San Jose’s Los Tigres Del Norte receives key to the city

SAN JOSE – San Jose’s own Los Tigres Del Norte received one of the city’s highest honors Friday night – the key to the city.

“Los Tigres Del Norte deserves this commendation because they stand up for those who have not had a voice previously,” said Councilwoman Magdalena Carrasco at a ceremony in front of City Hall. She was referring to the support the group has provided to organizations including the Services, Immigrant Rights, and Education Network, or SIREN.

The commendation was also a celebration of the success the band has enjoyed over the past half century.

The immigrant sons of campesinos, or farmers, the norteño band set up shop on the city’s east side in 1967 and went on to sell more than 40 million albums worldwide. They’ve won numerous Grammy and Latin Grammy awards, notched two dozen number one records and placed more than 50 number-one singles on the Hot Latin Songs Chart.

As noted in a profile by the New Yorker, many of the band’s Spanish-language songs are about things that happen to poor people in Mexico or Mexicans in the United States.

“When you think of Los Tigres Del Norte,” Carrasco said, “San Jose comes to mind.”

“People in this city have so much pride and connection to this musical group, which has transformed Latin music and spread it throughout the world,” she continued. “These brothers and musicians are the epitome of success, and to us here in San Jose, they are our hometown heroes.”

The band is featured in a new Netflix documentary, titled “Los Tigres Del Norte at Folsom Prison,” due to be released Sunday. The documentary pays homage to the late singer-songwriter Johnny Cash, whose son John Carter Cash gave the band his permission to record a Spanish-language version of his father’s groundbreaking “At Folsom Prison” album.