Teaching son jarocho desde la raíz

Building upon an ongoing Participatory Design Research project (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016) to collaboratively design translingual son jarocho music workshops for the Latinx community in Sacramento, this summer project was an exploratory inquiry into the teaching and learning practices of son jarocho teachers and students in México. By meeting with teachers and historians and engaging in observant participation at various workshops, fandangos (son jarocho celebrations), and book events, this project served as a space to gain deeper musical and pedagogical capacitation within son jarocho. Through these activities, I acquired new pedagogical tools to teach about son jarocho in participatory ways, and gathered educational materials that document the histories and folk stories that shape the practice of the fandango. Since returning to Sacramento, I have collaborated with the local son jarocho collective to continue iteratively designing the son jarocho workshops to include the new pedagogical practices I learned in México, and to incorporate the historical and cultural knowledge included in the books and stories I collected.