Speaker 1: Ola Latino USA listener Eliz Boon show the Los Achivos from.
Speaker 2: Futuro Media and PRX.
Speaker 1: It's Latino Usa by Mariano josaf Today. The Tiara's a
Speaker 1: musical group of sisters singing about Latina empowerment, self love,
Speaker 1: and politics. The Tiaras have been playing together since they
Speaker 1: were just little girls. They travel around Texas and perform
Speaker 1: at different gigs to try to get their name out there.
Speaker 1: The trio of sisters would walk on to a stage
Speaker 1: start playing, but they weren't always taken very seriously.
Speaker 3: It was pretty hard because we were young and we
Speaker 3: were in a music scene that was catered towards men.
Speaker 3: We were playing a lot of different gigs, the lineups
Speaker 3: would be predominantly men. We would get a lot of
Speaker 3: different looks when we were on stage.
Speaker 1: That's twenty years old Toy, she's the lead singer of
Speaker 1: the band.
Speaker 3: It was hard to find that niche of Latinas and music,
Speaker 3: so we felt like we had to be that for ourselves.
Speaker 3: We've made it here and we're just so proud of
Speaker 3: ourselves and we want to inspire those other younger musicians
Speaker 3: and especially Latinas that are finding themselves in that place.
Speaker 1: That same passion and drive for owning who they are
Speaker 1: and creating music is also shared with her two other sisters.
Speaker 1: Here's twenty two year old Sofia, the band's drummer.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I just feel like beats inside of
Speaker 3: me just come naturally when I hear a song. When
Speaker 3: we're making songs, something just clicks and me, honestly, I
Speaker 3: don't know how to describe it.
Speaker 2: And older sister, twenty four year old Tiffany.
Speaker 3: I would always listen to classical music too, and I
Speaker 3: just imagine myself being on like those big stages, having
Speaker 3: an orchestra and everything that kind of vibe.
Speaker 1: Now, these Edmanas are living their dream, bringing their meal
Speaker 1: music to an even bigger audience. They're catchy tunes dive
Speaker 1: into themes of Latina power and self love, and these
Speaker 1: sisters are also not afraid to get political. Now I'm
Speaker 1: going to hand things off to all three of the Tiaras, Toy, Sophia,
Speaker 1: and Tiffany. They're gonna tell us more about the role
Speaker 1: of sisterhood in their creative process and inspiring future generations
Speaker 1: of Latino and Latina musicians.
Speaker 2: Here are the Tiaras in their own words, Blue.
Speaker 3: Ken Susca of the Hi. My name is Torri Balgietra.
Speaker 3: I am the youngest of the band. I play guitar
Speaker 3: and I am the lead singer of the Tiaras. So
Speaker 3: the start of the Tiaras was from pretty humble beginnings.
Speaker 3: Our parents really raised us in a household that was
Speaker 3: immersed in music and culture and family and love, and
Speaker 3: it was really cool. Our dad was a DJ right
Speaker 3: after he was a breakdancer in the eighties, so he
Speaker 3: picked up the turntables and stuff like that, and we
Speaker 3: were born and we followed him to all of his
Speaker 3: different events, and we kind of just fell in love
Speaker 3: with music and how it changed people's emotions and body
Speaker 3: movements and brought people together. And one day, my sisters
Speaker 3: had been taking music lessons because they naturally showed some
Speaker 3: interest in, you know, banging on pots and percussion and
Speaker 3: just trying to spend more time with our grandmother playing piano.
Speaker 3: And there was one day third grade I was in
Speaker 3: music class and I saw my teacher playing guitar and
Speaker 3: I was really really interested. I was like, what is
Speaker 3: this world like? The guitar is filling up the room
Speaker 3: and making everyone sing and dance and so right after
Speaker 3: that I got lessons and we realized we were in
Speaker 3: the same household playing instruments that pretty much go with
Speaker 3: a band. And then we just started playing covers together
Speaker 3: and then writing the songs that were kind of bad,
Speaker 3: but it needed to happen for us to you know,
Speaker 3: innovate and make our own songs. But it's been a
Speaker 3: long time. We've been together for about a decade, but
Speaker 3: we've been sisters forever. And now we're the Tiaras. Welcome
Speaker 3: the Tiara Girl, the tr Girls, Tierra Girl.
