Austin PBS Shorts

[in Spanish] Ready?

[upbeat accordion music] [in Spanish] I'm from a ranch in Mexico.

I learned to play the accordion while the cows were eating!

No one taught me.

I'm self-taught.

And Juan started to play when he was nine, right?

Yes.

At nine years old, he started to play.

[Juan] That was a common thing.

You know, you learned it eithe through uncle, grandpa, father, and that was the way the music's been passed on through generations.

[crowd cheering] [female voice] I have memories of when I was younger, seeing my uncles all compete, seeing my grandfather, when he was still alive, compete.

The day my grandfather passed away, he was buried in his suit, the same thing that my dad will have and the same thing that my brother will have.

You get up very early in the morning.

Still, you know, it was dark.

And you had to catch the horses and saddle them up.

And it was all day long on top of that horse.

So you had to learn to cook your own meals, and fix your own beds, all that.

My mother had very American ways.

My father had very Mexican ways.

And I loved the contrast.

The fiestas, the music.

[in Spanish] And as my dad used to say: “If you don't like music, you don't have a heart.” [laughing] And it's true!

[Sound of cars passing] [Juan] Questions on anything before the concert?

No?

Antonio, you're good?

Cruz, you're good?

[Student Abby] I've heard it since I was a little girl.

That's all my parents would listen to.

We would barbecue outside, and we'd listen to music.

We'll sing together.

[Juan] My father's been playing since he was 14 years old.

So I was born into it.

I remember the first time he just threw me... I was ten years old at this big convention center.

And it was packed.

And he was like, “Okay.

Play!” [Accordion playing] That's how it started.

And he was very firm.

[in Spanish] “Play it right, or else don't play at all.” And that's the way I am with my kids.

[Laughing] [Humming music] [Accordion playing] Yeah.

So this is a Panther accordion.

[Accordion playing] This is what all the freshmen start with.

This is what I started with on this classroom.

We started with scales.

[Playing scales on accordion] And then practice it, practice it.

Over and over again.

[Faster scales on accordion] That's what Longoria is all about.

Make sure it's clean and precise.

[Accordion playing rapidly] Yeah, that's what he taught us.

[Inquisitive music] [female voice] My mother's family had always been here.

We didn't cross the border; the border crossed us.

[male voice] We had land when it was Spain.

So the border was not there.

Eventually, we were cut in the middle, so we ended up with land on both sides.

We can quickly switch fro English to Spanish with just... and it's been that way for generations.

[female voice] It took months to get to the New World.

They came poor.

Most of them were poor.

My relatives were poor.

The Munguias came in 1750.

They were getting ready to do the Spanish land grants.

So they wanted men that were married with children.

And they had to have horses, and they had to have their own guns because they were the protectors of the Spanish land.

From 1850 to about 1880 there was a lot of Anglo encroachment, where they were coming into this area and forcing some of the Hispanic families back into what is now Mexico.

But our family, they were armed, so they fought back.

[Church hymn in Spanish] On my Spanish side, I come from the first settlers of San Antonio.

And they married the local people.

So I have Lipan Apache heritage as well as from some of the tribes that lived along the river.

So I'm everybody that settled San Antonio.

I'm the eighth generation that lived at my mission, which was San José.

Well, we lived in the mission walls until 1890, And then we literally moved across the street.

My great, great grandmother's house was right there by this tree.

There's a picture from the 1870s with two little boys in it, and I think they were my great grandfather and his brother.

They're taking the picture from right over there.

When this church was two years old and had fresh stucco and painting on the front of it, is when we moved here.

So we've been here almost as long as this church has stood.

[Sound of fiddle and shakers] So being raised here, with the missions in San Antonio there's always been this indigenous, this native way of living, I walk between the camps of the Native American church and the Catholic Church.

I see good in both.

And I can blend them.

[singing in native language] Pope John, he took an eagle feather in Arizona and blessed the crowd.

That gave us so much blessings and permission, you know, for us.

Now we're not considered pagans.

[sound of fiddle, shakers, and shouts] So the matachín was a way of interpreting this, the Catholic Church, into something that the indigenous people could participate.

They don't dance to perform, but they dance to be soldiers of God, protecting the Virgin Mary who brought forth our Lord.

I don't like to call it costum because a costume is something that you put on on Halloween to be something you're not.

Okay?

So I am a matachín.

When we're dancing, the sun will hit those reflections and maybe somebody has, you know, envy or jealousy, and all of a sudden that reflection comes, and they'll blink.

So they said that God does that.

The Creator does that.

When the reflection hits the human eye, they have to turn around.

So how powerful that mirror is.

We want to be charitable people.

We want to be kind to one another, and we want to have peace.

[sound of fiddle and shakers] And most of these matachín dances are about peace.

[shouts] [inquisitive music] [crowd cheering] The sport that I practice is charrería.

It has charro for the men and escaramuza for the women.

We're kind of like the same as an American rodeo, but we don't do it for speed.

We do it for elegance.

So it's a team of eight girls with eight horses that do pretty much like a synchronized dance.

Basically dancing with the horses.

We have to do a certain amount of exercises that are very dangerous for us.

We can crash.

We get hurt.

