This summer, Liam did something most 14-year-olds wouldn’t dream of: he traveled alone to the mountains of Colorado with a violin, a dream, and the weight of a legacy he refuses to let slip away.
Liam’s grandfather, Carlos Simón, grew up in Venezuela — a country whose heart still beats with music, food, and deep cultural pride. In Carlos’s final months, Liam cared for his abuelo—listening closely as he recounted stories from his childhood in Venezuela in the 1950s.
Liam once asked why Venezuelans loved Mariachi, a Mexican tradition. Carlos explained that through film and radio during 1950s, legendary performers like Pedro Infante, Jorge Negrete, and Lola Beltrán carried the sound of Mariachi from Mexico across Latin America. Much like the Beatles in the English-speaking world, these songs became timeless—passed down from generation to generation, woven into the fabric of family memory.
After his abuelo passed, Liam picked up his violin, the instrument of his classical training, and began to teach himself Mariachi by ear. The need to learn the music felt primal, a form of preservation. A grandson refusing to forget.
This summer, while his mother recovered from breast cancer, Liam went further: he pooled his savings and traveled solo to attend the only immersive Mariachi camp in the United States—Rocky Ridge Music’s Mariachi Program, led by cultural historian and musician Lorenzo Trujillo.
For one week, in a pine-scented corner of the Rockies, Liam studied under Mariachi masters. He played, sang, and listened. He met other young musiciansfrom across the country who were also reaching backward—toward something older, truer, and in danger of fading within their own local communities. Each of them carried a piece of cultural inheritance that risked being lost in the noise of modern life—songs sung by grandparents, rhythms learned at backyard parties, traditions too often left behind in the pursuit of fitting in. In that shared space, they weren’t just learning music. They were preserving identity—and reclaiming what otherwise might be forgotten.
In a time when assimilation often asks children to trade heritage for acceptance, Liam’s story is a quiet act of resistance. His music is not just performance—it is inheritance. It’s how a young boy in San Diego holds on to the his culture. How he lets his grandfather live on, one song at a time.
This is the richest inheritance there is.
Paraphrased excerpt from article written by:
Marianne Russo