Three young Mexican Americans, Rosalba Valdez, Tiffany Galaviz and Joshua Soto, won the México Canta 2026 semifinal on Sunday, August 23, held at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, according to La Jornada. The seven finalists who reached that stage were selected from 5,761 applicants in the United States.
The competition, backed by the Mexican government through the Secretaría de Cultura and the Consejo Mexicano de la Música, aims to bring young people closer to a musical culture free of violence and free of glorifying addiction. The semifinal featured Los Tigres del Norte and Emmanuel Cortés as guests and was hosted by Majo Aguilar, according to Milenio. For the Latin community in North America, the significance lies in the competition crossing the border: participants came from California, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Oregon and New York, and the Secretary of Culture herself, Claudia Curiel de Icaza, attended the event in Los Angeles.
The three winners were chosen by audience vote on the competition's official website during the broadcast, which began at 19:00 Mexico time. The other four semifinalists were Grecia Marín, Daniel Ochoa, Miriam González Knappe and Lizandro Espinoza, from California, Arizona, Colorado and Oregon, respectively. Los Tigres del Norte, a touchstone of Mexican music with nearly six decades of history, participated to open a path for new generations, according to statements collected by Milenio. In Mexico, 10,528 artists registered and seven finalists remain, whose semifinal will be held on Sunday, August 30 at the Teatro Ángela Peralta in Mazatlán, Sinaloa. The grand final will bring together the winners of both semifinals on September 13 at the Auditorio Nacional, and the program was made available on a Spotify playlist titled México Canta.
Audiences will vote again next Sunday in Mazatlán to select three representatives from Mexico, who will face the Los Angeles winners on September 13 at the Auditorio Nacional, in the midst of Independence celebrations.
This article was written with artificial intelligence assistance based on verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.