Sounds of Greater Mexico is a collection within the Sounds of California – San Joaquín Valley archive that explores how musical traditions from Greater Mexico continue to be practiced, reinterpreted, and celebrated across California’s Central Valley. Borrowing the term from folklorist Américo Paredes (1958), who described Greater Mexico as a cultural space extending beyond national borders, this collection traces the continuity and transformation of genres such as corridos, chilenas, pirekuas, arpa grande, norteño, Latin jazz, trío romántico, Indigenous rap, and mariachi.
Through interviews, community festivals, and local performances, artists reveal how these musical forms carry stories of migration, labor, belonging, and resistance. Some traditions seek to preserve long-standing cultural meanings, passed down across generations, while others evolve in new contexts—maintaining connections to memory, place, and identity.
Whether sustaining cultural heritage or creating new expressions, Sounds of Greater Mexico presents a dynamic vision of how music continues to nurture community life, connect histories, and imagine new futures in the San Joaquín Valley.
Thumbnail: Los Huizachitos with Jesús Silva in Pixley, CA, performing at the 80th-year marriage anniversary of one of their violinists, December 28, 2024 (Credit: Leticia Soto Flores/ACTA).
A chat between mariachis about the tradition, struggles, and the evolution of the music.
Listen to the ConversationTwo Chicanx songwriters discuss their connection to the visual, sonic, and political landscape of Boyle Heights.
Listen to the ConversationTwo traditional musicians share their love songs to Boyle Heights, singing of gentrification, cultural loss, and what remains.
Listen to the ConversationTwo generations of women songwriters Lysa Flores and La Marisoul unpack love, decolonization and sanctuary space in Boyle Heights.
Listen to the ConversationTwo versatile artists take us through the multiracial history of Boyle Heights from redlining to the Jewish Bakers Union to the incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Listen to the ConversationA chat between mariachis about the tradition, struggles, and the evolution of the music.
Listen to the ConversationTwo Chicanx songwriters discuss their connection to the visual, sonic, and political landscape of Boyle Heights.
Listen to the ConversationTwo traditional musicians share their love songs to Boyle Heights, singing of gentrification, cultural loss, and what remains.
Listen to the ConversationTwo generations of women songwriters Lysa Flores and La Marisoul unpack love, decolonization and sanctuary space in Boyle Heights.
Listen to the ConversationTwo versatile artists take us through the multiracial history of Boyle Heights from redlining to the Jewish Bakers Union to the incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Listen to the Conversation
