‘It’s part of who we are’: Traditional Mexican music has been celebrated for centuries in Minnesota

[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: Since Mexicans have been living in Minnesota, traditional Mexican music has been an important part of sharing culture and celebrating tradition. In fact, Minnesota's very first documented Mexican-born resident way back in the 1880s was a musician.

Anthropologist Maya Santamaria has studied him and thousands of other Mexican-Minnesotan musicians throughout history. She is the founder and CEO of the Spanish radio station based out of the Twin Cities, La Raza.

As Hispanic Heritage Month kicks off this week, Maya is here to talk about the enduring popularity of Mexican music in the state. And of course, we're going to play some great music.

Maya, it's good to hear your voice again. Thanks for joining us.

MAYA SANTAMARIA: Hello, thank you for having me.

CATHY WURZER: Let's see, I know that the long history of Mexican music in Minnesota stretches all the way back to, I think, the 1800s. Is that right?

MAYA SANTAMARIA: That's correct, when our first Mexican musician was left stranded here in Minnesota. And it was a good thing for Minnesota because he ended up being a very important part of the fledgling community on the west side that started growing in the late part of the century, in the early part of the 1900s.

CATHY WURZER: I want to talk about the west side of Saint Paul here in a few minutes. But I want to know, did you-- I'm going to assume you listened to some traditional Mexican music when you were growing up.

MAYA SANTAMARIA: Yes, I did.

CATHY WURZER: And what was that like?

MAYA SANTAMARIA: Well, it's part of who we are. It's our identity. Of course, parents playing music and introducing children to Mexican music is a very important part of who we are, what our identity is, and certainly gives Latinos of all ages a very strong sense of self and culture.

CATHY WURZER: We played some music from Peso Pluma there about a minute ago. Hugely popular, tell us about them.

MAYA SANTAMARIA: Oh, Peso Pluma is a very big artist. He just filled Target Center about a month ago when he came into town. And he's a part of the youth culture. My daughter's 17. There were a lot of 15, 13-year-olds there, as well as people my age, a little bit older.

CATHY WURZER: Wow.

[LAUGHTER]

So let's talk about the west side of Saint Paul. That is-- I think you could probably call it the main birthplace of Mexican music in Minnesota, right?

MAYA SANTAMARIA: Absolutely, yes, you could, so much that I was asked by the Minnesota History Theater to produce a play about the history of the music on the west side.

CATHY WURZER: I know there were a number of families involved in creating a performing Mexican-- performing and creating Mexican music. Why is Mexican music such a family affair?

MAYA SANTAMARIA: Well, that is a huge part of our culture. And for us, music is something that is accessible to everyone. There's not such a divide between "I'm a musician, and you're not." It's "Everyone, join in. Grab a guitar. Grab some maracas. Grab a little drum, whatever you can play.

And let's sing a song about a story about something that might have happened in your town or something that you know about, a man's life or a woman's life." So it's very much about storytelling and certainly continuing culture through oral history.

CATHY WURZER: Let's listen to another song you picked out for us

[MUSIC PLAYING] [SINGING IN SPANISH]

CATHY WURZER: Who is this? Why did you pick out this song?

MAYA SANTAMARIA: Well, this is a fun song to dance with. It's something that we would play at parties and gatherings, when people get together and want to dance and enjoy themselves. It's a fun little tune talking about a wedding, actually. And it's a style of music called Huapango, which is a traditional style of music.

CATHY WURZER: I listen to La Raza because the music makes me happy, and the beat of so many songs is infectious, like that one. Is that the hallmark of the Mexican music style?

MAYA SANTAMARIA: Well, there are so many different styles. It would be hard to just classify them into one. Certainly, the Huapango is a celebratory and joyous style, but we have Norteños, Tierra caliente, Tumbao. We have Banda.

We have so many different kinds of music that I wrote an entire book about it called Musica de La Raza, which spoke specifically about the types of music that have been played in Minnesota by the Mexican community.

And so there are love songs. There are sad songs. There are more sober songs about oral histories and, of course, lots of fun dance party music as well.

CATHY WURZER: See, have you seen many changes in the style or artists that have come up over the years?

MAYA SANTAMARIA: Yeah, there are a lot of trends and fads that come and go. When I opened El Nuevo Rodeo nightclub about 20 years ago, 21 years ago, one of the biggest styles of music was Duranguense.

And right now that style of music is no longer popular, and very few people listen to it, unless you are from Durango, which duranguense means it's from durango, which is a state in Mexico.

So we do listen to different regional styles of music, and that's why it's called regional Mexican music. If you ask someone what kind of music La Raza plays, La Raza plays regional Mexican as its predominant style of music.

But of course, we also cater to the other ethnic groups in Minnesota, the other Latinos that find Minnesota to be their home. And of course, there's music for people from the north of Mexico, music from people from the south. There's Cumbia.

There's music that pleases different classes and age groups within our community. Our community is so diverse, that I can barely think of a more diverse group of people. And we try to cater to all of them if possible.

CATHY WURZER: Right. We have time for, I think, one more song that you sent us.

[MUSIC PLAYING] [SINGING IN SPANISH]

CATHY WURZER: My Spanish is terrible, so I don't know what he's singing about, but who is this?

MAYA SANTAMARIA: So Javi is a youth artist. A lot of middle school and high school students listen to him, and he is played a lot. He gets a lot of airplay on La Raza and one of the up and coming artists. And he plays a style of music that is known as Corridos tumbao.

CATHY WURZER: Are there any artists coming up that you really are excited about right now, especially anyone here in Minnesota that you're playing at La Raza?

MAYA SANTAMARIA: We support artists, the local artists, when they put out music. But particularly, the scene is really about the big national acts we have coming up on the 21st, which is this Saturday.

Conjunto Primavera is coming into the armory, accompanied by Banda Carnaval and also Cuisillos, which are three classic popular bands. Two of them are Bandas from Mazatlan and Conjunto Primavera from Chihuahua, which is a classic Norteño romantic group.

If anyone wants to go to the armory-- not the armory, the Aldrich Arena in Maplewood this Saturday, you're going to see probably 4,000 people dancing and having a wonderful time to these artists.

CATHY WURZER: That sounds fantastic. Maya, thank you so very much for your time. It was fantastic.

MAYA SANTAMARIA: Wonderful. Thank you so much for having me, and que viva La Raza.

CATHY WURZER: Thank you. That was the CEO of La Raza Radio, Maya Santamaria. By the way, check out the website that they have. Listen online. It is a lot of fun.