Los Tigres del Norte on meeting the political moment, playing at Folsom and paving the way for música Mexicana
He asked if I had any interest in an interview. I've never said yes faster.
After all, Los Tigres del Norte is one of the most consequential música Mexicana acts on either side of the border, popularizing the genre in the U.S. long before the current batch of stars was even born. Comprised of the Hernández brothers (Jorge, Hernán, Eduardo and Luis) and their cousin Óscar Lara, the band was founded in 1965 in the Sinaloan town of Rosa Morada and settled in San Jose a few years later. It has sold millions of records worldwide with its songs about the drug trade, unrequited love and immigrant life in this country. It's responsible for 'La Puerta Negra,' a track that drives the crowd at Dodger Stadium into a frenzy whenever it's played over the PA system.
I spoke to the band members and Sergio Arau, who directed and illustrated the music video for 'La Lotería,' at the Universal Music offices in Woodland Hills. The following interview has been translated from Spanish, and has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
I want to start with 'La Lotería,' a song with a message that talks about the current political climate. What inspired you to record this song?
Jorge Hernández: We were inspired by the fact that lotería has a very direct connection with the public, the characters it mentions and everything that happens throughout the song. But the most important thing is that we now see that this song comes out at a critical moment. We took on the task of recording and having this number and hopefully the public will analyze it and reflect on each of the themes that are touched upon in this song, because there are several and each lotería card has a different meaning for all of us. That is why we invite those who are reading this to listen to the song so that they can reflect.
Lotería is very much a Mexican staple. There are many people of Mexican descent living in the United States who do not speak Spanish, but they know the lotería game quite well. Why focus on this very cultural and well-known product?
Hernán Hernández: Lotería, besides being a game, in our Mexican culture, it's like believing in something. If something bad happens to you, you think, 'I hope I win the lottery so I can get out of this situation,' or if you don't get along with someone, sometimes you think, 'Why are you so stuck up? Did you win the lottery or what?'
Personally, I see lotería as the risks you have to take in life in order to obtain what you want. When you buy a lottery ticket, you don't know that you're going to win it. Those of us who come from Mexico or any Latin American country to the United States, you risk a lot crossing over, venturing here. We don't know if we're going to make it, but you tell yourself, 'Yes, I am going to make it!' When we came to the United States in 1968, we were lucky. We won the lottery in a sense by coming legally. But once we were here, we had opportunities and we stayed here illegally for a while, until each one of us got our papers sorted out. I think that is part of the lottery. If you don't take risks, you will never win. You have to take that leap of faith in life to improve things for yourself.
As you mentioned, immigration is something you all experienced. How has your personal story influenced your music?
Luis Hernández: It has influenced our music in a thousand ways. Each one of us at some point was illegal in this country, and so we know intimately the challenges that this community faces. In the decades that the band has been together, we have seen different administrations vilify migrant communities. We deeply understand the problems that have existed for this vulnerable group of people. We've seen immigrants, especially Latinos, be repeatedly used as scapegoats to advance people's political aspirations. Living within a Latino community has made us perfectly aware of what happens to our countrymen here on a daily basis, and that makes us more attuned when it comes to recording songs. Throughout our career as Los Tigres del Norte, we have developed a relationship with our audience where they see something in us that makes them feel like they are like us and we are like them.
You guys are categorized as part of the música Mexicana genre, which you obviously are, but to me your music is also very American. Several of your songs touch on the theme of being from here and from there, de aquí y de allá, whether it be 'Jaula de Oro,' or 'Somos más Americanos,' which claims that Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. are more American than 'all of the gringos' and points to how much of this country used to be Mexican territory. My favorite rendition of the latter is the 'MTV Unplugged' version that features Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine. Talk to me a little about that song and collaborating with Zack on it.
Eduardo Hernández: 'Somos más Americanos' is a song that we believe speaks the truth about our paisanos living on this side of the border. When my compadre Jorge does the spoken part of the track, people in the audience shout and raise their arms with joy, they raise their fist as if to say, 'Yes, I am that person.' Even though it was recorded more than 20 years ago, fans always ask for it. It is a song that I do not think will ever go out of style, especially with what we are living right now.
