La Raza Meets Up at Coachella 2014

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is synonymous with intense heat, soreness, dehydration, and pain, and yet it never fails to sell out every year. It is recognized world-wide as the official opener for music festival season, and people from all over the world are willing to pay small fortunes just to be able to attend. The truth is that although Coachella might be one of the most uncomfortable and exhausting experiences, what it ultimately offers is a lifetime’s memories of a weekend filled with thrills and a whole lot of dancing and music. No one is impervious to the Coachella effect, including the Latino community.

It seems like Coachella has a special appeal to Latinos, as their presence is definitely apparent. If you’re camping on location, you’ll see several cars with car plates ranging from Baja California to Mexico D.F. As you make your way around, you will undoubtedly hear many a person speaking fluently in Spanish. And it all culminates when la raza comes all together in support of the few (and in this year’s case, only) Latino bands that play the festival, and the crowd turns into a passionate mass of people that whoops and shouts and dances nonstop. Last year’s Coachella saw a donkey-shaped piñata making its rounds at the Café Tacuba and 3Ball MTY shows, and this year, the Mexican flag was present at the show put on by Zoé at the Main Stage on Sunday afternoon, in which lead singer León Larregui even took the time to acknowledge it and comment on its beauty.

There’s even a group on Facebook called “Mexicanos en Coachella” which specializes on sharing the latest news regarding the festival, survival tips, and support for those in need of transportation or a place to stay. When the festival is actually ongoing, there is an appointed person from the group that carries with them the Mexican flag that lets others know of the Latino presence, and they even organize group meet-ups in which they give out free pins commemorating the event.

As it turns out, Coachella is a particularly memorable event for Latinos every year. Latinos are both represented by at least one musical act every year at the festival and, unofficially, by this Facebook group that seeks to help and prepare those who are about to set out on the phenomenon that is Coachella.

So if you are a Latino who is thinking or already planning on attending next year, never fear and know that you are not alone. La raza will come out and support you wholeheartedly.