Speaker 2: The Tiara Girl, the Tiaras.
Speaker 3: We are changing our fand name. Yes, we're still Austin's
Speaker 3: favorite young Latina sister power trio, but we are growing up. Yes,
Speaker 3: we are formerly known as the Tiara Girls, and we
Speaker 3: recently changed our name to the Tiaras because of the
Speaker 3: simple fact that we're growing up. Like I said, we
Speaker 3: started very young, we were tweens, preteens, and now we're
Speaker 3: entering our twenties. So we want to honor the fact
Speaker 3: that we are growing up. We're women now and we
Speaker 3: want to keep our roots of you know, Tiara, and
Speaker 3: that came from our last name. Our last name is Balcierra.
Speaker 3: So we took the ending of that and changed the
Speaker 3: spelling a bit, had a little play on words. It
Speaker 3: doesn't have to mean a crown, but it can. We
Speaker 3: embrace whatever whatever way people want to interpret it. But
Speaker 3: we wanted to do that because we felt like we
Speaker 3: were maturing with our sound, We were finding our path
Speaker 3: in life, in our identities and music in our community,
Speaker 3: and we wanted to bring people along with us, our
Speaker 3: supporters that were there with us from day one, We
Speaker 3: wanted to bring them with us on this new era
Speaker 3: that we're embarking, and just for the simple fact that
Speaker 3: we're not girls anymore and we want to represent Latina
Speaker 3: woman in that way. The role of sisterhood is very,
Speaker 3: very impactful in my life, specifically because I grew up
Speaker 3: with a queer identity in a Mexican American household, so
Speaker 3: it was very It was pretty daunting at a young age.
Speaker 3: It made me feel invisible, very alone. But I had
Speaker 3: my sisters there with me, and I was able to
Speaker 3: tell them my secrets and they were able to hold
Speaker 3: them for me for many years and to always you know,
Speaker 3: pipe me up about speaking up and coming out and
Speaker 3: stuff like that. And they they were very good and
Speaker 3: encouraging me to create a song about it, which is
Speaker 3: let Love Free.
Speaker 2: My Love's got a place son from the.
Speaker 3: I would say writing the song let Love Free was
Speaker 3: a very big journey for me. It started, the meaning
Speaker 3: of it changed every step of the way. I think
Speaker 3: it was born from the simple just fact that I
Speaker 3: wanted to be free. I was just like really tired.
Speaker 3: I was like my parents know. And the pinnacle moment
Speaker 3: for me was telling my grandmother. Because you know, you
Speaker 3: grew up Mexican American. Their grandmother is the foundation of
Speaker 3: the family. She's the one that feeds us, that nourishes us,
Speaker 3: nourishes our hearts and mind. And after I came out
Speaker 3: to her, you know, I felt full and it was
Speaker 3: it was weird because I was like, it's just my grandmother,
Speaker 3: but it was like, I don't know, my world was
Speaker 3: kind of just colorful after that. But I wanted the
Speaker 3: song to have a universal meaning because I wanted this
Speaker 3: piece of art that we created to fall under the
Speaker 3: categories of self love, of releasing a love that does
Speaker 3: not serve you anymore, of you know, letting love free,
Speaker 3: and coming out and living your truest identity.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 3: Nice. It just feels so beautiful to be able to
Speaker 3: sing that to different crowds now and to say I'm queer,
Speaker 3: I'm gay, I'm a lesbian on the stage because you know,
Speaker 3: I grew up and I think at the age whenever
Speaker 3: we began to play was when I started to know.
Speaker 3: And now that I can like fast forward into the
Speaker 3: moment of being like, this is my song that I wrote,
Speaker 3: this is my coming out song, and it's just so crazy.
