More to musica than mariachi

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Thursday, March 23, 2006 | 7:22 a.m.

Sometimes, the end of an era comes heralded, not by trumpet blares, but in letra menuda - the small print.

So it seems with the invitation to an event at the Venetian tonight that the Nevada Republican Party is calling its "Hispanic Coalition Kick-Off," featuring Rep. Jim Gibbons and other speakers.

At the bottom of the invitation, italic type announces, "Live Salsa & Mariachi bands will perform." As well, "Caribbean & Mexican tapas will be served."

Y que pasa with that, you ask?

There's more to being Hispanic than being Mexican. As Las Vegas' population booms, so do the number of Hispanics - including Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans and South Americans.

The mix of the traditional Mexican mariachis with Caribbean-inspired salsa music shows not only the current mix of the Hispanic population in Southern Nevada but how the political parties are reaching out to the diversity of Hispanics.

It could convince voters that "we understand where you're coming from," said David Damore, assistant professor of political science at UNLV.

Or it could show - as when Gerald Ford had a whistle-stop lunch with Hispanics and put a tamale in his mouth without first taking off the husk - "this guy (or party) doesn't know who we are."

"It's good politics if you can pull it off, but you run the risk of offending if your tapas become Taco Bell," Damore concluded. Tapas, by the way, are from Spain, not the Caribbean or Mexico - but who's counting?

The point is that local Hispanic political events have been ruled by mariachi music and the Mexican finger food known as botanas for decades.

So this may be a watershed, a punto of no return. Beginning with tonight's event, mariachis may have to move over un poquito. Today salsa, tomorrow tango.

Luis Valera, who ran for an Assembly seat in 2002 and will emcee the event with former state consumer advocate Adriana Escobar Chanos, said placing the percussion-heavy salsa alongside the fat guitars in mariachi music was a deliberate move.

Valera said tonight's event is a sign of "our community becoming a little more sophisticated" - both the general population and the Hispanic community.

"It's not anymore about having the party organize an event and then inviting us," he said. "We are driving it."

Perhaps surprising many who think Salma Hayek and Jennifer Lopez must dance to the same beat, Valera said the move beyond mariachi is full of "messages and subtexts."

Valera, who is Cuban, drove home the conclusion: "I'm not Mexican, and that is the point."

Chris Gulugian-Taylor, executive director of the Nevada GOP, noted that Nevada Hispanics voting Republican jumped from 33 percent in the 2000 presidential elections to 39 percent in 2004.

Of an estimated 414,000 Hispanics in Clark County, the 2004 Census estimates that 315,000 are Mexican. That leaves about 100,000 Hispanics from different countries, each with his own musica, not to mention politics.

Across the political aisle, Nevada Democratic Party Chairwoman Adriana Martinez could vouch for the historical hegemony of mariachis in Las Vegas.

A Las Vegas native, Martinez, 42, remembers political and community events she attended as a muchacha, when the Hispanic community was smaller, and even more Mexican.

"It was always mariachis," she said.

In recent years, she noted, the Democrats have tried to mix things up a bit, offering food such as lechon, a Caribbean roast pork dish, at party events.

"When it's a Caribbean flavor," she said, "everybody seems to enjoy the change of pace."

And music and food are important ingredients when Hispanics get together because "we're such a social culture," Martinez added.

Meanwhile, Valera, looking forward to tonight's event, said he has "no idea" how to dance to mariachi music, but has no problem with salsa.

He may be in luck. His fellow emcee, Adriana Escobar Chanos, hails from Cali, Colombia, otherwise known as "the capital of salsa."