SAN ANTONIO — Pioneering musician and educator Belle Ortiz passed away on Wednesday of this week, but before her death, droves of mariachis spent days coming to her bedside to sing her to rest.
"It's something that everyone wanted to give Belle while she was still with us. They wanted her to hear the music she had gifted them," said one of Ortiz’s band-mates Anthony Medrano.
Medrano played with Ortiz for decades as a member of Mariachi Campanas De America. Medrano said during the last year of her life, as her memory was failing her, she inadvertently planned her own serenade.
"We're going to have TV there and it's going to be all over the news... as she laid in her ICU room, I kind of leaned over and I said, Belle, we need to work on the show."
Ortiz helped mariachi music grow to the prominent cultural phenomenon it is through her advocacy work in the 1970’s. As a teacher with SAISD she advocated for mariachi music to be taught in class at Lanier High, alongside choir, jazz, and marching band. She even went as far as writing the sheet music that would be used in the classes. She also became the subject of the very first People Who Make San Antonio Great segment in 2017.
"We have all these things to offer our high school kids except mariachi. Well, we don't have anybody that can teach it. So I said I can teach it," Ortiz told KENS 5 in 2017.
Belle's son, Roland San Miguel, followed in his mother's footsteps becoming a teacher. He says her work building mariachi music education and convincing schools to teach it, has touched countless lives.
"This lady changed my life. This lady changed my life. This lady changed my Iife. If it wasn't for you. I wouldn't be who I am today," San Miguel said, recounting some of the stories he'd heard since his mother's passing.
In the past week, San Miguel said he's heard from musician's who have played the Hollywood Bowl, The Kennedy Center, and even the White House. He said the outpouring of support has been overwhelming and helped him realize just how big an impact his mother had.
"It just really puts everything is perspective on what one person's decision," San Miguel said. "It changed the lives of thousands and thousands. What if that never happened?"