Working with Zack was a wonderful experience. He learned to play the song the way we play it. When we invited him to perform with us, he asked to sing that song specifically. He learned how to play it on the bajo sexto in like an hour. Obviously, we felt very flattered because he is a great figure, a person who also defends our people. We will always be grateful to him for that.
Hernán: I remember Jorge pointed out once in an interview that in Mexico you're not really taught the history of how so much land ended up becoming part of the United States. And Sergio here, who grew up and went to school in Mexico, can corroborate this. The history books in Mexico don't really delve into how California and other Western states once belonged to Mexico, and even less so here in the U.S. We weren't really taught that.
Sergio Arau: The Mexican-American War of 1848 wasn't a war. It was an invasion. It's not really common knowledge in Mexico that the U.S. flag was flown in [Mexico City's central plaza] the Zocalo for nine months. Nobody really talks about it.
You worked with Sergio, whom we recently interviewed for the 20th anniversary of his film 'A Day Without a Mexican,' on the music video for 'La Lotería.' How did this partnership come about?
Jorge: We had the opportunity to work with Sergio when we made the music video for 'La Bala.' We were looking for a director who could put on the screen what the song was all about. A woman from our record label, Martita, said that Sergio was the right fit for the job, so we looked him up. Sergio's video immediately connected with the public. When it came time to make a video for 'La Lotería,' we needed someone who could be quick and very effective with the messaging. We knew we wanted to work with Sergio again because lotería is such a Mexican thing and we needed someone who had that deep cultural understanding of what the game and the characters in the game mean.
Hernán: Sergio is so well-versed in culture and he does everything. He drew all of the images in the video. He directs, he sings and plays music.
Sergio: I'm what you call a multi-undisciplined artist. [laughs]
Hernán: Sergio and his band [Botellita de Jerez] were also part of the rock tribute to Los Tigres del Norte [2001's 'El Mas Grande Homenaje A Los Tigres Del Norte'].
Speaking of rock, Los Tigres del Norte went viral recently thanks to the Swedish band the Hives. Can you talk to me about that?
Jorge: That was a very nice moment. We were playing in London last April and the Hives were playing at the same venue the night before. They posted a photo online that showed us wearing outfits similar to the ones they wear and they encouraged their fans to come to our show. They sent us a nice message. Two of the band members were supposed to come say hello but one of them got very sick so they couldn't make it. We messaged them back to see if we could link up one day and play some concerts together.
Los Tigres del Norte played at Folsom State Prison in 2018. This performance was captured in a 2019 documentary that streamed on Netflix. What struck me about the show and the film was how you always extend dignity and respect to people who don't always get it from the rest of society. Was this the reason why you wanted to play at Folsom?
Jorge: We were approached about performing there because it was going to be the 50th anniversary of Johnny Cash playing at Folsom, and they wanted to commemorate that with another performance. They asked if we were interested and we said that of course we wanted to do it. Johnny Cash's son [John Carter Cash] was heavily involved in the decision and he picked us to honor his father and continue that legacy. I think part of the reason we were picked was that when Johnny Cash performed, the majority of the inmates were white, and now the majority are Latino. We also wanted to do something a little bit different. In addition to performing for the men, we also wanted to play for the women incarcerated there. They gave us permission for both.
Óscar Lara: Adding a little bit to that, it was eye-opening to be subjected to the level of security when we first entered. It was incredible. Our production for the event was very low-key because we couldn't bring in many things. It was just a camera, two speakers, a small console and our instruments. When we went in, they even took out all of the strings. They gave us a little tour of some of the cells, and you got a real firsthand look at how inmates live there. They're in a cell where there's a toilet right next to the bed. You notice the darkness. As they walked us around, an inmate shouted at us through a little hole on his cell door, 'Los Tigres del Norte!' He was surprised to see us there. 'Are you making a movie here? I met you guys at an event in Bakersfield. What are you doing here?' I answered that we're going to play there and asked if he knew about that. He said he had no idea. 'I behaved badly and I haven't really seen the sun in six months.' It was an experience that stayed with me.
You guys have a trajectory that spans several decades, and I'm sure you've seen the explosion of the Mexican and Latino population in the U.S. during that period. Right now, we find ourselves in a cultural moment where música Mexicana is a massive genre for the streamers here and globally. What do you guys think of the new generation of young artists carrying the banner of música Mexicana?
