

and do an interview with you for "The Sound of My Voice,"

and you said the only way you'd do an interview

for your own documentary was if I went to Mexico

with you and Los Cenzontles and interviewed you there.

It was a nice trick, though. I wanted to go.

And the bus was going, so I had a chance.

- How'd you get Jackson to come?

- We asked him.

He likes to eat.

Well, you know, and he likes good music.

- Look, if Linda Ronstadt invites you to go to Mexico,

I don't need to know any more than that.

It's, you know, of course, let's go.

I knew that she wanted to take Los Cenzontles,

and I already knew them,

so I knew it would be a great trip.

- Los Cenzontles means "the mockingbirds."

The mockingbird doesn't mock other birds.

A mockingbird listens to the sounds of other birds,

and they incorporate those songs

into their voices.

This is what we try to do.

- I was 15 when I first joined

Los Cenzontles back in the '90s.

And it's going to be 25 years this year

that I've been at Los Cenzontles.

Now that I'm teaching, I see my students.

I plant seeds.

When I see those kids growing,

the seeds growing, it just makes me very proud,

and I see the potential that they have,

and I wanna give them more.

It's a satisfaction knowing that what I'm doing,

it's making an impact in their lives.

I am looking forward to going to Mexico.

I love Mexico.

Linda invited our group to join her

in this trip going to Senora.

She wanted to take us back to where her grandpa was from

and experience that with us.

- Maybe it's genetic memory,

but I feel very at home when I go to Mexico.

When I'm in Mexico, I have a better understanding

of who I am and who my family is, you know?

I feel great pride in it, and I always have.

I hope it makes the kids feel like that they have

more of an understanding of where they came from,

the culture they came from, who they are,

why they're important, why they should

never be rendered invisible or without their dignity.

Jackson and I used to tour together.

When we were on the road,

somebody would be hungover in the corner,

and somebody else would be playing

some Rolling Stones song or something on the guitar,

but this time, it was these kids.

- They were playing these really great grooves,

you know, and singing really great together.

It was really a thrill for me.

I wish I could sing with 'em.

- We will be going into Mexico here

in about another 50 meters or so.

Those of you who might be interested,

sometimes the people who work for ICE

will drop off folks right here, and they'll send 'em

through these little turnstiles,

and this is where a lot of deportees

just walk along this wall here.

- Lucina, tell me how you came to the United States.

- I was born and raised in Mexico

till I was ten years old, and my dad

was in the United States, so he wanted

the rest of the family to join him.

I came with my mom and my two younger brothers.

I was ten, and my younger brothers

were seven and five.

We had to cross the border illegally.

I remember just, you know, being super scared

and thinking they were either gonna separate us or...

I thought they were gonna kill us or something like that.

- Sounds horrible.

- It was very traumatic for us,

so we were walking around in the Mexican side,

and we had no money, so my mom, you know,

had to actually ask for money.

It was kind of embarrassing for us because, I mean,

that's something that we had never done,

but my mom had to do it so that we can get some food.

People don't understand.

Even though, you know, I'm a citizen now,

every time I see this fence

or every time I go across border,

and although I can cross and, you know,

many times and leave the country

and travel the world, you still have that in you.

- I had written a song

about the violence at the border.

It was called "A Silence," and Jackson was nice enough

to sing with David Hidalgo from Los Lobos,

and while we were in the studio,

Jackson said, "Hey, I got this song about the border."

- I wanted to write a song about the problem

with the border, like, 30 years ago

with the lines, "The Klan's been down on the border.

They say it's to keep law and order."

I just could never get anywhere with it.

Later I'd change it to,

"Well, the minutemen are down on the border."

- And I thought, "Yeah, that's cool."

He wanted to maybe do something with it,

but can we not make this about the minutemen?

Like, let's make it about us

'cause I'm sick of talking about them.

I wanna talk about us.

And so, you know, it came almost immediately.

So then, you know, that's Lucina.

- You know, ten years old, a young girl

coming to a new place, never seen this,

and then--it was all new.

I didn't know the language.

Then you were called a beaner,

so there were a lot of problems during that time.

- I sing "The Dreamer" in every show I do.

I introduce it by telling them about Eugene

and how we came to write this song,

and that it's inspired by the story of my friend Lucina.

It's very well received,

and people usually stand at the end and applaud.

At the end, I do a song called "I'm a Patriot,"

and when I say, "And I ain't no white supremacist,"

and the place just roars

because who would be a white supremist

in this country?

This country... this country's not white.

It was not founded to be white.

- Because I was light skinned and with a German surname,

people didn't suspect that I was Mexican,

and they'd make some kind of anti-Mexican remark.

