SWC News Center
Building a Legacy: Celebrating Southwestern College’s Mariachi Program
By: Stephanie Kingston - August 1, 2026
Long before mariachi programs became commonplace in schools and colleges across the United States, Southwestern College was already listening.
A violin rising over the deep pulse of the guitarrón. Trumpets answering the calls. Lyrics describing stories of love, migration, struggle, and celebration.
For nearly three decades, mariachi has been part of the Southwestern College experience. Students have studied the music, developed their performance skills, and strengthened their connection to a cultural tradition that continues to resonate across generations. But the college's mariachi program began with a vision to create new educational opportunities for students.
In the late 1990s, Superintendent/President Dr. Serafín Zasueta and Sweetwater Union High School District Superintendent Bob Griego set out to establish a bridge that would connect students from high school to college through mariachi. The effort began in 1996 with the county's first public school mariachi program at Southwest High School. In January 1998, Southwestern College launched its own program, giving students a clear opportunity to continue their musical education after high school graduation.
Zasueta turned to Dr. Jeff Nevin, a composer, trumpeter, and scholar whose own journey into mariachi began decades earlier in Tucson, Arizona. Nevin started playing the trumpet at age 10, and by 15 had been invited to perform with both a mariachi ensemble and a symphony orchestra. His early experience in mariachi inspired him to pursue a degree in music at the University of Illinois before earning a doctorate in music composition from the University of California, San Diego.
By 1998, Nevin had been hired to build Southwestern College's program from the ground up. He developed the curriculum and assembled a pathway that treated mariachi with the same academic rigor and respect traditionally reserved for classical and jazz studies.
“People talk about mariachi the way they talked about jazz 60 years ago. But, I could see the trajectory and I knew we would need educators to teach the next generation this genre,” explained Nevin.
Six years later, Southwestern College was approved to offer the world's first first college degree in mariachi music, specifically an Associate of Arts in Music – Mariachi Specialization.The milestone elevated an art form deeply rooted in Mexican culture and affirmed its place in academia.
For students, the program offered something profound: the opportunity to see their culture reflected in the classroom. Students studied theory, history, sight reading, and performance while mastering instruments ranging from violin and trumpet to vihuela, harp, and guitarrón. They performed while carrying traditions passed down by parents and grandparents onto stages across throughout the country and eventually the globe.
"Every student has a story about why it's important to play mariachi and each story is different," Nevin says. "For most students, it's music they identify with culturally. Historical connections, family connections … it can be a profound experience for some."
Beyond preserving tradition, mariachi also provides financial opportunities. With strong demand for professional mariachi musicians especially in the Southwest, many students perform at celebrations and community events, using their earnings to help pay for their higher education.
Over the next quarter century, Nevin became one of mariachi education's most influential figures. He authored textbooks and songbooks used by teachers around the world, advised schools looking to launch programs, and helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for young inspiring mariachi students through the Mariachi Scholarship Foundation. Today, colleges and school districts from across the United States and Mexico looked to Southwestern College as a model.
The genre continued to reach an even broader audience in the United States inspired by Linda Ronstadt's landmark mariachi recordings in the early 1990s. The albums' widespread success sparked further interest in mariachi and helped accelerate the growth of mariachi education in schools throughout the decade. As those programs expanded, more students, including young women, found opportunities to formally study and perform in academic settings. Among those influenced were Southwestern College students who went on to perform in the Grammy Award-winning Mariachi Divas de Cindy Shea.
Currently, Southwestern College is home to four mariachi ensembles, each providing students with opportunities to grow their musical skills. At the highest level is Mariachi Garibaldi, named after the iconic plaza in Mexico City where mariachi musicians first established themselves and continue to gather today. Its members are the latest chapter in a story that began with a vision nearly 30 years ago.
Nevin has many favorite moments with the program but holds travelling globally to perform in approximately 20 countries in 6 continents.
Hundreds of students have passed through the program at Southwestern College. Some became educators. Others became professional musicians. Many simply played to carry a deeper appreciation for their heritage into their homes and communities.
What started as a dream at Southwestern College transformed mariachi education far beyond the South County region. But perhaps its greatest achievement cannot be measured by awards, degrees, or concert programs.
It can be heard.
In the songs that echo through the Performing Arts Center. In the families who gather to applaud. In alumni who return as educators to teach the next generation. And in every student who discovers that the music of their ancestors belongs not only on the stage, but in higher education and in the future.