Speaker 3: I always imagine my younger self watching us in the crowd,
Speaker 3: cheering us on. It's so beautiful because now that we've
Speaker 3: released a music video, we've had messages of you know,
Speaker 3: there was a Mexican dad that messaged us and he said,
Speaker 3: I showed the music video to my thirteen year old
Speaker 3: daughter and she said that it pushed us to have
Speaker 3: that conversation and her to come out and to be
Speaker 3: just immerse herself in her identity and to allow me
Speaker 3: to love on her in that way. I feel so
Speaker 3: grateful that the music video and just this piece of
Speaker 3: art that we created was able to push that moment
Speaker 3: forward for others. My name is Tiffany Bartierra. I am
Speaker 3: the oldest sister. I played bass well, when Torri wanted
Speaker 3: to or decided she wanted to come out, Me and
Speaker 3: Sophia knew for a while, and I would take her
Speaker 3: dates and stuff and I would lie for her, and
Speaker 3: I never really ever felt like I was forcing her,
Speaker 3: like Okay, you need to tell them, and I knew
Speaker 3: that it was on her time, and we were always
Speaker 3: supportive about do you want us to be there when
Speaker 3: you tell her parents? Is that something you want to
Speaker 3: have privately? And I feel like Tory has always been
Speaker 3: kind of like an old soul, and I felt like
Speaker 3: when she came out, she grew wiser, and I was like,
Speaker 3: I don't know how that's possible, but I felt special
Speaker 3: that I could hold that secret for her. And then
Speaker 3: I felt whenever she came I was just like so
Speaker 3: happy that she could live her life and not have
Speaker 3: to feel like shame or embarrassment or feel like she
Speaker 3: was living two different lives. Yeah, I definitely view it
Speaker 3: as our music as anthemic, and I think that's also
Speaker 3: because I listened to a lot of that music myself.
Speaker 3: I think I have artists that I listened to like definitely,
Speaker 3: like Gwen Stefani, in no doubt, I think would have
Speaker 3: been up that she had such a cool style, making
Speaker 3: me feel like I can hold this power and go
Speaker 3: throughout my day. Currently I feel like Megan is Stallion,
Speaker 3: all these female artists, like they just put out all
Speaker 3: this music that makes you feel that power in yourself
Speaker 3: and I want to be able to create that type
Speaker 3: of music too, Like I feel like I can't go
Speaker 3: that just like motivates me throughout my day to do
Speaker 3: anything that type of music and like leave it to
Speaker 3: the people. That was definitely like, okay, let's make music
Speaker 3: for people who want this change, so that let's make
Speaker 3: music for people who need this inspiration, who want to
Speaker 3: hear want their voices to be heard. And I love
Speaker 3: that we can make this type of music and have
Speaker 3: people listen to it and feel the same way that
Speaker 3: we're feeling.
Speaker 2: You gotta leave.
Speaker 3: They still.
Speaker 2: We had a big expressive way.
Speaker 3: It's Tory was the one who came up with the
Speaker 3: idea for leave it to the people. And that was
Speaker 3: during or after like the twenty sixteen elections.
Speaker 4: We the citizens of America are now joined in a
Speaker 4: great national effort to rebuild our country and restore its
Speaker 4: promise for all of our people.
Speaker 3: And we were all I feel like that was a
Speaker 3: moment in our lives where we became very political and
Speaker 3: we were educating ourselves about the systems and the people
Speaker 3: who are in charge of those systems and different injustices
Speaker 3: that were taking place, and understanding that this is affecting
Speaker 3: our lives and people who look like us. I think
Speaker 3: as a band, I guess it is an intention of ours,
Speaker 3: but I feel like naturally it just comes to us
Speaker 3: to make some of our music a little bit political,
Speaker 3: or maybe you can interpret those messages as political because
Speaker 3: our dad kind of shows us all the things that
Speaker 3: are happening in the news and educating us, and we
Speaker 3: have these conversations, and as adults, as women, as brown people,
Speaker 3: I feel like we have that power and responsibility to
Speaker 3: bring this to the light of our audiences because we
Speaker 3: know we have people in power that are listening to us.
