Mariachi Margaritas, an all-female group from Brownsville, made history last week during the Canelo versus Saunders fight at Arlington, when they performed for the opening along with Pepe and Angela Aguilar as they not only embraced their Mexican roots but also showed little girls everywhere that they can be mariachi artists, too.
The mariacheras have been together since 2009 playing at birthdays, weddings, serenades and other special occasions throughout the Rio Grande Valley. Karina Vela, founder and director, said the group is all about girl power and they were very excited when they got the call to invite them to perform at the fight. She said it still feels like a dream.
“Mariachi Margaritas means a lot. It is friends, family; we get together every weekend and we go serenade people, we play at parties, weddings, birthdays, retirement parties locally and lately we’ve been very lucky. We were invited by the Aguilar family to accompany them as well,” she said.
“It was amazing. I still can’t believe it. Thinking about it back right now, I still think it was a dream and it was just awesome. We were super excited when we got the call on Wednesday. They just called us on Wednesday and we went from there. It is amazing to just see it on stage that they chose a group of all females and then the folklore dancers, too. The only males were Pepe Aguilar and Canelo. … It is all about girl power.”
Avigai Gonzalez, who is part of the group, said it was very humbling to have Canelo consider an all-female mariachi and that it says a lot about him that he wanted to be surrounded by girl power. The folklore dance group that performed along with Mariachi Margaritas was also all-female.
“It was very humbling that Canelo considered an all-female mariachi. I mean, being a boxer and a fighter I think says a lot about him, his personality and his character that he wanted to be surrounded by a lot of girl power. He is representing the fight, and to us that was a really awesome experience that he considered all girls on stage. It is just empowering,” she said.
“I felt very humbled and very grateful to be a Latina, to represent Mexican-American mariachera and step on stage and pretty much represent all the girls. I had a friend of mine from San Antonio, texted me and said that she felt very proud, that she felt like she was one of us. And she is also a mariachera over there with an all-female mariachi and she said that she felt like one of us and was very proud that we were setting the example very high for the mariacheras out there in the U.S.”
Representing the community here as an all-female mariachi group makes the group feel proud to be putting Brownsville on the map and said it feels like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But to them, that’s not the most special part. Mariachera Erika Soveranes said the most important part is that they are a family and walking on that stage together and singing in front of thousands of people created a special connection between all of them.
“It makes it even more special because of how much we get along. We were talking about when we first walked up on stage and we saw all those people, we looked at each other and we felt this connection. Where we all felt the exact same thing at the exact same time, like wow, we can’t believe we’re here,” she said.
“We were talking about how grateful we felt to be there, not only for the opportunity, but with each other, because we are a hardcore family here. We get along and we support each other in everything that we do, and to be able to do that together was part of what made it so special.”
Mariachera Yajahira L. Garcia said by having an all-female mariachi and an all-female folklore dance group at this event showed that the culture is changing. She said throughout the whole event they felt respected by everyone and that the equality is getting there.
“The culture is changing a little bit. It is not more machismo, it is also saying that we are all equal,” she said.
“The equality is getting there, it doesn’t matter the gender, what matters is the passion for the music and sharing the traditions.”
