In Boyle Heights, gateway to East Los Angeles, sits the 1889 landmark Hotel Mariachi, where musicians have lived and gathered on the adjacent plaza for more than half a century. This book is a photographic and ethnographic study of the mariachis, Mariachi Plaza de Los Angeles, and the neighborhood. The newly restored brick hotel embodies a triumphant struggle of preservation against all odds, and its origins open a portal into the Mexican pueblo s centuries-old multiethnic past.

Miguel Gandert s compelling black-and-white images document the hotel and the vibrant mariachi...