¡Viva El Mariachi! How a Festival in a Cramped Office Became the Dream’s First Victory
Part 8: The Mexican Heritage Corporation
From Silicon Valley Latino
From a cramped office on Park Avenue, Pete Carrillo and an army of volunteers planned a mariachi festival that would change everything. Three days. Two concerts. World-renowned mariachi from México. And $153,000 in net proceeds that turned a dream into a funded reality. In Part 8 of Raíces — Our Story, Our Narrative, Eddie García documents the moment San José’s Mexican community stopped asking for permission.
Missed Part 7? Read The Dream: Four Decades of Fighting for a Space to Call Our Own. Start from the beginning with Part 1: The Prologue.
Author’s Note
For the first 112 years as an American city, San José’s city council was all-white and all-male. Virginia Shaffer, a white female, was the first woman elected to the city council in 1962. Eleven years later, Janet Gray Hayes won a seat on the city council. In 1980, voters elected Blanca Alvarado to represent the East Side. She was the first Mexican American woman elected to the city council in San José’s history.
In 1987, Mayor Tom McEnery had a vision to create cultural heritage gardens throughout the city. San José already had a Japanese Friendship Garden, and McEnery wanted to create a program for the rest of the city’s communities. He asked Councilwoman Blanca Alvarado to join him in that effort. Later that year, the city council approved their plan. The first project would focus on the ethnic Mexican community.
In early 1988, Councilwoman Alvarado gathered a group of Mexican American civic leaders to establish the Mexican Heritage Corporation (MHC). Fernando Zazueta, a prominent attorney, would serve as board chairman. The board appointed Pete Carrillo to lead the MHC as its first executive. The MHC’s mission was “to affirm, celebrate, and preserve the rich cultural heritage of the Mexican community and showcase multicultural arts within the region.”
Today’s excerpt, from Chapter 9 (¡Viva El Mariachi!) of Mexican Heritage Plaza: A Symbol of Resilience and Perseverance, tells the story of how the MHC’s vision for the project evolved from a cultural garden to a state-of-the-art cultural arts center located in the heart of the city’s largest Mexican American neighborhood. It is the eighth installment in a 12-part series for SVL’s Raíces — Our Story, Our Narrative. The book is available in paperback and on Kindle at Amazon: amazon.com — Mexican Heritage Plaza.
Mexican Heritage Plaza: A Symbol of Resilience and Perseverance
by Eddie García
Chapter 9
¡Viva El Mariachi!
An initial group of five came together in early 1988, in the offices of accountant Rudy Vargas in downtown San José. The gathering included Vargas, Blanca Alvarado, Fernando Zazueta, musician and veteran of Chicano theater Noe Montoya, and Margie Gaeta, the artistic director of Los Danzantes de San José, a Mexican folkloric dance company. One of Alvarado’s city council aides, Gary Serda, provided administrative support.
The first order of business was to discuss which types of gardens best represent the Latino experience in San José. One school of thought was to create a garden of plants native to México, and another envisioned fruit trees that evoked the blood, sweat, and tears Latinos gave to the Valley of Heart’s Delight’s lucrative agricultural industry.
photo credit Mexican Heritage Corporation
Serda recalled that someone said, half-jokingly, that Latinos would not want gardens that are reflective and meditative, like the Japanese Friendship Gardens. Instead, the person elaborated that Latinos would better appreciate a garden and a plaza that celebrated cultural heritage through music, food, dance, and festive events. Although Serda could not remember who suggested the broader vision for the project, he confirmed that all five in attendance agreed with the assessment.
Over the next several months, the group of five met to discuss a vision for the project. There was unanimous agreement that plans should include Mexican-style gardens, a plaza for community events, and a wide-ranging community discussion to determine what it should look like. They also agreed that the plaza and gardens should highlight multicultural arts. To implement and complete the work, the group formed a nonprofit organization, the Mexican Heritage Corporation (MHC).
On August 18, 1988, the MHC held its first “start-up” board of directors meeting in Room 600 at City Hall, located on 801 North First Street in downtown San José. The founding start-up board members were Blanca Alvarado, Margie Gaeta, Noe Montoya, Al Morales, Rudy Vargas, and Fernando Zazueta. Perhaps the most consequential item for discussion on the evening of August 18th was a report to “identify a minimum of three (3) properties in or near District 5 – Councilwoman Alvarado’s district” in East San José.
Over the next few years, the MHC expanded the board to 15 members, a cross-section of community activists, arts leaders, educators, and corporate executives. MHC’s first fundraiser, the “Mexican Heritage Celebration” held at Emma Prusch Park in East San José, was billed as “A celebration for the entire family.” To attract major donors, the MHC hosted an annual Noche de Encanto, branded as “a magical evening celebrating Mexican culture through art, food, and music.”
By early 1992, the MHC raised enough money to hire Pete Carrillo as its full-time president and CEO. The “Mexican Heritage Celebration” and the annual Noche de Encanto fundraiser helped secure funds to hire Carrillo. Still, the MHC needed to identify a more lucrative and sustainable funding stream to hire staff.
With that in mind, the MHC decided to produce the San José International Mariachi Conference and Festival. From his cramped office in a nondescript city-owned building on Park Avenue, a few blocks west of downtown, Carrillo assembled a small staff and an army of volunteers to plan and host the conference and festival.
The three-day event on July 10, 11, and 12, 1992, included youth mariachi and folkloric dance workshops at San José State University and two fundraising concerts at the San José Center for Performing Arts, featuring world-renowned Mariachi Cobre and Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán, considered by experts to be the best mariachi in the world. The weekend concluded at Guadalupe River Park in downtown San José for a free outdoor festival.
The San José Mercury News wrote on July 10, 1992, “The San José International Mariachi Conference and Festival, running today through Sunday at several locations downtown, marks San José’s entry into the mariachi big leagues.” Net proceeds from the weekend exceeded $153,000, enabling the MHC to build a team to support Pete Carrillo’s leadership and the board’s vision.
By skillfully accessing city council support, Blanca Alvarado put the Mexican Heritage Plaza and Gardens project on track. Like a candidate on a whistle-stop tour of an earlier era, Fernando Zazueta rallied support from every corner of the city with his exuberant passion for the project. Pete Carrillo now had the funding needed to start building a team to help him keep the train running on time.
Get the Book
Mexican Heritage Plaza: A Symbol of Resilience and Perseverance by Eddie García is available in paperback and on Kindle.
Purchase on Amazon: amazon.com — Mexican Heritage Plaza
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Sergio Domeyko
Publisher
Co-Founder, COO & Publisher of Silicon Valley Latino, covering Latino business and culture across the Bay Area and beyond since 2011.