The Morales family—Juan, Leticia, and their daughters Jazmín, Anaí, and Xóchitl—have spent decades building cultural and educational spaces in California’s Central Valley through mariachi music. Together, they have nurtured an intergenerational practice grounded in teaching, performance, and cultural care.

Juan Morales, a classically trained guitarist and former member of Mariachi Los Camperos and Sol de México, relocated with his family from Los Angeles to Delano in the late 1990s. There, he began teaching mariachi in public schools, while Leticia co-founded and managed Mariachi Mestizo, a youth ensemble that has trained hundreds of students—many of them undocumented or first-generation college-goers. The family also established Mariachi Studio, a private music academy that served students from across the region, providing instruction in violin, guitarrón, harp, vihuela, trumpet, and voice, using accessible pedagogies adapted for young learners.

Beyond formal instruction, the family’s ensemble, known simply as Los Morales, became a way to share mariachi music in intimate, community-centered spaces—backyards, church festivals, school fundraisers, and protest actions. Their repertoire blends traditional sones like “El Jabalí” with politically resonant songs such as “El Pueblo Unido” and “De Colores,” weaving together histories of migration, labor, and everyday life in the Valley.

Today, Jazmín, Anaí, and Xóchitl carry this legacy forward as performers, educators, and arts leaders. Through projects like Sonidos Unidos, the Morales daughters continue to connect grassroots musical instruction with cultural organizing in farmworker towns such as Richgrove and Poplar. As Xóchitl reflects, music in their family has always been a form of education—one that affirms identity, sustains memory, and offers young people the tools to imagine and build a more just Central Valley.

This story highlights the ongoing contributions of the Morales family as cultural workers who use music to teach, remember, and create spaces of belonging across generations.

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