When she was fifteen, a boy who had a crush on her gave Edna Vazquez a classical guitar. She wasn’t interested in the boy—even then, she sensed her romantic interests would be female—but the instrument immediately seduced her. Despite no previous experience, Vazquez was soon playing that guitar proficiently, and accompanying her already vibrant voice in song. Vazquez grew up in 1980s Jalisco, birthplace of mariachi, Mexico’s most famous musical form. Her grandfather would play mariachi on the radio for the family, and Edna marveled at how the passionate, sentimental songs could bring even the most macho men to tears.