Hector Cueva-Becerra ’26 had never played an instrument before his sophomore year at Princeton.
Two months after joining Mariachi Los Tigres de Princeton, he performed on the ‘vihuela,’ a Spanish five-string instrument shaped like a guitar but tuned like a lute, at the first Mariachi concert in Princeton’s history.
“Picking up [the vihuela] was hard,” Cueva-Becerra admitted. “I did not even know how to hold it or pick the strings.”
He credits Mariachi Los Tigres de Princeton President Esteban Gonzalez ’26, who leads two-hour rehearsals every week, for acquiring the skills to masterfully play the instrument.
Gonzalez and Catherine Ruiz ’26 started Mariachi Los Tigres, the first officially recognized Mariachi student group on campus, during their first year at Princeton in November 2022. The club teaches and performs Mariachi music on campus to raise appreciation for the traditional Mexican folk music genre.
“Mariachi is not well known within the [Princeton] community,” Gonzalez noted. “I wanted to create an open community where people aren’t afraid to come in without experience and learn something that is new.”
Mariachi Los Tigres held its first performance on April 5 in Richardson Auditorium and also played at the April 20 event featuring prominent activist Dolores Huerta hosted by the Princeton Latin American Students Association (PLASA).
At the performance, dressed in neat suits and donning ‘corbata de rebozo’ (wide bow ties), the band introduced each of their 10 performing members and shared Mariachi fun facts in between songs. They encouraged the audience to interact and respond to the music through cathartic, joyous yells, or ‘gritos.’
“[The genre] could encompass a lot of things because [it is] a storytelling theme to share the stories that people have,” Gonzalez said. “It’s not only a music genre, but people use it as a seal of integrity and a culture of celebration.”
Gonzalez is no stranger to mariachi — he grew up around mariachi music at family gatherings and first joined a band 10 years ago.
“My dad had played mariachi music, so he forced me to start playing at first,” Gonzalez said. “He wanted [my brother and I] to go with it because it’s also part of our heritage.”
Despite his initial reluctance, Gonzalez said, over time, he “fell in love with the music and the community that comes along with it.” The club began as a “two-person operation” after he discussed the idea with Catherine Ruiz, whose grandparents loved Mariachi music. The two bonded over their common interest in Mariachi music in their first-year Community Action group.
“From someone who is also Latina, [the band] just brings this awareness that our culture is alive and well in such a vivid and beautiful way,” Ruiz, now the group’s vice president, said. “To me, it always transcended these Hispanic cultural boundaries and cross-cultural ethnic borders. It connected my identity and my family’s identity.”
After bonding over their shared interest, Gonzalez and Ruiz said they were excited to establish the group, but the biggest challenge was getting traditional instruments such as the vihuela and the ‘guitarron,’ a six-string acoustic bass. This past fall, the Carl A. Fields Center provided funding for the club, and it began rehearsing for the concert in February 2024.
With only two months from the first rehearsal to the performance, the group crafted its repertoire around songs that players would be able to learn quickly. In rehearsals, they also prioritized building community.
“Going to rehearsals the first couple of weeks, I was considering whether or not to stick to it,” Cueva-Becerra said. “A couple weeks in, we got to know each other and [started] cracking jokes and hanging out with one another.”
The group also became more cohesive as a band. Cueva-Becerra noted that while he practiced a lot on his own, he also learned to play with others with “a little bit of improvisation, and listening [to] where everyone else was at.”
Isabella Bustos ’27, a vocalist in the group, agreed that playing together is an important challenge to overcome when learning new music across a wide range of musical backgrounds.
“There are moments that feel a little frustrating, [as it] gets hard to make sure things are aligning perfectly,” Bustos said, but she explained that in those moments, she “can rely on those in the group to help me and persevere.”
Ruiz said that she was moved to see the members’ collective dedication to the music.
“After our first night of rehearsals at Richardson,” Ruiz said, “Isabella posted a video on her Instagram story of [her and a couple of other bandmates] practicing in their own room, which almost made me cry.”
After two months of practice, the band performed their first concert on April 5. Cueva-Becerra felt that his hard work paid off when he saw the band’s impact on the audience, including dining hall workers, professors, parents, and students. In particular, one alumni member approached the group afterward and expressed how meaningful it was for students to perform mariachi at Princeton.
“That was really huge for me,” Cueva-Becerra said. “Being able to do that for that one person was something in itself very remarkable.”
Bustos said she particularly enjoyed performing “El Rey” by José Alfredo Jiménez, an emotional call-and-response song about living to make ends meet but finding joy in the struggle.
“There was a lot of audience participation with the song, which is honestly what I think music is all about,” she said. “It’s about having that connection with people, so it was amazing to have people letting out their own grief in those cries as well.”
After the concert, Ruiz said Mariachi Los Tigres is looking to expand and continue to welcome students of all levels of musical experience.
“The original vision was to have two groups: a rehearsal group that knows the instrument and a learning group who would come in for extra help from the other group of whoever else is willing to teach them an instrument,” Ruiz said. “Looking ahead, if we can get a big enough group to do that, we’d love to have more people, especially those who are interested in giving back to the community in this way.”
Chloe Lau is a staff Features writer and staff writer for the Prospect for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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