The city of San Francisco, California, took time this week to celebrate Los Tigres del Norte Day, giving the pioneering Mexican band a civic honor in a region where its story-driven norteño music has long packed arenas and boomed on car stereos.
Mayor Daniel Lurie presented the band — which has had the same group of core members for more than 55 years — with the key to the city during the Monday ceremony at City Hall, where he posed with the musicians wearing a cowboy hat and praised them as a voice for immigrants.
La promesa es seguir cantando juntos ✨🤠 ¿Les late? pic.twitter.com/xrhaYDi8KT
— Los Tigres Del Norte (@tigresdelnorte) January 2, 2026
The proclamation continued a busy stretch for Los Tigres del Norte, who formed as teenagers in the mid-1960s in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, then launched to fame in San Jose, California, after the Hernández family moved there around 1968.
In the last 10 months, the band was honored with a street naming (“Los Tigres del Norte Way”) in Brooklyn, New York, and joined the likes of Paul McCartney, U2 and Red Hot Chili Peppers by performing on an episode of “The Simpsons.”
The group also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which it received in 2014.
Los Tigres have sold more than 30 million albums and helped define the modern Regional Mexican genre.
Los Tigres del Norte Day in San Francisco, held one day after the region hosted Super Bowl LX, came amid a new round of anti-immigrant actions from President Donald Trump’s administration — sharpening the political edge of a band known for ballads about border crossings, labor and family separation.
In 2024, Los Tigres played at an Arizona rally for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
“For such an important city to dedicate a day to us fills us with pride and motivates us to continue singing and bringing you our music,” band member Eduardo Hernández said at the event.
Hernández and his brothers Jorge, Hernán and Luis, along with a cousin, drummer Óscar Lara, have formed the core of the group for years. Early on, the group also included brother Raúl Hernández and other musicians who later left.
In the early 1970s, a San Jose–based promoter signed them to his label and produced their first big hits, including “Contrabando y Traición,” which pushed them from regional popularity into national and then international fame.
The band will return to San Francisco’s Chase Center arena for a Feb. 20 concert on their La Lotería Tour. At least one future date, June 27 at Estadio GNP Seguros in Mexico City, is planned for Mexico.
With reports from La Jornada, The Mercury News, LatinUs, NBC Bay Area and SF Gate
