The Brief

From its start over 200 years ago in central Mexico to the late 20th century, the mariachi genre was traditionally dominated by all-male groups.

Until Rebecca Gonzales helped bust open the door.

“It was very difficult for me in the very beginning,” Gonzales said in a recorded interview now available as part of UCLA's oral history project, Mariachi Music in Los Angeles and beyond. “I felt like all the eyes were on me."

All eyes were on her.

As the sole woman in the leading mariachi group Los Camperos de Nati Cano, the house band at famed La Fonda restaurant in the 1970s, and one of a handful of women in the scene at all, she was a rarity. Gonzales was not the first woman to play music in the genre, but she was the first to be asked to join such a high profile all-male mariachi in either the U.S. or Mexico.

A third generation American integrates a very Mexican genre

Rebecca Gonzales was born in 1953 in San Jose, California. Her mother was born in Arizona and her father in Texas. Her grandparents immigrated from Mexico.

“I never learned Spanish… I started taking Spanish at a community college,” she said.

She started playing violin at 10 years-old and would practice at home with her younger sister.

Rebecca Gonzales, center, joined Los Abajenos de Isidro Rivera before joining Los Camperos de Nati Cano in L.A.

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Rebecca Gonzales collection, courtesy Mary Alvaro Velasco.

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“I was an average student. I mean, the only thing I was really good at was music,” she said.

And she was painfully shy, she said. But that all changed when she was 16 and had her first boyfriend.

“He was a musician, so we had that in common, and we would go to concerts all the time. And back then, there was fantastic concerts going on at the Fillmore in San Francisco, where he was, an hour drive from my house,” Gonzales said. That's where she saw Carlos Santana, Jethro Tull and other late 60s rock stars.

Those experiences fed her love of many musical genres, but her music studies still focused on classical violin.

Mariachi wasn’t part of her cultural upbringing. Her father liked and played norteño, the accordion-focused music played by small musical groups on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border.

But when she signed up for a mariachi class at San Jose City College after graduating high school, it was a revelation. The joy and smiles on the faces of the students in that class were contagious, a far cry from the serious face she made, she said, when playing classical music.

“I'll never forget coming home to let my father know that night. I said, 'You know what? This music is really great… I think this is going to be a big part of my life,'" Gonzales said.

She began playing and singing in local Mariachi bands. But that wasn't enough to leave classical music just yet. She transferred to Cal State L.A. and Cal State Northridge to continue studying classical music.

Her big break in L.A.

Mariachi’s pull, however, continued in L.A. The leader of a local mariachi ensemble asked her to join and she jumped at the chance. She also visited La Fonda, to hear what was arguably the best mariachi group outside Mexico at that time, Los Camperos de Nati Cano, the house band at the club on Wilshire Blvd.

Rebecca Gonzales, front-left, was the first woman to join an established all-male mariachi in 1976 in either the U.S. or Mexico.

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Rebecca Gonzales collection, courtesy Mary Alfaro Velasco

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“My big break came when I… went there one night to visit, and there was my friend that I worked with in the mariachi in San Jose," who was playing for Los Camperos, she said.

The friend asked Gonzales to come up on stage. A few more impromptu performances followed, until the group's manager asked her to come back again so the founder, Nati Cano, could see her.

“He hired me that night,” she said.

Gonzales was not even 25 years old.

“That took a lot of guts. That's inspiring," said Mary Alfaro Velasco, an L.A. based bolero and mariachi performer who interviewed Gonzales for the archive. “That she went into this all-male, paisa-man environment, as a young Mexican American girl, pochita, that didn't even speak the language."

Gonzales spent eight years playing with Los Camperos, where she became a celebrity of sorts in the U.S. mariachi scene.

“A lot of movie stars used to come to La Fonda,” Gonzales said, noting actors Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Montgomery, and former Beatle George Harrison, who brought his Latina wife, Olivia.

There’s even a photo of her in a mariachi outfit dancing with President Ronald Reagan.

Rebecca Gonzales, left, dances with Ronald Reagan in a photo dated 1982, when Reagan was U.S. President.

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Rebecca Gonzales collection, courtesy Mary Alfaro Velasco

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But it was not always glamorous. Gonzales told Velasco about some of the painful parts of being the first woman in such a famous all-male mariachi band.

“I remember her describing what it was like, playing in restaurants [when she was a young woman] and literally being assaulted, men touching her,” Alfaro Velasco said.

La Fonda’s house mariachi made it a tourist destination, including visitors from Japan. The group’s leaders recognized that and included songs outside the Mexican repertoire, like Sakura, a Japanese folk song that’s become representative of Japan.

“I would sing it… and they loved it because we're connecting with their culture,” Gonzales said.

Eight years of performing at La Fonda ultimately took its toll on her health. Patrons smoked inside La Fonda because it had not been banned yet. She began feeling sick, and asked that ventilation be put in. But, she said, the managers refused.

“That was one of the things that turned me off and made me want to leave the group,” she said.

