On any given Tuesday evening, tucked away in a rehearsal room somewhere on campus, the sound of strumming vihuelas, lilting violins, thrumming guitarróns and powerful harmonies fills the air; however, what’s even more striking than the music is the energy in the room — joyful, focused and communal. This is Mariachi Regional en Cornell University, the first and only student-led mariachi ensemble at Cornell. Founded only a few years ago, MRCU has quickly become much more than a performance group, it’s a home for Latino students at Cornell, a bridge between Cornell and Ithaca College students and a living, breathing testament to what can happen when passion meets persistence.
When Gabriel Preciado arrived at Cornell in 2020, he already knew that mariachi music was something he couldn’t live without. Preciado grew up in Mexico watching his father and uncle perform in a mariachi group; he had learned to play the vihuela by age four, guitar by six and trumpet by eleven. For Preciado, mariachi music wasn’t just a pastime, it was his life.
“When I got to Cornell…we didn’t have one [a mariachi group], and to my knowledge, we never had one,” Preciado said. “So I kind of made it my mission to get it started.”Starting anything during the height of COVID-19 was no easy feat. Social distancing made it nearly impossible to gather interest or rehearse. “It was hard getting it started, man,” Preciado said. “It was COVID, so meeting people was tough.”
However, Precaido wasn’t alone in his effort. In his sophomore year, a mutual friend connected him to a freshman who had applied to his project team, Eduardo Silva, who had expressed interest in starting a mariachi at Cornell during his interview.
Together, Precaido and Silva began to hold informal rehearsals and info sessions leading into the 2021-2022 academic year, with little success. “It would just be me and him,” Precaido recalled. “We’d just be messing around and singing, just us two.”
Eventually, the two decided to take a leap. “Eddey [Edurado] was like, ‘You know what, man? Screw it. It's just the two of us— We're trying to get a group together and it's not working, so let's just do it [perform]. Maybe after that, people will start showing up.’” In fall 2022, Preciado and Silva performed for the first time at La Asociación Latina’s annual Bienvenidos Barbecue. The result? Instant momentum. Audience members approached them afterward expressing interest and what was once an idea became a band.
Since its creation, MRCU has offered its members a deep sense of belonging that they hadn’t been able to find elsewhere at Cornell. Carolina Montejo, the group’s treasurer and social media chair, described the experience of joining the mariachi as liberating. “[MRCU] really allowed me to express my culture in a way where I didn’t feel embarrassed,” she said. “Especially at Cornell, it’s hard to be a person of color, especially during a time like this.”
This sentiment expands to members like Marvin Juarez Espinoza, a violin performance and music education major at Ithaca College and MRCU’s secretary. For Juarez Espinoza, joining the group wasn’t just about music — it was about bridging two worlds. “Being able to connect with people from the other side of the hill… it’s very important, especially as Latinos,” he said. “It’s just nice to get to know people over there [Cornell] because I feel like oftentimes, Ithaca College and Cornell are so separated… there’s this invisible barrier.”
MRCU has cemented its place as a campus and community favorite with performances at events like the Latino Civil Association of Tompkins County’s annual Latino Heritage Festival this past Oct. and Cornell’s 2024 Senior Convocation — where MRCU became the first student group to receive a standing ovation at Convocation.
Yet, MRCU is still a work in progress; Silva, the group’s current president, has his sights set high: “I have a goal to have us eventually perform at Bailey Hall,” he shared. He sees parallels between MRCU and other iconic student groups at Cornell. “The marching band was also started by students and now they have a lot of members, their own building, really cool uniforms and a bunch of instruments. The mariachi could also eventually reach that same goal.”
Silva also envisions a broader mariachi movement across the Ivy League. “The California and Texas college mariachis have competitions; we are not currently at that level, but it would still be cool to have the Columbia Mariachi, the Brown Mariachi, Princeton and Harvard to join us and have a festival. … We each could have a 30-minute set and we invite a mariachi that is … more famous. Like Mariachi Flor De Toloache, which is an all-women’s mariachi in New York City.”
Still, growth hasn’t come without challenges: uniforms are expensive, scheduling is tricky and the lack of dedicated support for Latino cultural initiatives at Cornell can create bureaucratic obstacles. Even the group’s name was a compromise, reflecting a cultural disconnect, as the university insisted on wording that made sense in English but not in Spanish grammar. Despite these hurdles, the group continues to thrive, thanks in part to the dedication of members like Montejo and Silva who continue to dream big, hoping for institutional recognition, sustainable funding and an experienced mariachi instructor to mentor the ensemble.
At its core, MRCU is about more than music, what started as two students singing alone in a room has grown into a dynamic ensemble with a strong presence at Cornell and beyond. Montejo put it best: “I love being able to be part of something bigger than myself.” And at Mariachi Regional en Cornell University, that something is growing louder and prouder each passing semester.
Leslie Monter-Casio is a freshman in the College of Engineering. They can be reached at lm953@cornell.edu.
