Share this: Alan, 15, plays guitar near his home in Deming, N.M. Alan struggles academically, though he points to mariachi class as a regular highlight of his week. Credit: Paul Ratje for The Hechinger Report The Hechinger Report is a national nonprofit newsroom that reports on one topic: education. Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get stories like this delivered directly to your inbox. Pep rallies are supposed to be joyful, loud and unabashed. Having just turned 12 in the fall of 2017, Alan bubbled over with excitement ahead of his first rally at Deming Intermediate School in Deming, New Mexico, a small city near the Mexican border.