One year after the Uvalde school shooting, a Texas artist is using his talents to help the community find healing through culture.
"As soon as I we drove in, I just knew that journalism was going to hit a certain point as far as telling the story," Ortiz said."As an artist, it was up to me to like, figure out what, you know, how do I document this?""I was just writing every single thing that I experienced there," Ortiz said.
He wrote a poem rooted in culture known as a corrido in Spanish. A corrido is a ballad that narrates a historical event, most commonly used in Mexican culture. "I understood and knew that corridos have forever been a staple in how we process information, how we share that information, the distribution of that information," Ortiz said. "El Corrido de los Angeles de Uvalde," which translates to The Angels of Uvalde, is of sorts a prayer of loss. "We have to give them their life that that was taken away. We have to keep them present forever," Anthony Medrano said. Medrano is a member of Mariachi Campanas de America. Ortiz reached out to Medrano to be part of the project to compose music for the ballad. Medrano, Ortiz, along with numerous creatives including Grammy award-winning sound engineer Gilbert Velásquez, grieved together through music. "When stuff like that happens, you know, you're kind of numb to it because you're kind of in shock. And we put this together, and then I guess it's sort of a healing kind of thing, right," Velásquez said.In the Mexican culture, mariachis are hired to be part of many celebrations including during the most difficult times. "We play a bigger role," Medrano said."Culturally, we are we are the ones who are called for every celebration, you know, from birth, you know, to death." For these artists, it's about helping preserve the names, history and truth of the victims of the Robb Elementary shooting. "These families have seen nothing but roadblocks the whole time trying to get something done," Ortiz said. "A year now, a year later, it's still raw," Medrano said."As long as this corrido can stay alive and these truths can be told, hearing these songs will again open up the emotion of this tragedy." In a continued effort to create community through his Mexican and Tejano culture, Ortiz has invited mariachis across Texas to meet at Uvalde's town square on Wednesday at 12 p.m."We need to show those families that we're there for them, that this is who we are," Ortiz said."It's a cultural, magnet, not a magnet. It's definitely a cultural vortex that needs to happen to where we all go there and support them. And I think that's really important."
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