The Mexican band Los Ángeles Azules has been creating music for four years and has won fans all over the world.

Antonio Romero spent the night on the crowded stage waiting for the band to play his favorite song, a brass music he skipped in Mexico City when he was a teenager. Sultry cumbia song.

It has been 22 years since he left home, and his friend told him: "We found a beautiful place. It is 100% different from Mexico, but it is beautiful."

They are right. North Carolina is beautiful and rich in work. But even if Romero, 42 years old, lives a good life here—has a family, a high-paying handyman job, and a side job as a DJ for quinceañeras and cumpleaños—but the truth is, his heart Often hurts for Mexico.

He missed the chaos in the capital, which was a greasy miracle of quesadillas. Most importantly, he missed his mother and his siblings. They accompanied him to a street music festival 25 years ago and saw the band in front of him on the stage of Greensboro: Los Ángeles Azules.

Therefore, when the opening accordion melody of "El Listón de Tu Pelo" finally sounded and evoked the cheers of 4,000 spectators, Romero was full of nostalgia. He brought the lyrics-"Untie the ribbon from your hair/Remove the skirt from you"-and walked around with his friends. And when he looked at his wife who was also born in Mexico, tears flickered in his eyes.

Los Ángeles Azules is a band that transmits and connects. His painful romance Cambia was born in Barrios, Mexico City, but has transcended class and geography, flourishing in block parties and luxurious weddings from California to Argentina. Some of its songs have been played more than 1 billion times on YouTube.

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The melody of desire, superimposed on the trance-like scratches of guacharaca, has an undeniable magic-a synchronization of sound and feeling, when the six brothers and sisters made music together for four years.

"It's a wonderful harmony," said 65-year-old Elías Mejía Avante, the leader and lead singer of the band. "That's something to pass on to people."

When their parents bought them musical instruments and asked them to party around Iztapalapa, the siblings were still children, and their concrete block houses were fertile ground for the working class. The band always feeds after the show, so parents know their children will not be hungry.

Since then, it has been a long and sometimes turbulent journey: countless hours of journey, difficult times of the Kambia style out of date, and the reshaping of the band’s voice and collaboration with some of the biggest stars in the Latin music industry to promote the extraordinary. Comeback.

This is how they found themselves on the 40th anniversary of the victory of the United States. When they arrived in Greensboro on a cold November day, they had already performed sold-out shows in Houston, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Now they are starting a three-day race in the South, home to the fastest-growing Latino population in the United States, which currently exceeds 23 million.

In North Carolina, it is not uncommon to see Mexican or El Salvadoran flags flying along country roads, and one in six children is Latino. Many are descendants of immigrants born in the United States, such as 30-year-old Alfredo Ordoñez whose parents are from Guatemala.

"I love the South," Ordoñez dragged his voice. "I have always represented it."

When Ordoñez was a child, he would roll his eyes when his mother played Los Ángeles Azules while cleaning. He prefers Kanye West or 50 Cent. But when he discovered that the band was coming to Greensboro, only 20 miles from his hometown of Liberty, he told his wife that they had to leave.

"It's a kind of nostalgia," he said of the band's music. "It has grown into you a little bit."

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When the aisle began to be crowded with rotating couples, the first song had just begun. Ordoñez and his wife didn't know how to cumbia, but they joined. They realized that these dance steps were not much different from the country west line dance.

Later, lead singer Elias began to appeal to different regions of Latin America.

"Does Mexican blood flow through their veins?" he asked. Thunderous applause.

"Are there anyone from Central America here?"

The response was a little lower, but Ordonez was doing his part, howling proudly.

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The lonely accordion melody floats in the concrete hall of a stadium in Duluth, Georgia. In an empty, brightly lit dressing room, the youngest of the Mejía Avante siblings is heating up what he considers to be the "classic sound" of the band.

"That's what made me work," said the 54-year-old Jorge, carefully putting down his red and gold Hohner. This accordion was purchased 15 years ago when the band was touring Uruguay. It was made for students. Its narrow keys and light body are more suitable for Jorge's slender fingers and slender frame.

His siblings are all effective enough—bass player Elías, fiddler José, guacharaca player Cristina, Guadalupe percussionist and keyboard player Alfredo—but Jorge is the band’s composer and a creative force. .

Every night on the stage, when the gregarious Elías seduces the audience, Jorge wanders around, fine-tuning the voices of his siblings and the 11 other musicians who make up the band. While he was engrossed, his wire-frame glasses slipped off his nose, giving him the air of a satisfied professor.

When he was 11 years old, his mother, Doña Martha (Doña Martha) enrolled him and Alfredo in a free music school, hoping to improve the musical literacy of the family band. Although most of his siblings are self-taught, Jorge also studied at the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico while earning a degree in architectural engineering.

Dona Martha lets all her children study for other professions, just in case the music is unsuccessful. Elias became a doctor.

In the early days of the band, the siblings traveled at festivals in small Mexican towns. Their father was also a mechanic, and their mother cooked anything they could afford on a charcoal grill in the market. The band initially focused on instrumental cumbia, a style that migrated from its birthplace of Colombia to the Mexican working-class community.

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But then Jorge began to compose different types of songs, placing more typical romantic lyrics of ranch music on the swinging cumbia beat. They became a big hit.

The first one, "Como Te Voy a Olvidar", was a ballad about abandoned love in 1996, which still made fans sing along:

If you are in the rose If you are in every breath how can I forget you? How can I forget you?

