Louie speaks to high school students:

http://www.scpr.org/news/2010/01/29/music-hs/

Their little guitars all should have stickers that read, “This jarana saves drop outs.”

Los Lobos guitarist Louie Perez joked in the auditorium of L.A.’s Frida Kahlo High School that he’s always wanted a sticker like Woody Guthrie’s “This Machine Kills Fascists.”

The jarana is a ukele-sized guitar that’s the heartbeat of music from Veracruz and the Mexican version of “La Bamba.”

Perez was at Kahlo High to talk to an assembly of about 200 students. The teens in the first row seemed to hang on his every word. They’re students in Cesar Castro’s jarana class. Castro’s a legend in his own right. He learned from old school son-jarocho players in Veracruz 15 years ago and toured with the Mono Blanco group in Europe and the U.S. He planted his jarocho flag in L.A. to work with the East L.A. band Quetzal and has since formed his own groups. Many of the guitars played by a lot of L.A. Chicanos who’ve taken up son jarocho were hand made by Castro.

READ MORE: http://www.kcet.org/local/blogs/movie_miento/2010/01/strum.html