Jorge: This group of new artists have really resonated with a whole new generation of fans, and they've been really good at leveraging the internet to grow their audiences. I think these young people have every right to express themselves however they want. Some are more successful than others. I think that we are all part of the same movement. Música Mexicana is a tree and these new songs are the leaves of the tree that come from all those who were here before us and those of us who have been doing it for a while. These new branches of songs from the new generation, they play their music a certain way, and we are grateful for that, for that new opening, right? I hope that it continues to grow and that all of them continue to mature and that they do it the best they can so that this music continues to exist for a long time.
Final question, and I want to end like how I started, by talking about politics and what we're living through. Los Tigres del Norte have never been afraid to express opinions about the society we live in, and something I've noticed when talking to the new generation is that the political messaging is noticeably absent from their music. It's almost as if they're afraid to talk about what's going on, which is surprising and disappointing. Do you have a message for this new generation in terms of speaking the truth about what's happening?
Luis: I don't think it's fear that they have. I think it's a lack of commitment and responsibility to give that message. I think that at the end of the day when a trend comes along, the others follow that line and the easiest thing is to do what has already been done, or talk about very superficial things. It's very difficult. If you notice, there are very few artists left who talk about social problems, who talk about immigration issues. Those who do, address it once or twice. Who among them can talk to you about the topic of immigration because they have experienced it firsthand?
I think that they also sing corridos that are more fictitious and that don't speak of reality as it is. Many things are said, many of them crude. So then if those songs that they perform don't have a root in reality, then how are they going to talk about a subject that is so pertinent to society? It's very difficult to be able to project something that you don't know thoroughly. That's why I say that those who want to be spokespeople for a society must have that commitment.
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Chicago Tribune
8 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
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Miami Herald
9 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Trump boasts of deporting the ‘worst of the worst.' LA raids tell a far different story
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Officials, he said, followed a strategy of focusing on the minority of violent convicted criminals so they could justify enforcement policies that are proving to be less popular. 'I think they know that if they were honest with the American public that they're arresting people who cook our food, wash dishes in the kitchen, take care of people in nursing homes, people who are just living in part of the community … there's a large segment of the public, including a large segment of Trump's own supporters, who would be uncomfortable and might even oppose those kinds of immigration practices.' 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'A core component of their messaging is that this is about public safety, that the people that they are arresting are threats to their communities,' said David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank. 'But it's hard to maintain that this is all about public safety when you're going out and arresting people who are just going about their lives and working.' Trump never said he would arrest only criminals. Almost as soon as he retook office on Jan. 20, Trump signed a stack of executive orders aimed at drastically curbing immigration. The administration then moved to expand arrests from immigrants who posed a security threat to anyone who entered the country illegally. Yet while officials kept insisting they were focused on violent criminals, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt issued a warning: 'That doesn't mean that the other illegal criminals who entered our nation's borders are off the table.' As White House chief adviser on border policy Tom Homan put it: 'If you're in the country illegally, you got a problem.' Still, things did not really pick up until May, when White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller ordered ICE's top field officials to shift to more aggressive tactics: arresting undocumented immigrants, whether or not they had a criminal record. Miller set a new goal: arresting 3,000 undocumented people a day, a quota that immigration experts say is impossible to reach by focusing only on criminals. 'There aren't enough criminal immigrants in the United States to fill their arrest quotas and to get millions and millions of deportations, which is what the president has explicitly promised,' Bier said. 'Immigration and Customs Enforcement says there's half a million removable noncitizens who have criminal convictions in the United States. Most of those are nonviolent: traffic, immigration offenses. It's not millions and millions.' 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A CBS/YouGov poll published July 20 shows about 56% of those surveyed approved of Trump's handling of immigration in March, but that dropped to 50% in June and 46% in July. About 52% of poll respondents said the Trump administration is trying to deport more people than expected. When asked who the Trump administration is prioritizing for deporting, only 44% said 'dangerous criminals.' California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass have repeatedly accused Trump of conducting a national experiment in Los Angeles. 