“It was a warm fall evening in 1997 and on the patio of the Wilshire Ebell Theatre, mariachi trumpets were blasting. The occasion was a family reunion, and it was in all ways a typical Mexican fiesta — except for the presence of a handful of guests who stood out among the Old World elders and Mexican American kids. Huddled together at a table were George Harrison and some of his friends, including Indian sitar legend Ravi Shankar, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra and session drummer extraordinaire Jim Keltner.
But the rock ‘n’ roll royalty was not the center of attention that evening. Harrison’s in-laws, Maria Louise and Esiquiel Arias, as matriarch and patriarch, had the spotlight. Harrison was there because of their daughter, Olivia Arias, whom he’d married in 1978, thereby gaining a huge Mexican American extended family in Los Angeles.
[…] On the night I met George and Olivia at the Wilshire Ebell, the live music was performed by one of the world’s great mariachi bands, Los Camperos de Nati Cano.
Later, Harrison talked to me with great enthusiasm about Jorge Negrete, one of the great crooners from the golden era of mariachi music.” - Ruben Martinez, Los Angeles Times (December 9, 2001)
“It was only after moving to England, where being Mexican was considered ‘exotic,’ that [Olivia] became fully aware of the discrimination she had encountered in Los Angeles. ‘I always knew I wasn’t going to be one of those cheerleaders in a little skirt, and I had a feeling it was because I was brown,’ she says. ‘Now I see the role that Mexicans have been put into in Los Angeles, which is basically doing the jobs the whites don’t want. If you took all the gardeners, waiters and nannies away from Beverly Hills, the place would screech to a halt.’” - The Daily Telegraph (December 20, 1995)
“I was born in Los Angeles but my grandparents were born in Guanajuato. […]
When my husband married me, he married into a Mexican family. George loved Mexican music, he watched some of these films with me, he even had Jorge Negrete on the jukebox. My father used to sing with his brothers, around 1938, and like every musician he used to go around with his guitar. So George actually took my dad into the studio and recorded him. And my dad and my mother sang like four full songs, that probably your mother and your father, or your grandparents know.
We used to have to call him Jorge. Sometimes if he wanted to use another name, he would use Jorge Arias, because that is my maiden name.” - Olivia Harrison, Morelia Film Fest interview (2016)
“My mother’s father, Esquiel Arias, was a singer, and dad recorded him singing these great Mexican songs. My mother’s mother was related to Jorge Negrete, who was a film star and singer, I guess at the same level as Elvis or Bing Crosby in Mexico. Dad was a huge fan and had him on the jukebox at home. There’s a long line of musicians on both sides.” - Dhani Harrison, MOJO (November 2017)
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