Lerma’s Nite Club reopened in its original location on a hot summer day in July.
The club was closed in 2010 after it failed to meet safety codes. It was set to be demolished until the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center stepped in and bought it. Thirteen years of grassroots efforts had led to this day, and the community members showed their excitement by showing up early.
The Esperanza Peace and Justice Center estimates that the building itself was created around 1942 and housed five different businesses. This included a restaurant, a thrift store, and a live Mexican music venue called “El Sombrero.”
It was renamed Lerma’s Nite Club in the 1950s after Pablo H. Lerma took over the lease. It then became exclusively dedicated to conjunto music.
Over 70 years later, Pablo’s grandchildren get to see the club reopen. Christine Lerma Guajardo Garcia remembers running around Lerma’s when she was just a kid.
“We’re so happy to be part of the history and so glad it made it. I had a cousin from Arizona fighting to keep the building so they wouldn’t get torn down. So, she’s here today,” she said.
Since its launch in the 1950s, Lerma’s Nite Club had been home to some of conjunto’s biggest names like Santiago Jiménez and his son Flaco. It provided a space for local talent to thrive.
Singer Blanca Rosa from the group “Las Tesoros de San Antonio” performed at the event. She first sang at Lerma’s when she was fifteen years old. Now at age eighty-nine, she performed her original song, “La Chancla,” to an excited audience.
Members from the organization Conjunto Heritage Taller also performed a few hits. They’re partnering with the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center to provide free button accordion and bajo sexto classes to people of all ages. Currently, the classes are at full capacity, but they’re working on obtaining additional funds to expand.
The conjunto genre is specific to South Texas, but it's undergone some changes since its creation in the late 1800s.
Before European migrants introduced the button accordion, the fiddle was the primary instrument in conjunto music. It has since faded out.
There are a few artists keeping the tradition alive, like Belen Escobedo. She’s part of a group called Panfilo’s Güera.
True to the genre’s origins as “music of the migrant workers,” her grandparents and parents appreciated conjunto after a long week of labor.
The fiddle sound in Escobedo’s music can sometimes be interpreted as bluegrass, but she says that’s incorrect.
“A lot of people who do not know this, they think, dicen, ‘She’s playing bluegrass.’ I’m not playing bluegrass. I’m playing Tejano," she said.
Despite its name, Lerma’s Nite Club was a family-friendly place where parents danced, and their children could join in on the fun.
Susana Segura is a preservation activist with the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. She said they hope to expand programming around oral histories and live music.
“We're excited to have the space open again. There's a lot of hopefulness around the issue of preservation," she said.
For some people in attendance, it had been decades since they'd set foot in Lerma's Nite Club. Once they hit the dance floor, it was as if they had never left.