'The federal government is using California as a playground to test their indiscriminate actions that fulfill unsafe arrest quotas and mass detention goals,' Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokesperson for Newsom told The Times. 'They are going after every single immigrant, regardless of whether they have a criminal background and without care that they are American citizens, legal status holders and foreign-born, and even targeting native-born U.S. citizens.' 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It has threatened to withhold federal funds to California due to its 'sanctuary state' law, which limits county jails from coordinating with ICE except in cases involving immigrants convicted of a serious crime or felonies such as murder, rape, robbery or arson. Last week, the U.S. Justice Department requested California counties, including L.A., provide data on all jail inmates who are not U.S. citizens in an effort to help federal immigration agents prioritize those who have committed crimes. 'Although every illegal alien by definition violates federal law,' the U.S. Justice Department said in a news release, 'those who go on to commit crimes after doing so show that they pose a heightened risk to our Nation's safety and security.' As Americans are bombarded with dueling narratives of good vs. bad immigrants, Kocher believes the question we have to grapple with is not 'What does the data say?' Instead, we should ask: 'How do we meaningfully distinguish between immigrants with serious criminal convictions and immigrants who are peacefully living their lives?' 'I don't think it's reasonable, or helpful, to represent everyone as criminals - or everyone as saints,' Kocher said. 'Probably the fundamental question, which is also a question that plagues our criminal justice system, is whether our legal system is capable of distinguishing between people who are genuine public safety threats and people who are simply caught up in the bureaucracy.' The data, Kocher said, show that ICE is currently unable or unwilling to make that distinction. 'If we don't like the way that the system is working, we might want to rethink whether we want a system where people who are simply living in the country following laws, working in their economy, should actually have a pathway to stay,' Kocher said. 'And the only way to do that is actually to change the laws.' In the rush to blast out mugshots of some of the most criminal L.A. immigrants, the Trump administration left out a key part of the story. According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, its staff notified ICE on May 5 of Veneracion's pending release after he had served nearly 30 years in prison for the crimes of assault with intent to commit rape and sexual penetration with a foreign object with force. But ICE failed to pick up Veneracion and canceled its hold on him May 19, a day before he was released on parole. A few weeks later, as ICE amped up its raids, federal agents arrested Veneracion on June 7 at the ICE office in L.A. The very next day, DHS shared his mugshot in a news release titled 'President Trump is Stepping Up Where Democrats Won't.' The same document celebrated the capture of Phan, who served nearly 25 years in prison after he was convicted of second-degree murder. CDCR said the Board of Parole Hearings coordinated with ICE after Phan was granted parole in 2022. Phan was released that year to ICE custody. But those details did not stop Trump officials from taking credit for his arrest and blaming California leaders for letting Phan loose. 'It is sickening that Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass continue to protect violent criminal illegal aliens at the expense of the safety of American citizens and communities,' DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
San Francisco Chronicle
15 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Faith leaders hope bill will stop the loss of thousands of clergy from abroad serving US communities
Faith leaders across the U.S. are hoping a bipartisan bill, recently introduced in the U.S. Senate and House, might finally bring resolution to an immigration issue that has been hindering their service to their communities for more than two years. In March 2023, the Biden administration made a sudden change in how the government processes green cards in the category that includes both abused minors and religious workers. It created new backlogs that threaten the ability of thousands of pastors, nuns, imams, cantors and others to remain in the United States. The bill only tackles one small part of the issue, which sponsoring lawmakers hope will increase its chances of passing even as immigration remains one of the most polarizing issues in the country. Faith leaders say even a narrow fix will be enough to prevent damaging losses to congregations and to start planning for the future again. 'Unless there is a change to current practice, our community is slowly being strangled,' said the Rev. Aaron Wessman, vicar general and director of formation for the Glenmary Home Missioners, a small Catholic order ministering in rural America. 