Speaker 3: My name is Sophia. I am the drummer of the Tiaras,
Speaker 3: and I'm the middle Sisters. If Yeah. I feel like
Speaker 3: our songs carry really heavy messages and a lot of
Speaker 3: them can be something you don't really want to talk about,
Speaker 3: which is why we put you know, some groovy feel
Speaker 3: to it gets you dancing but when you really think
Speaker 3: about the lyrics, you're like, wow, you know, it opens
Speaker 3: the conversation for something you probably don't want to talk about,
Speaker 3: but we do. We need to talk about it, we
Speaker 3: need to create change, and we want to make it
Speaker 3: fun at the same time, which is why we're mixing
Speaker 3: it with like these groovy beats and music. So usually
Speaker 3: Toy's the one that comes up with like a little
Speaker 3: melody some lyrics, and then she'll show it to us.
Speaker 3: And usually that's when I start like kind of hitting
Speaker 3: on the table, showing a couple beats of like what
Speaker 3: I think should go there, and Tiffany and Toy can
Speaker 3: easily give me an ugly face like no, that doesn't
Speaker 3: go there, and like we don't. I don't take it seriously,
Speaker 3: you know, or they can be like, oh yeah, I
Speaker 3: keep going. So like, the ability to like just voice
Speaker 3: our opinions so easily is like usually how it goes,
Speaker 3: and usually how our songs get created. So I guess
Speaker 3: like fast, but also like in a calm way at
Speaker 3: the same time, because we're not like, oh, like I
Speaker 3: don't want to say this because I don't want them
Speaker 3: to think I'm like mooh, we're able to like say
Speaker 3: anything and everything. And I love that we always communicate
Speaker 3: through our eyes when we're on stage, which is honestly,
Speaker 3: like so comforting to have that feeling because you know
Speaker 3: that we have each other's back. We have these little
Speaker 3: like signals when like, oh my gosh, I am not
Speaker 3: going to know this part. We're going to switch it
Speaker 3: up without even saying one word, which is like, like
Speaker 3: you need that because if you mess up, you have to, like,
Speaker 3: you know, play it off super smooth. But also you
Speaker 3: know our practices making music, it's super smooth, super It's
Speaker 3: fun because you don't have to feel like you have
Speaker 3: to be careful with your words. If you don't like something,
Speaker 3: if you want to be creative, you could just speak up.
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's just super comfortable, and I really
Speaker 3: I was thinking about that too, like yesterday when we
Speaker 3: were playing, like, this is so fun experiencing something with
Speaker 3: your family. We're already so close and this is just
Speaker 3: gonna be a great memory to have done the road.
Speaker 3: I've been saying you every day.
Speaker 2: That is already you thought, it's.
Speaker 3: Even though you're standing in Lo So when we were
Speaker 3: making so Chinguana, I remember like going to or playing
Speaker 3: a lot of gigs and stuff and hearing changunna be
Speaker 3: used all the time, and honestly, we didn't use it
Speaker 3: as that much, but being around it, we found ourselves
Speaker 3: being curious about it. So we got to like know
Speaker 3: the word where it stems from, learning the history of it,
Speaker 3: asking our grandma about it, and when we said it,
Speaker 3: she was like, whoa, Whoa'll calm down. We're like, I mean,
Speaker 3: now there's a different meaning, and we had to explain
Speaker 3: that to her. So but yeah, we took those experiences
Speaker 3: and you know just how we our journey is with music,
Speaker 3: we realized and with ourselves. We realized that we are
Speaker 3: too ching guanas. So we wanted to make a song,
Speaker 3: an anthemic song, you know, get people women excited and
Speaker 3: realizing that they're chimguanas. The things that they're doing are
Speaker 3: just so badass. And when we created the song, you know,
Speaker 3: Torri brought it to us and I feel like we
Speaker 3: put a lot of that Mexican like goumbia feel to it,
Speaker 3: which was super fun. As a drummer to start playing,
Speaker 3: I actually brought in my friend Flamencia and I asked
Speaker 3: her about like some of those beats to add into it.
Speaker 3: So she Got has definitely one of my favorite songs
Speaker 3: to playing so loud but.