Sometimes when you go fast, it makes you feel like you're flying.

[military fanfare] [upbeat mariachi music] All the girls have to have the exact same dress, boots, saddle, hat, everything where it's synchronized, just like how a swimming team would.

We can design our own dresses.

Yeah, but for a competition, we need to wear some boots.

These are called calzoneras.

They're a little dirty.

And then we have to wear this thing that's called crinolina, and it actually has to be starched for the dress to pop out.

And then the dress goes on top.

We also use rebozos.

And we also have a little moño in the back.

At first, you can start walking whenever you get on.

But when you're like like almost like a professional, you can start galloping and stuff.

[off-camera voice] Does he always do what you want him to do?

Yes.

[off-camera voice] How come?

Because if you tell a horse what to do, they listen.

[Mother's voice] She's like a little bit of me when I was younger.

So I thought I would be prepared but sitting up there in the stands today, I don't think I took one breath during the whole performance.

She just doesn't stop running.

We're experiencing the tradition from our ancestors.

And so we just want to make sure we keep that alive.

To keep the next generation going is really heartwarming and a really special thing to see.

[horse whinny] [inquisitive music] Dad was just such a... he not only was interested in history, but he loved to collect the artifacts and art that pertained to the borders.

And he would start with the Spanish colonial era, which would lead into the Mexican American War, which would then lead to the Texas Rangers, the Indians, the West.

And it just kept going and going and just all of a sudden he's collecting old guns and old knives and saddles and spurs.

Anything that had to do with the cowboy.

There's a piece of a Jesuit priest on a mule in the mountains of what they call northern... the New World, which was Nuevo León, and the Indians, bows an arrows, ready to hunt them down.

Those are the pieces that I think really tell what the West was like.

And you can just see it.

It's not imagination.

I mean somebody witnessed it and painted it.

[lively marimba music, heels tapping] So folklorico dance... There are 31 regions of Mexico, and each region has a specific style of dance, a specific costume specific music, specific steps.

A lot of big movements, a lot of “gritos.” It's high energy.

My father was a mariachi.

The evenings and the weekends, he always had mariachi gigs.

And his friends always came over to our house.

So our house was the practice place.

It was just a big jam session.

And when I was in elementary school, he decided to expose me to folklorico dance, and here I am.

And of course, I'm her daughter.

So it went down the line.

Mom has her own company.

It includes my aunts, my cousins, my little goddaughter.

So it's become a whole family affair, for sure, all starting from my grandfather.

I was two years old when I started dancing.

Once I started walking, the threw me in the little tacones.

[laughing] This is what makes the noise, makes the sound of the intricate footwork.

Literal nails nailed into the shoe right there.

After time, especially in San Antonio, the heat kind of melts my nails together.

Sometimes if I'm dancing really hard and I touch them after a performance, they're like, literally on fire.

[distant background music] [lively Tejano music] Before the accordion, I played the trumpet, the piano.

And in all those instruments I've never felt being able to express my feelings.

But when I play the accordion, it's like you have to play it with feeling for the audience can feel the music.

I had a lot of people tell me, like, “Oh, you're a girl...” “in like a man's sport,” they say.

I like to prove people wrong.

[laughs] I have buddies of mine that play polka music, German music, and there's a lot of similarities.

We've got their ideas and kind of put it into our own flavor.

It's happy music, jumpy music.

It brings people together.

Well, food's always a big thing.

Some menudo, some pozole, some champurrado, some sweet bread... Tacos.

Because they're just the best.

Tamales, cabrito, carne asada, fajitas... Everyone here in the Valley, that's what we do.

We cook out, we eat, we sing.

Salsa, guacamole... Yeah, we love to eat.

Just get some friends together and doing a little cooking.

We're doing mollejas.

We're doing machitos, ribeyes, aguachile.

My mother comes from a large family of 11.

Asking about recipes, exact measurements, teaspoons, we'll never get that.

We're always like, “How many teaspoons do you put?” And exact recipe... And she's like, [in Spanish] “My dear, I can't really explain it.” “I just cook from the heart.” [laughing] [reflective accordion music] When I was young, I was ashamed of my culture.

I was made to feel ashamed of it.

It was bad enough to be called Mexican, to be called an Indian was even worse.

I grew up in a racist community.

You know, there were some places we couldn't go: “No Mexicans or dogs allowed.” In 1959, I was five years old.

My mother went to enroll me in ballet classes.

Here's this little chicanita, you know, the term at that time.

And they said, “Sorry, Mrs.

Campos, we don't accept Mexicans.” She didn't make a scene.

She just took my hand, and we quietly walked away.

My mom was really ill, and she was on the point of crossing over to the spirit world.

And I prayed to her, to allow her to to cross over, to have mercy on her, on her spirit, to have her cross over.

The next... After the dance at 3 a.m., she crossed over.

And it's those things that we pray for and dance for.

Right now is a great time to be here because we are finally given the opportunity to tell our history.

The thing I would tell school kids is that you belong here.

A lot of us have been here longer than this has been part of the United States.

So if somebody tells you, “Go back where you came from.” You know, you could pitch a tent in their backyard because this is where I came from.

[reflective mariachi music] And you have a history, and you should be proud of that history.