'I will weep with joy if this legislation passes," he said. "It means the world for our members who are living in the middle of uncertainty and for the people they'll be able to help.' Two thirds of Glenmary's priests and brothers under 50 years old are foreign-born — mostly from Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria and Uganda — and they are affected by the current immigration snag, Wessman added. So are thousands of others who serve the variety of faiths present in the United States, from Islam to Hinduism to evangelical Christianity, providing both pastoral care and social services. No exact numbers exist, but it is estimated that there are thousands of religious workers who are now backlogged in the green card system and/or haven't been able to apply yet. How clergy get green cards — and why border crossings created backlogs Congregations bring to the United States religious workers under temporary visas called R-1, which allow them to work for up to five years. That used to be enough time for the congregations to petition for green cards under a special category called EB-4, which would allow the clergy to become permanent residents. Congress sets a quota of green cards available per year divided in categories, almost all based on types of employment or family relationships to U.S. citizens. In most categories, the demand exceeds the annual quota. Citizens of countries with especially high demand get put in separate, often longer 'lines' — for several years, the most backlogged category has been that of married Mexican children of U.S. citizens, where only applications filed more than 24 years ago are being processed. Also in a separate line were migrant children with 'Special Immigrant Juvenile Status' — neglected or abused minors — from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Hundreds of thousands sought humanitarian green cards or asylum after illegally crossing into the U.S. since the mid-2010s, though the Trump administration recently cracked down on the program. In March 2023, the State Department suddenly started adding the minors to the general green card queue with the clergy. That has created such a bottleneck that in April, only halfway through the current fiscal year, those green cards became unavailable. And when they will become available in the new fiscal year starting in October, they are likely to be stuck in the six-year backlog they faced earlier this year — meaning religious workers with a pending application won't get their green cards before their five-year visas expire and they must leave the country. In a report released Thursday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services blamed the EB-4 backlogs on the surge in applications by minors from Central America, and said the agency found widespread fraud in that program. A 'narrow fix' bill to allow foreign-born clergy to remain in the US The Senate and House bills would allow the Department of Homeland Security to extend religious workers' visas as long as their green card application is pending. They would also prevent small job changes — such as moving up from associate to senior pastor, or being assigned to another parish in the same diocese — from invalidating the pending application. 'Even as immigration issues are controversial and sometimes they run afoul of partisan politics, we think this fix is narrow enough, and the stakeholder group we have is significant enough, that we're hoping we can get this done,' said Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who introduced the Senate bill in April after hearing about the issue in his Richmond parish. Two of the last three priests there were foreign-born, he said, and earlier this month he was approached by a sister with the Comboni missionaries worried about her expiring visa. Kaine's two Republican cosponsors, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Jim Risch of Idaho, heard from voters worried about losing many faith leaders. 'It adds to their quality of life. And there's no reason they shouldn't have the ability to have this,' Risch said. 'Religious beliefs spread way beyond borders, and it is helpful to have these people who … want to come here and want to associate with Americans of the same faith. And so anything we can do to make that easier, is what we want to do.' Republican Rep. Mike Carey of Ohio, with Republican and Democratic colleagues, introduced an identical bill in the House. Both bills are still in the respective judiciary committees. 'To be frank, I don't know what objections people could have,' said Lance Conklin, adding that the bill doesn't require more green cards, just a time extension on existing visas. Conklin co-chairs the religious workers group of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and often represents evangelical pastors. The need for foreign-born religious workers is acute, faith leaders say Faith denominations from Buddhism to Judaism recruit foreign-born clergy who can minister to growing non-English-speaking congregations and often were educated at foreign institutions steeped in a religion's history. For many, it is also a necessity because of clergy shortages. The number of Catholic priests in the U.S. has declined by more than 40% since 1970, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, a research center affiliated with Georgetown University. Some dioceses, however, are experiencing an uptick in vocations, and some expect more will be inspired by the recent election of Leo XIV, the first U.S.-born pope. Last summer, the Diocese of Paterson — serving 400,000 Catholics and 107 parishes in three New Jersey counties — and five of its affected priests sued the Department of State, Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The lawsuit argues that the 2023 change 'will cause severe and substantial disruption to the lives and religious freedoms' of the priests and the faithful they serve. The government's initial response was that the Department of State was correct in making that change, according to court documents. Expecting some action on the legislative front, the parties agreed to stay the lawsuit, said Raymond Lahoud, the diocese's attorney. But because the bills weren't included in the nearly-900-page sprawling legislation that Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed into law earlier this month, the lawsuit is moving forward, Lahoud said. 'We just can't wait anymore,' he said.