After she left the group in the mid-1980s, she joined other groups and founded her own. In 2004, she was inducted into the Tucson International Mariachi Conference Hall of Fame and in 2023 the Mariachi Spectacular de Albuquerque also inducted her into its hall of fame.

One of her aspirations was for a woman to do what she'd done in the home of mariachi music.

“I'm hoping that I live to see the day that a woman is part of one of those big groups in Mexico,” she said in the interview.

But that didn't happen. Gonzalez died last year at the age of 71, just a few years after recording the oral histories.

Meanwhile, Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan and Mariachi Sol de Mexico de Jose Hernandez, two of the biggest bands in Mexico, remain all-male.

Her story is in the historical record

With her story now in the UCLA archives, it's part of the historical record.

“[Mariachi] is such an important form… everybody who lives in L.A. hears mariachi music and nobody really knows very much about it in terms of the general public,” said Jane Collings, the project manager for the series.

The oral histories of Mexican Americans and other non-white people, she said, are very important in this day and age.

“There's a clear attempt [by the Trump administration] to erase this history and that makes the work of an archive such as this ever more important,” Collings said.

And it's the mission of the UCLA archive, she said, to keep those stories alive for current and future generations.

Updated February 22, 2026 at 12:04 PM ET

Crews have now recovered the bodies of all nine backcountry skiers who were killed in an avalanche in Northern California earlier this week. It marks an end to what authorities on Saturday described as an agonizing five-day search and recovery operation complicated by intense winter storms northwest of Lake Tahoe.

"While we wish we could have saved them all, we are grateful that we can bring them home," said Nevada County Sheriff Shannan Moon during a Saturday news conference.

Until Saturday, authorities had not confirmed the death of a ninth victim, a skier who had been missing and presumed dead. Officials say their body was found near the eight other victims that have now been recovered. Authorities said avalanche hazards and weather conditions were too dangerous most of the week to search for the remaining victim or recover the bodies.

Four of the bodies were recovered on Friday, and the rest of the bodies were recovered on Saturday, all in the Castle Peak area where the avalanche – one of the deadliest in California history — struck. Six people from the group of 15 skiers survived Tuesday's disaster, the last day of a three-day backcountry ski trip. One guide and five travelers were among the survivors.

Helicopters with the California National Guard as well as the California Highway Patrol were used to hoist the remaining bodies from the mountain, officials said at the press conference.

On Friday, officials were able to use specialized techniques with the help of Pacific Gas & Electric to reduce the avalanche risk.

The ski trip was organized by Blackbird Mountain Guides, an outdoor tour company based in Truckee, Calif. Moon confirmed the identities of the victims. Three guides were killed: Andrew Alissandratos, 34, from Verdi, Nev.; Michael Henry, 30, from Soda Springs, Calif.; and Nicole Choo, 42, of South Lake Tahoe, Calif. The other victims, who had signed up for the group trip, are: Carrie Atkin, 46, of Soda Springs; Lizabeth Clabaugh, 52, of Boise, Idaho; Danielle Keatley, 44, of Soda Springs and Larkspur, Calif.; Kate Morse, 45, of Soda Springs and Tiburon, Calif.; Caroline Sekar, 45, of Soda Springs and San Francisco; and Katherine Vitt, 43, of Greenbrae, Calif.

The Sierra Avalanche Center classified the avalanche between a D2 and D3 on the avalanche danger scale.

"A D2 would take down a person. A D3 would take down a house, so it was right in between those. It was described by them as a football field length of a path of the avalanche," Sheriff Moon said on Saturday.

Multiple agencies are investigating.

"We are investigating the incident to determine if there were any factors that would be considered criminal negligence," Ashley Quadros with the Nevada County Sheriff's Office said in an email to NPR on Sunday. "It is a standard investigation. It is too early to know if criminal charges will be applicable, as the investigation is preliminary and remains active and ongoing."

The area will be closed to visitors for several weeks.

Copyright 2026 NPR

A percussion instrument deeply-rooted in African music, the marimba shows up in everything from atonal avant-garde pieces to modern American pop songs. And yes, many people might know about its clear, playful tones through the iPhone ringtone of the same name.

But with its couch-sized layout of wooden bars and metal resonators, it's not always as accessible as say a guitar or more compact instrument.

Enter a man and a local non-profit on a mission to bring marimba to the masses.

From his home studio, Ariel Campos remembered one of the first times he really got intrigued by the marimba. He was listening to local radio.

“And I hear Tom Waits ‘Swordfishtrombone.’ That was like before Shazam and all that. And I was like, ‘what’s going on over here?!’” he said.

Campos teaches percussion at Mt. San Antonio College and he’s director of Southern California Marimba, a group dedicated to the promotion of marimba performance.

With its roots in Africa, Campos said American history is rich with the sounds of the marimba. That includes musicians like Clair Omar Musser, who toured with the instrument -- which can weigh hundreds of pounds -- back in the 1920s.

Musser might not ring a bell. But the marimba master was a big deal in his day, even organizing a 100-piece marimba orchestra for the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933.