Around that time, the band began touring the United States, where more and more Latino immigrants yearned for familiar sounds. They initially played in sweaty dance clubs in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, but soon moved to new outposts of immigrant life.

This includes the Southeast, where the economic boom that began in the 1990s meant that Latino immigrants had abundant jobs.

Adriana Guerrero and her construction worker husband Alfonso Rico arrived in Alabama 11 years ago. They were born and raised in Mexico and have lived in South Los Angeles for many years, but have been struggling with rent and worry that their children may become victims of gang violence. In Birmingham, they bought a house for $16,000, and their children are booming.

They drove three hours to Duluth, a suburb of Atlanta, where the Baptist church and cluttered clapboard houses were dotted with Mexican meat markets, bakeries and ice cream shops.

"This kind of music reminds me of this city and my family," Guerrero said.

"During our event, we began to realize that it was not just Latino in the audience. There were also people from the United States who didn't even speak Spanish."

When she and her husband were seated on the lively stage, Jorge warmed up for the band backstage.

"It's time!" a passerby shouted, and soon the musicians hurried through the cold corridor, wearing matching suits and shiny dress shoes. They paused for a moment in the huge darkness behind the stage.

Jorge silently set an intention. He said that his goal for each performance is to "wrap people within the bounds of love."

Then he went out, held the accordion with his fingers, and began to play.

The next morning, the band took a commercial flight from Atlanta to Fort Myers, Florida. Outside the window, verdant farmland gives way to the azure Gulf of Mexico and then to the white sandy beaches of Florida.

The band members did not notice. When your team is known for playing 32 shows for 31 days a month, sleeping on an airplane is a necessary skill.

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Not always so busy. For decades, cumbia has been denounced by Mexican elites as "naco", or "lower" slang. Then, about 15 years ago, even among basic audiences, this genre began to fall out of favor, and record sales plummeted.

During those years, band members occasionally returned to their daily work. Elías sees patients in his clinic in Iztapalapa, where all his brothers and sisters still live there.

When the band signed with OCESA Seitrack, their boring period ended. OCESA Seitrack is a Mexican brand that pushed them to reshape their sound. They recorded with singers from the independent world—such as Lila Downs and Carla Morrison—and then Jorge began to score violin, cello, and other orchestral instruments, which was a step backwards in his time at the Conservatory.

As a result, a hybrid called "cumbia sinfónica" resonated deeply, and several songs including "Mis Sentimentos" in collaboration with singer Ximena Sariñana became global hits. Soon, invitations to major music festivals flooded in. Coachella waved to him. Some of Mexico's wealthiest citizens paid large sums for the band to play at their wedding.

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Their fan base has expanded.

"During our event, we started to realize that it wasn't just Latino in the audience," Guadalupe said. "There are also people from the United States who don't even speak Spanish."

But their new success was bittersweet. Last year, Donna Martha passed away at the age of 94.

She is a well-known disciplined person who made sure that the band focused on music rather than parties when on tour, and scolded her children if they said something rude in the interview. But she is also affectionate, no matter where they go, she will not let them forget where they came from.

"I will never find a love like you," said the band in a song "Martha" written for her in the 1990s.

"Each of us thinks we are her favorite people," Elias said, and when she swallowed his last breath, he held her in his arms.

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The siblings agreed that the band felt different on the first tour after her death. Their father returned to Iztapalapa's home. But they are still happy to be back on the road after so many months of blockade. The live performance is different.

"The audience is the food for the musician's soul," Jorge said. "They make us play better."

The crowd is also ready to listen to live music again, and let Los Ángeles Azules once again take them to the far hometown.

"I'm ready to party!" Lucy García shouted out the window as she pulled to the concert venue in Estero, Florida.

Garcia, 60, crossed the border from Mexico at the age of 15, and then founded a non-profit organization to help Latino immigrants. She and her musician husband traveled to all 50 states in the United States and met Mexicans in every state.

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In this part of Florida, there are Latinos from all over the hemisphere. The restaurant may show Mexican comedy on TV, Dominican bachata music on the radio, and Honduran baleadas and Salvadoran pupusas on the menu.

Garcia said that people have different histories and politics, but they all have the experience of leaving home. "Immigration is a trauma," she said. "This is a loss."

"Music is like another language," she continued. "Music connects us."

When people lined up to enter the arena, Garcia took out his mobile phone to start the live broadcast. "Who wants to join my Facebook Live?"

To a stranger in a bright blue dress—the color of the flag of her home country of El Salvador—Garcia asked, “Which song are you going to sing?”

"El Listón de Tu Pelo," the woman said with a smile.

Garcia turned to an older couple and asked the same question.

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"Mi niña, mi niña mujer," the man muttered the lyrics of a hit song of the same name.

"Where are you from?" Garcia asked.

"How about you?" she said, turning to the man who dressed best on Sunday. "Can you dance?"

The look the man looked at her was unbelievable and joking.

"Of course," he said. "That's why we came."

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Kate Linthicum is a foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times in Mexico City.

Steve Saldivar is a video reporter for the Los Angeles Times.

Since 2016, Gary Coronado has been a full-time photographer for the Los Angeles Times. He was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize. His photographs of Central Americans risked their lives to jump on a train from southern Mexico to the United States and the 2005 Pulitzer Prize Breaking News Photography finalist team reported on the hurricane. He started freelancing for the Orange County Register and moved to Southern Florida in 2001 when he received a scholarship through the Freedom Forum. Coronado grew up in Southern California and graduated from the University of Southern California.

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