Mamá Celina

Genre: Mariachi Released: 2025-06-11

I wrote this for my mother’s 76th birthday, and it turned into something else entirely after she passed away in 2025, a song I can no longer hand to her in person but can still sing. Celina Peña devoted her life to defending animals and the land they lived on, and I didn’t want to write her a conventional tribute where a son lists his mother’s virtues. I wanted her own life’s work to sing back to her, so I gave the verses to those she invested that work in.

The dog, the cat, the sheep, and finally the orange tree, each one testifies in its own voice, because that’s genuinely how I remember her home, an economy of care that never sorted anyone by species or usefulness. The dog Beto’s bad temper was loved all the same. The sheep got pasture through the drought without a word about the cost. Even something as mute and rooted as a tree received care as if it could feel the difference, and in her view of the world, I think she believed it could.

Choosing mariachi wasn’t hard. It’s the tradition of the birthday serenade, “Las Mañanitas” and everything descended from it, and I wanted her sung to exactly the way that tradition calls for, with brass, warmth, something communal, voices passed hand to hand with generosity. Widening the circle of who gets to be grateful to her, until even the laziest, quietest members of the household end up testifying, was my way of saying what I truly believe about her: her care never had an edge. It just kept extending, past where most people stop.

I miss her. This is the closest I can get to still singing her a birthday song.