TUCSON – The story of how Los Changuitos Feos started and lived on is a story of dedication, resilience and triumph — and it’s now being told on the big screen.
The documentary “Ugly Little Monkeys: The True Story of Los Changuitos Feos de Tucson,” produced and co-directed by Tucsonan David E. Valdez, tells the history of Los Changuitos Feos, the first youth mariachi group in the U.S.
The mariachi was started in the basement of a Catholic church in Tucson in 1964 by Fr. Charles Rourke, an Irish priest and musician who overheard mariachi playing and fell in love with the music. He recruited a group of Chicano boys, ages nine to 14, and started teaching them to play mariachi music…