When a Christmas tip leads to a story about family, work and music
The Los Sanchez Mariachi Quartet of Anaheim is made up four siblings, whose lifelong passion for music was supported by hard-working immigrant parents.
This year, when Susan Fryer tucked a gratuity check into her newspaper carrier’s Christmas card, she added a question:
What might they do with the tip?
She got an unexpected reply. It came from Esbeyde Sanchez, the 22-year-old daughter of the couple who deliver Fryer’s newspapers.
“Such a simple question brings back a lifetime of memories for me,” Sanchez wrote Fryer.
And with that, a tale unfolded about a Mexican American couple who worked every night, for nearly 30 years, to provide for their family and support their four children’s shared passion – music.
“They did well in never letting us know that they were struggling and barely making ends meet.”
Sanchez is a first-year music teacher at Jackie Robinson Academy in Long Beach. But she wrote to Fryer, of Garden Grove, that all of the Sanchez siblings love music and that they formed a quartet and perform together “in some very amazing places.” She credited her parents’ support – financed by decades of delivering papers before dawn – for their success.
Her story touched Fryer and she then contacted the Register.
Turns out, there’s more to the Sanchez family story. And they have indeed been to some amazing places.
Finding their talents
Lino Sanchez and his future wife Esbeyde Plancarte arrived in Orange County from Mexico in 1990. He’s from Tolucas and she’s from Michoacan. He had been a business owner in Mexico, traveling across the country selling home products. But the Mexican economy was shaky in 1990 and Sanchez came to the U.S. like so many other immigrants, hoping for opportunities.
Within a year, the couple began delivering the Orange County Register to Garden Grove neighborhoods.
Before they had children, they agreed to find and support each child’s talent and passion. “We didn’t have those opportunities,” Lino Sanchez said in Spanish.
When their oldest daughters Esbeyde and Erandi were still little, they took the girls to Cypress College for all sorts of classes: ballet, violin, piano, storytelling, soccer, art.
“Sometimes, I would fall asleep on the grass waiting for the children,” Lino Sanchez said.
“They liked everything,” he added. “But we began to realize that they were most attracted to music.”
Soon, the couple learned of O.C. Children’s Therapeutic Arts in Santa Ana, which provides after-school music and art. Erandi was just 3 when she learned to play the harp, the youngest for anyone playing that instrument at the center.
“We realized that they learned more quickly than the other kids, and saw that they really liked music,” Lino Sanchez said. “That was their talent.”
From there, the couple took their two older daughters to the Rhytmo Mariachi Academy in Anaheim. And after the birth of their other two children, a son, Lino, now 17, and another daughter, Eraydelin, 15, they followed in their sisters’ footsteps.
Life wasn’t easy for the Anaheim family.
When the kids were little, the couple didn’t want to leave them alone at night while they delivered newspapers from 1 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. So they would pack them into the back of their Chevy Suburban and take them along.
“Eventually, we had a really helpful neighbor and would go to her apartment to sleep,” Esbeyde Sanchez said. But until then, “we made a comfortable bed in the back of the car.”
There were music lessons up in the San Fernando Valley, with Grammy-award winning Mariachi ensemble Los Camperos. And voice lessons. And instruments to buy that weren’t cheap.
Sometimes, teachers – seeing the kids’ talents – gifted the family with instruments. Other times, the family borrowed money or set up installment plans to pay. And they worked extra hard. Most of his life in Orange County, Sanchez said, he had three jobs: delivering newspapers and magazines, delivering pizza, and delivering packages.
All four children play the piano and mariachi instruments: guitar, violin, trumpet, guitarron (a large bass guitar), vihuela (a guitar-shaped instrument), and the harp.
Erandi, 20, who is studying music education and alto sax at Chapman University, also plays the flute. Eraydelin, a sophomore at Kennedy High in La Palma, counts trombone as her eighth instrument. Lino, a Kennedy High senior, also plays electric base and wants to study music in college. And Esbeyde, who graduated from Cal State Long Beach with a couple of degrees, (violin performance and music education), also plays clarinet.
Together, the siblings form the Los Sanchez Mariachi Quartet. Pre-pandemic, they performed regularly at the Casa Adelita restaurants in Norwalk and Paramount.
They had some gigs at bigger places too: Angel Stadium, where they played the national anthem one Cinco de Mayo; Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa for a Christmas celebration; and Nokia Live in downtown Los Angeles, where they performed as part of the award-winning Mariachi Tesoro de San Fernando.
Mariachi Tesoro is affiliated with Mariachi Los Camperos, the Grammy winners they traveled to see weekly in the San Fernando Valley. That gig led them someplace else: Washington D.C. In 2012, the siblings performed for first lady Michele Obama, who honored the San Fernando Valley apprentice program they belonged to as one of the nation’s most outstanding arts and humanities programs for young people.
“It’s a great pride for me,” said their father, “and gratifying that they like our culture, not just our music.”
Life lessons
Esbeyde notes that neither of her parents play music, but both became vested in their children’s passion.
“My dad made observations, took notes and sometimes recorded the lessons so we could rewatch the videos and practice. He would ask instructors questions about resources he could look into, or how to create resources to support our music lessons.
“He taught us how to practice, and how to review our lessons… which in music is the most important component of learning how to play an instrument,” she said.
“They sat with us and really spent time with us.”
Their parents also attended every concert and performance, freer in the daytime since much of the work was at night, she said.
In 30 years of delivering the news, the couple has taken only one vacation, when they got married in 1999.
“The six of us have never taken a vacation together,” Esbeyde Sanchez said.
And while her mother no longer works every day, her father continues his seven-day a week routine – folding newspapers, bagging them, tossing them on to driveways.
Fryer, the Garden Grove resident who sent the tip and Christmas card, said she was impressed by their hard work. Her occasional insomnia alerted her to their punctuality.
“Faithfully, almost to the minute, at 3:30 a.m., the paper will arrive.”
On Christmas Day, Lino Sanchez, the dad, plans to work his regular shift, as always. This time, the newspaper will feature his family’s story.