People of the Mercado

Founder, instructor, and Musical Director, Estanislao Maqueos is a native of San Andrés Solaga, a town that is part of the Villa Alta District in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, México, a place that instilled the values of reciprocity, community, and culture. Growing up in San Andres Solaga, he spent most of his days traversing the fields, leading the goats to graze while he and his friends bathed in the river. However, Estanislao’s school memories were not as pleasant as he distinctly remembers how he and his classmates were prohibited from and punished for speaking their native Zapotec language. Despite the countless attempts of colonization and cultural erasure, the people in his hometown continue to preserve their language and traditions, particularly the regional music of Oaxaca.

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Estanislao’s father played the tuba and bass in the local philharmonic band, and taking heed of how music had the potentiality to imbue their village with joy, Estanislao felt inclined to pick up an instrument and start taking his first music lessons from his father. Motivated to become a great musician himself, he studied under renowned music instructor Ismael Méndez Martínez in San Bartolomé Zoogocho, Oaxaca. After completing his internship, Estanislao returned to San Andres Solaga, and as part of a custom of reciprocity known as tequio, he provided free music lessons to the children in his town, which inspired an idea he hoped to one day actualize— opening up an academy that taught traditional Oaxacan music. Estanislao didn’t know how or where he would open the school, but he never imagined that this project would be executed thousands of miles away.

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Fulfilled with his life in San Andrés Solaga as a musical director, Estanislao had no plans of leaving Oaxaca; however, with a growing family, when the spontaneous opportunity arose to head to the United States, Estanislao took it. During the plane ride, Estanislao mentally prepared for the major transition by adapting his goals and priorities to pay for the debt incurred during his migration while remaining anchored to his vision of the music academy. Once living in Los Angeles, some compatriots immediately reminded him that he no longer held the same prestigious status he had in Oaxaca; undeterred, Estanislao never shunned any job opportunity and was willing to work anywhere. After a few years of working at a dry cleaner, Estanislo revisited his dream and reached out to the Oaxacan community living in Los Angeles, offering music lessons for children, taught in any open space, including basements and parking lots.  Estanislao eventually formed the first youth philharmonic band in the United States, composed of first-generation Oaxaqueños, and in 2005, he finally opened the doors of Maqueos Music Academy, nestled in the streets of Los Angeles. The music academy has been a safe space for people of all ages, but especially children and youth, to learn and preserve the traditional music of Oaxaca.  For almost two decades, Filarmónica Maqueos Music has performed at Mercado La Paloma, bringing the Oaxacan culture to the residents of South Central Los Angeles.