At This Year’s Folklife Festival, the Kids Are All Right
Cultural traditions such as mariachi and hula are being shepherded by a new generation
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When Daniela Chávez was 16, she and her parents watched Mariachi Los Camperos play in Mexico—and it lit a formidable fuse within her.
She says it’s ironic that both of her parents are from Jalisco, Mexico, the “birthplace of mariachi,” yet neither she nor her family had often listened to the genre.
That all changed after she first witnessed Los Camperos. Suddenly, she couldn’t stop listening to mariachi music.
“Neither could my father,” Chávez says with a laugh.
The Grammy-winning ensemble has been performing since 1961, when Jose Natividad Cano Ruiz originally formed the group. A music titan known affectionately as Nati, Cano significantly shaped the development of mariachi in the United States. He propelled Los Camperos beyond bars and restaurants to concert halls, films and the White House. He wanted to show the world the enduring potency of mariachi music, both as an art form and as a symbol of collaboration. He died in 2014 at age 81.
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Following this ethos, Cano also trained and mentored aspiring musicians for decades, ultimately leading to his involvement in the 2000 founding of the Mariachi Master Apprentice Program (MMAP) in California’s San Fernando Valley. The organization, which pairs professional members of Los Camperos with young students, offers weekly mentorship sessions. This includes vocal coaching, music theory and performance etiquette. It aims to preserve—and share, always—the vibrant traditional folk music that undergirds the rhythms and melodies of mariachi.
This year, visitors to the 2025 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, running from July 2 to 7 in Washington, D.C., can watch members of MMAP—including Chávez—perform onstage.
The festival’s theme, “Youth and the Future of Culture,” focuses on intergenerational connections taking place nationwide. From building trades to language reclamation, the festival seeks to explore the ways in which young people navigate today’s world while also learning from and making anew the traditions of their elders.
From their mentors at MMAP, students absorb a whirl of foundational styles: the stringed energy of sones; the magnetic yells of rancheras; the fast-paced tap-tap-tap of huapangos. Folk ensembles typically entail a mix of instruments, such as the guitarrón, the five-stringed vihuela, the harp and the trumpet.
Youthful expression in any form, cultural or cathartic, is encouraged.
And MMAP’s ability to embolden its students, both musically and mentally, has yielded long-term successes both onstage and off. According to its site, the program’s high school graduation rate has remained 100 percent for the past decade.
Fun fact: When was the first Folklife Festival?
The Smithsonian Folklife Festival—originally the Festival of American Folklife—debuted on July 1, 1967. More than 400,000 visitors stopped by, witnessing Indian sand painters, New Orleans jazz bands, and Chinese lion dancers.
It is through MMAP that Chávez picked up her first violin not long after seeing Los Camperos. While she did have some musical experience—she had spent years singing—playing the violin was new.
The program itself is “intense,” says Chávez, now 19. She spends much of her time practicing a repertoire of mariachi classics, meticulously honing her skills. Her commitment to the music and the program ultimately compelled her to transfer to San Fernando High School her senior year.
While Chávez’s former high school did offer classical orchestra as an extracurricular, it didn’t provide training in other musical genres. At San Fernando, Chávez was able to merge artistic ambition with passion. There, she attends daily mariachi classes in the afternoon.
“It’s my peace,” she says. “It helps my brain relax.”
Although reading sheet music can be particularly tricky, it’s a joyous experience when she and her violin sing alongside her peers. Playing together is the whole point.
Referencing growing anti-immigration policies in the U.S., Chávez considers a global approach to art a necessity. “It’s important to learn of other cultural traditions,” she says. “Mariachi should be a part of any music curriculum.”
Chávez largely admires the unfiltered openness of her fellow musicians. They engage the crowd, drawing in spectators and pulling them to their feet. This tight-knit energy links people together, and she sees it manifest repeatedly during mariachi performances not only in Mexico but in the U.S.
She puts it simply: “Mariachi is love.”
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During her first concert as an intermediate-level performer at the Westside Youth Mariachi Festival, she sang, “Yo Me Muero Dónde Quiera,” or “I’ll Die Where I Want To.” It’s a traditional composition about the Mexican Revolution, a bittersweet ode to fighting for liberation and autonomy and having the freedom to choose one’s death place.
Both MMAP and the upcoming Folklife Festival share a common goal: to hear, learn and embrace what young people have to offer to the world—with their words, their craft and their unwavering resilience.
More than half of the world’s population is under 30, and the festival strives to spotlight this fact in a positive light as a platform for those who are making noteworthy contributions to cultural practices worldwide.
Festival visitors can meet members of the New Orleans Master Crafts Guild, an apprenticeship program in Louisiana encouraging a new generation of master craftspeople to grow their professions, from carpentry to brick masonry to plaster. Also on the National Mall will be the Olathe Leadership Lowrider Bike Club from Kansas, an educational initiative centered on the Chicano art of building customized lowriders. And students from Hālau I Ka Leo Ola O Nā Mamo, a program devoted to teaching hula through the Hawaiian language, will demonstrate the dances.
At the Folklife Festival, young people like Chávez are ready to foster cross-generational connections, whether it’s through belting rancheras in the summer humidity or showcasing the classic hula kahiko as the sun sets behind the Lincoln Memorial.
