Mariachi Under Threat — Mexico City’s Street Musicians Fall Silent

Mexico-based photographer Rubén Salgado Escudero has documented how the city changed once the COVID-19 pandemic arrived. His images capture the sad daily life of Mexico City’s mariachis in a plaza where they can no longer sing.

Words & Photos Rubén Salgado Escudero
www.rubensalgado.com

The mariachi, Mexico’s street band, is something of a national symbol. Plaza Garibaldi, in the heart of the capital, is known as the ‘Mecca of mariachi,’ and its music never used to stop as the bands welcomed countless tourists and locals. When the government restricted movement because of COVID-19, the street musicians lost their place to play. Day after day, they had to compete with one another just to eat. Loitering along the plaza’s main avenue, they walk right up to passing cars, hoping that someone might want a song.
Mariachi refers both to the ensembles that play traditional Mexican folk music and to the musical genre itself. A band typically includes violins, trumpets, guitars and accordions, and every member takes a turn as lead vocalist or sings in the chorus.

(Top) At the only restaurant open in Plaza Garibaldi, a family eats dinner while listening to a mariachi band play.
(Bottom) A mariachi musician met in Plaza Garibaldi wears a belt decorated with an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the ‘Patroness of the Americas’ and a symbol of Mexico.

The plaza, in the old downtown of Mexico City, is named after Giuseppe Garibaldi II, who fought in the Mexican Revolution of 1910. In the evenings, countless mariachis perform here. The plaza adjoins the Museum of Tequila and Mezcal and the School of Mariachi, among other sites.

Jesus Méndez waits on the avenue beside the plaza for a car carrying customers who might want to hear a song.
Many mariachis search for customers here from 6 p.m. until 5 a.m. the next morning.

Exhausted from waiting for customers in the rain-soaked Plaza Garibaldi, a musician heads home. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the music of the mariachis and the cheers of the crowd mingled here every evening.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put the city in a stranglehold. Federal police drove the mariachi musicians out of Plaza Garibaldi. Every day, rumors swirled in the plaza about what was about to happen. In practice, this is the only place where mariachi musicians can earn money, and staying home is something they cannot even imagine. Roughly 60 percent of Mexico’s population is classified as informal workers, most of whom are vulnerable in an economic crisis and can hardly expect help from the government. In these hard times, local communities hand out food that they have struggled to collect through donations.

Street musicians and homeless people line up together in a long queue for food rations in Plaza Garibaldi. The COVID-19 pandemic is seriously affecting not only developing countries but the entire world. Fortunately, the hardworking, generous and optimistic character so typical of Mexicans may carry them through these difficult times. The mariachis are a case in point. Through their eyes, we glimpse the story that is yet to unfold.

Ignacio Marcial has sung in Plaza Garibaldi for 46 years. He recorded several albums in his heyday in the 1970s and ’80s. Today he spends most of his time in his hometown, about three hours from Mexico City, and returns to the plaza every weekend to look for customers who will request a song.

Photo 1: A musician shakes hands with a volunteer who handed out food and supplies in Plaza Garibaldi.

Photo 2: Monica Rivera Zuñiga is a mother of two and a third-generation mariachi musician.

Photo 3: With no work to be had, musicians can now be seen asleep all over the plaza during the daytime.

Photo 4: Mariachis pass the time in a Plaza Garibaldi empty of customers.