When Victoria was just 4 years old, she fell in love with mariachi music. She begged her parents for lessons.

Her parents supported her. “We need to do our part to preserve our culture,” says her father, Ruben Acosta. He is a fifth-generation Mexican American. “Mariachi music is so beautiful. We want to make sure it doesn’t die out.”

Spanish is not spoken in many homes like the Acostas’. Both parents only know a little of the language. Their children are learning Spanish for the first time through mariachi music.

Maria Elena Gonzales tells about the song she just sang. “It’s about a shepherd who sings to his sheep,” she says. “I don’t really know Spanish, so I think that’s what it’s about.”

Her family speaks Spanish when they are together. Maria Elena says she never paid attention. “I guess I never really wanted to know what they were saying.”

She and her best friend, Lizzette Abreu, began learning mariachi songs just two years ago. “I grew to love it,” says Lizzette. She is dressed in white lace-up boots and a white traje de charro. This is a female style of the mariachi suit. “When I sing, I feel like I am in Mexico.”

A member of the all-female group Mariachi Altenas performs in Little Rock, Arkansas.