They'd go, "Well, these greasers

coming in here, you know."

And I'd always get pretty hot about it.

- My name is Camila.

I dance, sing, and play instruments.

- My name's Belinda, and I'm a dancer, singer,

and I play instruments too.

- My name is Clarissa.

I dance, sing, and play instruments.

- My name's Avena.

I play instruments, sing, and dance.

- I'm Jacquina.

I dance.

- Juan Ortega, I'm the father.

I'm a carpenter by trade.

- Could you translate that?

- It's a good family. It's stable.

We're respectful and a pretty good family.

- They'll play music all night.

You know, they'll sit down in the back room.

They'll just play.

You know, some--you know, I gotta tell 'em,

"Hey, that's it."

"That's it, no more. It's 10:00.

Hey, no more guitars."

- The best place for people to learn to play music,

in my opinion, is in family

as a way to just connect

to your brothers and sisters, to your parents,

to your grandparents, to yourself.

- Culturally, I've always felt Mexican.

And I feel great pride in it, and I always have.

My grandmother who identified as Mexican

was born in Arizona when half of the western territory

of the United States used to be Mexico,

so you know, who's the newcomer?

Mexico went all the way up through Nevada and Utah

and all the way up to Wyoming.

We didn't migrate. The border migrated.

- Check one, two. Check one, two.

- Get everybody together.

The show starts at 3:00, but we don't go first.

The other group goes first, and so what I suggest is,

for those of you who aren't playing,

maybe you guys can go dance...

Just freely in the front.

I grew up in Glendale, in the LA area.

At that time, you don't see Mexicans on television.

We're not really on mainstream radio.

We don't exist.

What we're trying to do with music

and through our children is to cultivate

all that they are because we are no better or no worse

than anybody on this planet.

- Which one's Miriam's?

I was taking care of all the costumes for the children.

We made two different sets of costumes.

The folklórico group, the children wear costumes

for the mariachi style and some jarocho style too.

Our costumes are made with what we find.

- Astrid, where are you from?

- I was an immigrant twice.

My father was from Vietnam.

My mother is French,

and I was born in France.

Gonna start gluing more sticks.

I came over here to the U.S. after the Vietnam War,

and actually, now most of the time,

people think that I'm Latina, so--because of the mixture

that I have, but then I get what Latinas get sometimes.

- And what is that?

- Sometimes it surprises me how people will not be so nice,

not be as open

or want to struggle communicating with me

thinking that I only speak Spanish,

and you know, they decide already

that you have limitations.

And of course, glue the head pin on.

25 years, I've been teaching.

- Do you know the man who runs the place?

- Yes.

He's my husband.

You should have ten, I think.

- My name is Oswaldo, and what I do mostly

is I'm still in school.

- Mostly. - Yeah.

- Could you translate that?

- Some of the values that we follow

are the same that my grandparents

taught my parents, which is respect

or being hardworking and being united

with our family and with our loved ones.

- What kind of family are you, Oswaldo?

- We're a family that helps each other out

when we need some help.

- This long trip to get over here--

we're gonna get down.

They don't wanna hear me.

We gotta get Fabi and Lucina ready first.

- I am a very stubborn person,

so Eugene has been very tough on us,

and he has contributed

to a lot of the things that I've done.

For example, when I first came to the U.S.,

I didn't wanna speak English,

but Eugene only spoke English to me,

so he's like, "You have to speak English."

You know, you have to be-- you're here in the U.S.,

so you gotta speak English.

It was always hard for me to take myself seriously

in playing instruments, so he's like,

"Come on, you can do this. You can do this."

Okay, and then I would just do it.

- What I want Los Cenzontles-- I want them to be themselves.

- Hey, what about me?

- This is what we're trying to do.

- Smile. - Got it?

- Smile. - No, I can't.

I don't want to. - Oh, don't want to?

- When I met Lucina, she was 15,

and I'm not kidding you, she didn't smile for six years.

Am I serious?

- Yes.

- It took her six years to even smile.

My point is, is that that wasn't why

she was invited into the group.

She wasn't invited to be a puppet.

She was invited to be herself, and we gave her time

for her smile to come out naturally,

and now she has a natural smile.

Fabiola too.

Give us a big smile for the camera.

- Look at the camera.

- She came. She didn't sing for a while.

And when it came out, it was time to come out.

She came from a pretty big family

and tough neighborhood.

You know, she would walk around kind of like a boy.

She had her big puffy jacket on,

and she said she wanted to learn guitar.

I tried to teach her guitar.

Next week, "Did you practice?" "No."