Speaker 5: Happy like so many so.
Speaker 3: Diesel. So my favorite thing about being in the Tiara's
Speaker 3: band is I remember this one gig we had where
Speaker 3: a little girl came up to me and she hid
Speaker 3: this big smile on her face with her dad, and
Speaker 3: he was like, Oh, this is my daughter. She's actually
Speaker 3: wanting to learn the drum set. Can you talk to her,
Speaker 3: like give her some words of encouragement because you know,
Speaker 3: she's sort of wanting to give up because of how
Speaker 3: hard it is, but also not being able to see
Speaker 3: many girls her age doing what she's doing. Having that
Speaker 3: moment with her was I kind of like gave her
Speaker 3: words that I would have given myself at that age,
Speaker 3: and it was, I guess full circle. It was crazy,
Speaker 3: like looking into her eyes and trying to give her,
Speaker 3: you know, those words to keep her going. But that
Speaker 3: was definitely one of the best moments of my life.
Speaker 3: There's this movie, I think it's called Soul. It's a
Speaker 3: Disney movie, and there's like a part where like if
Speaker 3: you into the zone and you like this, they see
Speaker 3: the people in the zone and you get into this
Speaker 3: different world, and I feel like that's where I go
Speaker 3: with my sisters on stage and I just escape from
Speaker 3: everything and I'm focusing on the music how it's making
Speaker 3: me feel. I like to see people, you know, in
Speaker 3: the audience dancing, smiling and singing and creating that happiness
Speaker 3: and maybe creating that moment for them to escape from
Speaker 3: whatever's going on in their lives too, And I just
Speaker 3: feel that every time we play a show. We played
Speaker 3: in Dallas and it was I think the first time
Speaker 3: that I was just reminded of the power of our
Speaker 3: band and how we were creating spaces of joy and emotion.
Speaker 5: For people that look like us.
Speaker 3: And I think it's so special because we grew up,
Speaker 3: you know, having to scan out the crowd and adjusting
Speaker 3: our set list, adjusting our demeanor because of that. But
Speaker 3: now we've stepped into like some new pairs of shoes
Speaker 3: and and we're comfortable with just being who we are
Speaker 3: and creating that space of of dance and movement, of
Speaker 3: singing and seeing people like already knowing our songs. Is
Speaker 3: so crazy because it makes us rewind back to the
Speaker 3: moment where we were creating it and we were like,
Speaker 3: this is good enough. I hope people love it. It's
Speaker 3: just it's a reminder that we're powerful and we love
Speaker 3: creating spaces of joy for people that look like us
Speaker 3: and people that want to celebrate us.
Speaker 4: So came to me shade the giant.
Speaker 3: See all.
Speaker 2: Know that it's been trying fighting, swe are dying.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Rinaldo Leanos Junior.
Speaker 2: It was mixed by jj Carubin.
Speaker 1: The Latino USA team includes Victoria Estrada, Andrea Lopez Cruzado,
Speaker 1: Jni mar Marquez, Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent, Your Saudi and
Speaker 1: Nancy Kujillo. Nile Ramirez is our co executive producer. Our
Speaker 1: director of Engineering is Stephanie Lebau. Our senior engineer is
Speaker 1: Julia Caruso. Our marketing manager is Luis Luna. Our theme
Speaker 1: music was composed by Zenia Rubinos. I'm your host and
Speaker 1: executive producer marieo Posa.
Speaker 2: Join us again on our next episode.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, I'll see you on all of our
Speaker 1: social media e at Breda de nonte Vas.
Speaker 5: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Heising
Speaker 5: Simons Foundation. Unlocking knowledge, opportunity and possibilities. More at Hsfoundation
Speaker 5: dot org, the TAU Foundation and w U. K. Kellogg Foundation,
Speaker 5: a partner with communities where children come first.
Speaker 3: Megan THEE Stallion has a like a badass way of
Speaker 3: like Cali, you cheese, Damn let me talk.
Speaker 2: No, okay.
Speaker 3: I agree with all my sisters about because we listened
Speaker 3: to basically the same thing.