Wendy Ramirez, co-founder of the online learning website Spanish Sin Pena, saw firsthand how Mexican music affected her students, many of whom are of Latin American descent, during a recent language immersion trip to Oaxaca, Mexico, organized by her company. At the end of a long day trip, the group sat down at a local karaoke restaurant to celebrate an instructor’s birthday. The students knew this educator loved to sing, and they wanted to show off their newfound confidence in the language by singing some classics.
“Everyone picked a song and sang it that night,” Ramirez said. “We had one of our students from Los Angeles sing Juan Gabriel. It was a really fun night.”
Ramirez’s language learning service, which aims to be a safe, nonjudgmental space for anyone trying to learn Spanish regardless of fluency (the name translates to “Spanish without shame”), offers online classes dedicated to dissecting famous Mexican music songs from artists like mariachi idol Vicente Fernandez and slain Tejano queen Selena Quintanilla.
Sin Pena’s music-based learning services are just one example of how educators are using the genre as a tool to teach both language and culture to a growing number of U.S.-born Latinos who are not fluent in their native language.
According to a 2023 Pew Research Center fact sheet, the percentage of Latinos who speak Spanish at home decreased from 78% in 2000 to 68% in 2022. Among those born in the United States, this figure dropped from 66% to 55%.
David E. Hayes-Bautista, director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at UCLA, says the loss of Spanish skills among Latinos in the United States is not a recent trend, adding that the cultural shame in this country after each wave of migration from Latin America is well documented.
“We go through a phenomenon that I call the ‘Latino double impostor syndrome,’” Hayes-Bautista said. “Here in the U.S., I’ve always been too Mexican to be considered American. I go to Mexico and I’m too American to be considered American.” [truly] Mexican.”
It is this growing population of second- and third-generation Latinos (who make up the majority of the total Latino population in the United States) that Ramírez wants to help reconnect with their language and roots through music.
“We continue to build a strong community of mutual support to learn and grow with the language,” Ramirez said. “Music is something that is already part of almost everyone’s life. That’s why, from the beginning, it has been part of our curriculum.”
Mark Yanez, a Spanish student at Sin Pena, said his conversational skills and connection to his Mexican heritage grew stronger after completing a session that dissected Gabriel's lyrics and delved into his life.
Yanez began taking online Spanish classes for beginners and intermediates at the start of the pandemic. Yanez says she signed up after having difficulty communicating with her grandparents during video calls she set up to learn more about their past. When she saw a class focused solely on “El Divo de Juárez,” whom her grandmother loved, she recognized an opportunity to learn the language from a master of the word.
“It’s changed my relationship with my mother and grandmother,” Yanez said. “Discovering Spanish through music is a way you wouldn’t think of connecting. You’re doing it through art.”
Guillermo Gonzalez, director of the mariachi music program at James High School in Garfield, says the Los Angeles Unified School District has helped students improve their Spanish and reclaim their roots through kindergarten through 12th grade mariachi classes offered at select schools. The Garfield High School mariachi program began in the 1990s and was a staple on campus until 2008, when the district faced budget cuts. When the program returned, Gonzalez says, more than 30 students joined in the first year. It has since grown to more than 50 students and features an all-girls mariachi group.
“I don’t think we’re necessarily the best musicians in the world,” Gonzalez said. “But what I can teach them is to love their culture. It really helps them connect with their families and grandparents.”
Gonzalez estimates that about half of her students are not fluent in Spanish. This language gap, she adds, is why she works with students to understand the lyrics, sitting down with them to define unfamiliar phrases and break down their meanings. She believes it’s important to capture the impact of what the song is saying in order to authentically present their culture to the audience.
“It opens up those lines of communication,” she said. “A lot of these kids’ parents want them to come home and sing. It really gives them the confidence to not only speak, but to sing in Spanish and not worry about pronouncing something incorrectly.”