Next week, "Did you practice?"

I said, "Why are you here?

You're not practicing guitar."

I figured out that she really wanted to sing...

But she was too shy

to say that she wanted sing.

- And then when she started singing,

she had a beautiful voice.

A soulful voice, and then Fabiola became a singer.

- Who's that baby? He's beautiful.

So cute. - Isn't he cute?

- I forget how tiny they are.

We hope you enjoy this performance.

It's from folkloric Mexican dances.

- Wearing western shirts,

that was a Northern Mexican costume,

and the boots and the pants with the flare--

they call 'em frontier pants.

The hat, it's all from Mexico.

- All right, partner, freeze.

- Hi, fellas.

- Roy Rogers!

- The cowboy is all based on Mexican tradition.

- How would you like to surprise your pals like that?

Well, you can with my new Roy Rogers Quick Shooter Hat.

- Roy Rogers--there wouldn't be any Roy Rogers

if there weren't those Mexican cowboys.

We don't realize we're taking from them all the time,

and giving back, so it's an interactive loop.

The dancers from Mexico are wonderful.

I've known that group for a while

and supported them. I love them.

They're very elegant. The girls are very graceful.

- What's different

about the folklórico dancing and yours?

- I think each girl has a guy to dance with.

That...

- Do you guys have boyfriends?

all: No.

- Are you ready for your performance?

How do you feel?

- I feel cold, but I feel ready.

- I also feel cold.

- Gracias, grupo Cenzontles.

- Most of these performers are kids

from 8 to 17 years old.

To have that level of musicianship that early,

even if they don't play it as well

as a grown-up professional, they play it right.

They play in the right rhythm figures,

the right traditions, the right patterns,

the right instruments.

And their dance steps are right.

So they're not compromising the rhythms.

They don't make it into what I call Dorito music,

which is kind of Latin-ish music, you know?

This is Mexican music.

- Oh!

- When I share my traditions and my heritage

with other people, I feel proud

because this is music that comes from years ago,

and we're bringing it back alive,

and it's still alive.

To play and to interpret these songs,

I feel like I'm feeding my spirit.

I feel like I'm feeding my soul,

and my soul is speaking through the music,

through what I'm doing, and then the joy

that I see that people are having,

that also feeds my soul, feeds my spirit.

It's just like a cycle that, you know, goes on.

It's like you give, and then you take.

You give and you take.

- These kids learn the roots.

They learn the tradition, and then they can learn

how to break 'em, and they do come up

with some really great stuff.

- Gracias.

- They're playing the music for the right reasons.

You can play music right. You can play it well.

You can play it in a very accomplished way.

None of it makes any difference if you're not playing it

for the right reasons, and the reason we play music

is to celebrate our sorrows and our joys

and try to help make sense of something

that oppresses you

or celebrate something that lifts you up.

- My mother, who picked vegetables

and worked with her family from a very young age

in Southern California, she said,

"When the music happened, those were the few moments

of lightness in a heavy existence."

So to me, that's what music can do.

There's nothing like playing music

with your brothers and sisters and your family.

It's so much better than going shopping

or watching TV or playing video games.

It's just beautiful.

- Brava! - Gracias, thank you.

- Can you understand the lyrics?

- No.

- It's about a little orphan girl

that lives on the edge of a palm grove,

and she has no friends to console her--

little, tiny girl-- and she comes and goes all--

passes her life, coming and going,

like the waves of the ocean.

It's a beautiful song.

I learned it from my grandfather.

- The music you make

accompanies you your whole life,

and if you're lucky enough

to be still encountering new family

and making new friends when you're old,

it's a very rich, rich experience.

- They got the opportunity to show their dignity

and their style, the way that they performed

and the way they held themselves,

and the Mexicans were really impressed.

- It was really fantastic.

The older college students and the graduates

of that folkloric troupe were hanging out,

and the kids went over there.

It was so fantastic that they got to meet each other.

That is something that will be indelible

in the lives of these kids in Los Cenzontles.

- We did a show in Idaho once.

A Latino who was, I think, in the army,

he came up to me afterwards, and he said,

"You know, this is the first time in my life

that I've felt proud of being Mexican."

It's a heavy thing to hear,

and it's not just people in the United States.

It's also in Mexico.

When we did our tour of Jalisco

and we brought this old music back,

so many people would come to us with tears in their eyes,

just thanking us.

You know, how meaningful it was for them

because, you know, culture is so powerful.

- There's Mexico,

and then there's Mexico America.

Mexican-American culture is huge.

It's two different cultures.

They have a lot of similarities,

but it's fun to go and explore

what's the same and what's different.

