Conference does much more than entertain

It wasn't the music, or even the spectacle of the folklórico dance that drew Patricia E. Lopez to the Bank One Tucson International Mariachi Conference.
Long before Lopez became board president of the conference, she saw the other side of what it does for the community. The former teacher and principal at such South Side schools as C.E. Rose, Borton, Mission View and Ochoa became turned on not by the cultural side of the event, but by the social services the conference funds through La Frontera behavioral health center.
"I was a teacher in the southwest part of town, where some of the families and students took advantage, and we were able to refer them here to La Frontera's services," she says. "So I was able to come with families many times and work with them. That's really how my interest started."
The same is true of La Frontera's executive director and chief executive officer, Daniel J. Ranieri. When he moved here from Phoenix, he'd never heard of the conference and knew little of the music. Now both are serious mariachi-heads. And for Ranieri, a first-generation American from Italian immigrants, it's become a family tradition.
"We listened to a lot of Italian music when I was growing up," he explains. "When I came out here and I listened to mariachi music the first time, I fell in love with it. So I told my mother, 'You've got to come out and hear this.' She came out to her first mariachi conference, and she didn't want it to end. She just loves it, and now she comes out every year specifically for this."
They see things a little differently from the bulk of the music and dance lovers that flood the Tucson Convention Center Arena for the Mariachi Espectacular and surge into Armory Park for the free Garibaldi events over the weekend. But their observations are interesting. Both think the student workshops are key.
"I think what we're about, while we have the entertainment and concerts with the adults, we're always looking to support our kids in building their musical talents," Lopez says. "Finding talent in the kids and promoting that and having them connect with some role models, because we bring some of the best teacher musicians to work with them, whether it's folklórico or the mariachi music. We now know through research that a child is much more successful in school if they build on their musical ability. "
For Ranieri, the point of interest is how the students behave.
"You see all these kids (at the workshops), and they're wide-eyed, and they're doing something constructive with good role models," he says. "It's so nice to see that. That's not what you hear about. You hear about the shootings and all that other crap."
"When you go to the student workshops there's professionalism," Lopez adds. "The expectations rise. The teachers are always dressed very appropriately with ties. The kids have good models. You don't see kids misbehaving. You see them all attentive. Kids will rise to the occasion. I hope it's doing something for our kids in this community."
Ranieri sees almost a turning back of the clock in terms of the respect and pride these young musicians show.
"I'm a child psychologist by training," he explains. "You see levels of behavior with the children at all of these events that I remember seeing when I was growing up, behaviors that you so infrequently see nowadays. For example at the student concert, they're quiet, they're respectful, they respond to the performers. All the things you hope to see your children do are happening. There's no pushing, shoving, yelling, fighting. None of that stuff. It's all very respectful."
Both are cognizant as well of the financial boost the event brings to La Frontera.
"The conference has raised almost $32 million for La Frontera over 18 years," Ranieri says. "That's made a big difference in a system that's as grossly underfunded as Arizona's is. We have a child family center back here that serves 125 kids a day, most of them with special needs - emotional or behavioral problems. The mariachi conference has kept that open, and it's the only one of its kind in the state."
The money helps La Frontera Center's drug and alcohol treatment programs, mental health, psychiatric and rehabilitative services along with the child/family center. Last year alone, some 8,000 people, 44 percent of them minorities, went to La Frontera for help with everything from special day care to intervention in cases of child abuse and domestic violence. In its own way, and on many levels, the music is helping to transform the social fabric of the community. And that's as big a part of the mariachi conference story as the excellence one sees on stage.