In his studio filled with an array of other percussion instruments, Campos explained that the marimba is usually played with two, four or even six mallets. When I met with him earlier this month, he demonstrated the dexterity needed to pull that off on his own antique marimba: A hulking Deagan marimba he estimates was built in the 1920s.

Campos said he’s also interested in the rich marimba heritage of countries like Mexico and Guatemala, where the instrument is still very much alive.

In Guatemala, where the marimba is the national instrument, it’s not uncommon for three or more people to play the same instrument at the same time, Campos said.

“There’s a great band right now from Mexico. They’re called Son Rompe Pera,” Campos said. “Their slogan is like: cumbia is the new punk. And so they play cumbia punk music on the marimba.”

A working musician who’s played marimba with acts like Brooks and Dunn, Campos has a wide repertoire: from classical to pop songs like the Los Bukis classic, “Tu Cárcel.”

For over a year now, Campos and his colleagues at Southern California Marimbas have brought an eclectic array of live marimba music to audiences in L.A. He calls them ‘marimba salons’ and they even include some of his weirder, more avant-garde creations. For some of his atonal pieces, Campos uses his fingers, bare hands and even a bass bow to bring out the more subtle sounds of the instrument.

Campos said his goal with the marimba salons is to bring the marimba out of the academic setting and into neighborhoods where people can experience it up close.

“It’s the idea of bringing people together, especially now, in these times. We need to build a sense of community. And that can look however we want it to look,” Campos said.

“And I think using the marimba to do that is a great opportunity.”

The next SoCal Marimba salon is coming up on Sunday March 22 at 8pm at Sunspace in Shadow Hills.

Marimba Salon

Sunspace
9683 Sunland Blvd.

Shadow Hills, CA 91040

Sunday, March 22
8 - 9 p.m.

Mt. San Antonio College will also host a marimba festival and competition July 25-26. Check out Southern California Marimba’s website for more info as it becomes available.

In early 2020, Frank Ledezma and Jennyfer Gramajo moved into a new storefront for their event photography business on First Street in East L.A.

But like the story of so many small businesses during the pandemic shutdown, the husband-and-wife team soon found themselves needing to pivot.

 "We would do events for quinceañeras, baptisms, weddings," Gramajo said. "At that moment, all of our events were canceled."

Unlike the roller-coaster experiences that have defined so many mom-and-pops, though, their East L.A. Film Shop has been a story of unexpected success.

Inside East L.A. Film Shop.

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Fiona Ng

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LAist

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Selling rolls

Gramajo and Ledezma went from shooting photos to selling film to photographers, during a crazy-making time when there probably wasn't a better way to kill time than to take your camera out and capture a suspended world.

"You couldn't find film. People were still shooting," Ledezma said. "People still wanted to go out and shoot."

The couple was already selling some photo supplies before the pandemic, but not much. After the lockdown, Gramajo said Ledezma asked her if he should pour their savings to go all in on the switch, based off a friend's suggestion, on a wing and a prayer.

"I'm like, 'Well, I think you should just buy a couple of rolls and see how it goes,'" Gramajo remembered.

Frank Ledezma and Jennyfer Gramajo, the husband and wife owners of East L.A. Film Shop.

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Fiona Ng

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LAist

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East L.A. Film Shop

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Fiona Ng

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LAist

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With that, East L.A. Film Shop was born.

The couple started advertising their goods on social media. As word of mouth spread, customers sought them out.

" We started meeting people like at the Jack in the Box parking lot. We would go deliver film like if it was Uber Eats," Gramajo said.

" They were like, 'Oh, go with Frank. They have it in stock. They always have it in stock,'" Ledezma said.

After reopening, the demand for film rolls stayed strong, so much so that East L.A. Film Shop expanded their offering to include film development and other services. Their clientele, Gramajo said, has always run the gamut, from seasoned pros to novices, including an elderly man who needed help loading a new roll into his old camera, or a woman who brought her kid to get a crash course on all the different knobs and buttons.

"Film Foos" hats for sale at East L.A. Film Shop.

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Fiona Ng

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LAist

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Since last year, East L.A. Film Shop has relocated to the storefront next door, a much bigger space to accommodate more equipment and a growing staff.

The extra room also allows the couple to create a community space for music, photo exhibits and more.

On Sunday, East L.A. Film shop is hosting its monthly "Barrios Sunday," where small local vendors are invited to set up shop for the day to sell their goods and get the word out about their business.

The couple is also asking photographers — analog and digital — to post their photos on the walls of the shop. The works will be displayed for a week.

As for Ledezma and Gramajo, they still go out and shoot. It's a kind of second nature — especially for Ledezma, who grew up helping his father, an event photographer himself, on his shoots.

"When I open a fresh roll, like the smell, it takes you back [to]  when I was a kid and my dad's like, 'Oh, gimme this roll,’" he said. "You still get that smell of fresh film. You know, it just takes you back."

Barrio Sunday

East L.A. Film Shop
3541 1st St., Los Angeles
Feb 22. Sun., 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.