Yahritza y Su Esencia, a popular regional Mexican band, started as a contemporary American dream.
Yahritza Martínez, a singer-songwriter, was about to turn 15 when her rendition of her original sierreño guitar ballad “Soy El Unico” went viral on TikTok this spring. Yahritza is the youngest of immigrants from Michoacán. She quickly moved from being a soccer player and fruit picker in Yakima, Washington, to being the youngest Latin singer to have a hit song appear on the Billboard Hot 100.
Yahritza, who is currently 16 years old, and her older brothers, Armando Martínez, 25, a requinto player, and Jairo Martínez, 18, a bajoloche player, have a combined record agreement with Lumbre Music, a regional Mexican label, and Columbia Records. In 2022, they issued their debut EP, “Obsessed.”
Yahritza y Su Esencia received their first-ever nominations for a Latin Grammy in November 2022, in the Best New Artist and Best Norteño Album categories. The band apologized to the entire nation of Mexico by August of this year.
As the band prepared for their completely booked U.S. tour, they came onscreen from the rear of a ten-person van during a video interview. From the Seattle Sally’s Beauty Store parking lot, the three of them focused in. They had set out to find some shears.
“There isn’t a barber in Seattle,” says Armando, who left his job as a barber to pursue a music career full-time. “And there is no waiting for anyone on the tour!”
The Martínez siblings have had a difficult month due to comments they made in previous interviews that have come back to haunt them, namely about how they experienced culture shock on their first visit to Mexico City. Yahritza had complained in January to the Mexican music magazine Soy Grupero about being startled out of sleep at night by the sound of sirens from the police and the traffic; Armando and Jairo had stated that they would rather eat comfort food from home, such as chicken wings, than the renowned cuisine of CDMX.
Looking back, it was kind of funny; the siblings had lived most of their lives in the pastoral community of the Yakima Valley. But Mexican fans started to take a dislike to the band after they expressed similar feelings on the podcast “Agushto Papa,” which aired three weeks ago. “I simply don’t like Mexico,” Yahritza declared. “Alternatively, it feels more like Mexico City than it does Mexico.”
Social media users referred to the band as “pochos,” “disrespectful,” and “blonder than the Aryan gringos.” The siblings were shown in cruel caricatures by a piñata maker in Tamaulipas, who gave them darker skin, loincloths, and nopales on one’s head. These caricatures are used to denigrate Indigenous people in Mexico and are frequently directed at Mexicans who are thought to renounce their origin.
Yahritza apologized on TikTok despite the harsh portrayals and sympathetic defenses from her followers. She tells The Times, “It was heartbreaking for us and our parents to see all that.”
The younger siblings never visited Mexico before this round of interviews because of their family’s mixed immigration status. Armando was born in Michoacán, moved to another country at the age of three together with his parents, and spent his early years living without documentation. Armando obtained an O-1 visa this year, which is a temporary work permit intended for “individuals with an extraordinary ability in the arts,” among other fields.
