Los Cenzontles: raised in rhythm, rooted in resistance
San Pablo young voices rooted in culture
Los Cenzontles is a cultural arts academy rooted in community, where music connects generations. Now, their youth performers are carrying a sense of identity and belonging forward with a powerful new music video, "Somos Semillas." It is a hybrid of corrido tumbado and son jarocho, blending strings, banda brass, and dance.
SAN PABLO, Calif. - In a political climate where rhetoric can harden borders long before any policy does, a chorus of young voices is rising—not in protest alone, but in poetry, rhythm, and ancestral memory.
Their instruments do not just play music; they carry lineage, resistance, and belonging.
Los Cenzontles Cultural Arts Academy teachers and students. Photo by: Craig Sherod
At the center of this movement is Los Cenzontles, the East Bay–based roots ensemble and cultural arts academy that has spent decades nurturing youth through tradition.
Their latest release, "Somos Semillas" ("We Are Seeds"), is more than a song—it is a declaration.
Making of "Somos Semillas" Photo by: Peggy Peralta
A Song Born From Pressure—and Purpose
Several months ago, founder and director Eugene Rodriguez posed a question to 26-year-old writer Verenice Velazquez: how do you respond to the persistent vilification of Mexican Americans?
Velazquez answered with three décimas—traditional ten-line verses rooted in oral storytelling.
Her words, at once intimate and defiant, were quickly transformed into music by Rodriguez and arranged by alumnus Hector Espinoza.
The result is a genre-blurring composition that merges corrido tumbado with son jarocho, weaving together strings, brass, percussive footwork, and voice.
It is both contemporary and ancestral—echoing the past while confronting the present.
Youth at the Frontlines of Expression
Performed by Los Cenzontles Juvenil, the piece is carried by musicians between the ages of 16 and 21—young people who have grown up in the shadow of immigration debates, policy shifts, and cultural scrutiny.
Los Cenzontles new music video still of "Somos Semillas" created by Peggy Peralta.
In the video, directed by Peggy Peralta, 16-year-old Raul Rivera stands at the center, reciting verses and strumming his guitar with a quiet urgency.
Around him, a collective of peers builds a sonic landscape: 12-string guitar, tololoche bass, zapateado dance, quijada jawbone, pandero, accordion, sousaphone, trombone, and saxophone.
Music as Counter-Narrative
What makes Somos Semillas powerful is not just its sound, but its stance. At a time when immigrant communities are often reduced to talking points, these young artists insist on complexity: pride, gratitude, grief, and love coexisting in a single composition.
Amplifying Mexican-American cultural arts among youth
The youth of Los Cenzontles stop by KTVU to celebrate the start of Hispanic Heritage Month. Los Cenzontles was founded in San Pablo. The nonprofit cultural arts academy is a community space for youth and families to amplify their Mexican roots here in the Bay Area and beyond.
Rodriguez reflected on this long arc of storytelling.
"Every year since 1989, there has been a Los Cenzontles youth group. I’ve always believed things would get better, but brutal attacks against Mexicans, which have been happening for generations, were flaring up," he said. "There’s always an undercurrent of anti-Mexican discrimination in this country. It’s always there.
What we’ve tried to do is simply tell our story."
"There’s something about tradition that can bring the world together—powerful instruments," Rodriguez said. "We’ve taught our children that they are fully American. They’re not just invited guests in this country. The key of being an artist is to learn how to be yourself."
His words land with the same weight as the music: steady, unflinching, rooted.
Los Cenzontles Cultural Arts Academy amplifies Mexican American culture and communities through education, performance and production.
Four Decades of Cultural Resistance
Since 1989, Los Cenzontles—named after the Nahuatl word for "mockingbirds"—have built more than a band; they’ve built an ecosystem.
Their academy has trained thousands of young people in the East Bay, offering not only musical instruction but cultural grounding.
Their collaborations read like a map of cross-cultural influence, from Linda Ronstadt to Los Lobos.
Their work has reached national audiences through PBS and digital platforms, but its heartbeat remains local—grounded in community.
Photo by: Los Cenzontles
Seeds That Refuse to Be Buried
Somos Semillas is not just a title—it is a metaphor that resonates deeply in this moment. Seeds are often unseen, pressed beneath the surface.
But given time, they break through. In the face of an anti-immigrant narrative that seeks to define, limit, or erase, these young musicians are doing something quietly radical: they are defining themselves.
Through verse and vibration, they remind us that culture is not static—it is lived, inherited, and fiercely protected.
And perhaps most importantly, they remind us that the next generation is not waiting to be heard.
They are already singing.
Photo by: Chicano Latino Youth Leadership Project