Highlighting Mexican pride: ‘El Sonido del Orgullo’ puts mariachi, folklórico dance on South San Francisco High School stage

Programs ranging in age, proficiency and legacy were all on display.

The host school’s ballet folklórico team Alma de México was founded in 1991 and has enough dancers to take over a stage, but newer and more novice school programs celebrating Mexican culture were featured as well. 

Jaslyn Chavez-Matos joined the Hillsdale High School’s folklorico group her freshman year right when the program was first starting. Now a junior and the captain of the team, Chavez-Matos is proud to lead the team and teach the dances.

The Hillsdale dance team doesn’t have a set choreographer or coach, so it’s up to Chavez-Matos to find dances online, teach herself and then teach the others. Before the countywide performance, she was nervous and worried the team would look “unprofessional compared to everyone else.” 

However, being in community, dancing alongside a number of other teams and feeling the pride in the room quelled all her concerns. 

“It was one of the funnest nights the team has had,” Chavez-Matos said. 

The mariachi program at Burlingame School District also recently just got its start. Established in 2024 with around 50 students from across the district’s seven schools, it is already growing its reach. Watching students come together and experience the vastness of programs like South City’s Alma de México was a joy, Gigi Gonzalez, Student and Community Engagement coordinator for BSD, said. 

“It’s amazing this type of event can happen … to see the sheer numbers behind it” Gonzalez said.

Allison Gamlen, the visual and performing arts coordinator for the county’s Office of Education, was the event’s facilitator. 

Success of programs like the performance last week demonstrates the value of giving students the opportunity to learn more about cultural heritage, Gamlen said. After-school programs are a tremendous asset, but getting that education during the school day is also the goal to ensure maximum impact. 

“Some groups are after-school clubs, but our focus is investing in programs that create inclusive classrooms where kids feel their culture and their individuality are celebrated and supported through arts education,” Gamlen said. 

Seeing the newer groups alongside more legacy teams shows the growth of cultural programs in educational spaces, which Gamlen only hopes to grow. 

For Latinos, the event was also meaningful because of its“intergenerational connectivity,” a community member and survey respondent said after the event. 

“Reliving the songs of my grandparents with my own children,” they wrote. “The students also see that language [is] lived and useful, which helps them create greater pride in their heritage language.”

At the Burlingame School District and others, the members in the mariachi and folklórico groups represented an array of ethnicities. 

“It’s not just Latinos in the mariachi program,” Gonzalez said. “It’s so beautiful that something so specific to Mexican culture is seeping into students of different cultures.” 

To Gamlen, supporting programs like mariachi and folklórico groups has a bigger purpose than exposing students to the arts. As immigration enforcement remains a top concern of many in the community and divisiveness continues to grow, “there’s so much fear out there,” Gamlen said. 

“To support and celebrate the communities and students that are being targeted, it felt meaningful and intentional to put together something about pride, about student pride, culture pride,” she said.

While coordinating events, programs and professional development opportunities for arts education at more than 500 schools in San Mateo County is Gamlen’s job, her focus is always to create systemic change.

“I want to implement programs that literally can create change within all our classrooms, all of schools and all of our districts,” Gamlen said.