- It's very rewarding for me to be on this trip

to see you in Mexico.

It's fantastic.

- Do you have any musical-- any tips that you have?

- Oh, my goodness, me give you guys advice?

Just keep doing it.

You know, what you're doing is really essential

to every other thing, whether it's making a family

or whether it's having a band.

You know, to be a part of something bigger, you know,

that you have a role in, and you see the whole thing,

like this moment, it's really great.

- You guys were so good yesterday.

I was so proud of you.

- To me, it's magical to meet a woman

who is so interested in so many things,

and I appreciate

that it's not just talk.

She just does what she says.

She means what she says.

- You look so pretty when you smile from the stage.

The whole time, you smiled.

- I don't get to meet many people who are like her.

- You know, as far as I'm concerned,

what Linda's doing for these kids is fantastic.

- Yes. - It's unbelievable.

- Yes.

And I think it's about life too.

It's how you choose your life to be.

- I like that last song when everybody's singing together.

- I think it's important for her to say

that life for Latinos

is important-- just as important

as anybody else would think their life is.

- So today, do you have any thoughts

about going back across the border?

- I think about how much I don't have to think about it

because of the privilege I have of, like,

being a citizen of the United States.

- This is Camila. Is that right?

- Yeah. - Hi, best friend!

- We came back on the bus.

We had my little great niece, Annabelle, with us.

She was two, and she was the pet of the bus,

and everybody was playing with her.

And I thought, "What if we got to the border

"and they took Annabelle away and put her in a cage?

"What if they took her away

"from her mother who loves her and will protect her

"and her father who loves her and wants to protect her

and just lost her in the system?"

We'd just be beside ourselves.

- I ask myself what music can do.

I think musical culture is constantly in flux,

and we have to see ourselves in this flow.

We're part of something so much bigger

than just where we are, and I think music and culture

is the embodiment of that flow.

- Well, music will find its way.

It always does.

It carries as much of the truth as it can hold,

but it has to resonate in the zeitgeist.

We have to have people out there to hear it.

- There's a negative image being placed on Mexicans.

Now becoming-- - It's growing stronger.

- Yeah.

- Here, the negative presentation,

they're choosing those bad people,

and they're setting them as the face of my people.

- How do you feel about it?

- I feel sad because I feel like

everybody should be treated the same way.

- Oswaldo, as a kid, what do you think

when you see these news stories

of children being separated from their mom and dad?

- I'm lucky to have a family and to be with them.

- When me and my sister were little,

my little brother wasn't here yet.

I remember one time...

I was smaller than my sister,

they were gone, or my dad was gone.

He had been detained.

And that was very scary for me.

'Cause I mean, I was little. I was, like, five.

- One thing I will say about that

is I think the parents should talk to their kids

even at five, just to be informed

that some parents don't go to pick up their kids

because, of course, they're already detained,

or they're already gone,

and I think it's the best decision

for the kids to know even though

they think they're young, maybe they can

not tell them everything,

but something to start the conversation.

- You think that they're agents of another country?

You think these people came to the United States

to serve the Mexican government?

They left their country.

They left their families.

There's another amazing song that I can't sing

because I can't get through it without crying,

but it's a Joel Rafael song

called "Sierra Blanca Massacre."

Immigrants who were being smuggled

into the United States were locked

in a container and left in the heat

by the people that were smuggling them,

and they die.

As they realized that they weren't gonna survive this,

they wrote some things down, you know, that my friend Joel

put into a song, and it's very moving.

- These were people who were forced to leave.

They left places that were beautiful and they had culture.

So just to think about...

I'll tell you, it's being sleep deprived.

- What? - It's being sleep deprived.

I'm not actually-- I have no sentiments.

They just come out when I'm---

- I don't believe you for a second, you know.

You wouldn't be doing what you do

if you didn't care a lot.

- Is underneath the sadness rage?

- So yeah, so you know, why the hell

should a little kid bear the burden?

Why does a child have to bear that humiliation?

Why do their fathers have to bear the humiliation?

Just because they're trying to make a living.

- Oswaldo, what do you want for the country and your future?

- I want to see white people and Mexicans together.

I want to see them talking to each other.

- People have been embracing aspects

of Mexican culture for years and not even realizing.

You can be proud of the culture you came from

and feel good to identify yourself that way.

I was always very proud of being Mexican.

- What's a charro?

- Well, in Mexico, that's kind of like a cowboy,

and I have a feeling

you guys are gonna make wonderful charros.

- Oh, look!

Yupa!

- We're charros, cowboys!

- Oh, look!

- Yeah!

- Oh, yeah!