Projects

What are the stories that dominate the public narrative about life on the border? Who tells them? Who listens? Which stories aren’t being told? What are the perspectives of young people on culture, politics, people, heritage, everyday life in Ambos Nogales. This is the heart of DocuNogales, youth documenting stories of where they live.

My Daily Morning by Adrian Velazquez from Southwest Folklife Alliance on Vimeo.

But Then I Come in the Picture from Southwest Folklife Alliance on Vimeo.

 

Launched in spring of 2019, DocuNogales was 12-week after-school program that gave Nogales youth opportunities to share their own stories of life on the border through photography, video, and interviews.

Spring 2019 instructors:

Javier “Gio” Brambila (photograph/video)
Kimi Eisele (writing/interviewing)
Dr. Maribel Alvarez (guest instruction: folklife)
Cesar Lopez (program coordination)

DocuNogales crew, Spring 2019. All images by Javier Brambila

This booklet represents a slice of the project, in which youth participants were trained in basic ethnographic skills and then interviewed borderlands residents about cultural traditions around food waste and household sustainability practices. Download a PDF of WASTE NOT here.

 

 

 

Cada año, un 60 por ciento de todos los productos agrícolas en los Estados Unidos llegan por el puerto de entrada de Nogales, Arizona. Más de 6.000 toneladas de aquéllos productos, todavía frescos, terminan en el vertedero de basura Rio Rico. Ese exceso podría convertirse en productos con valor añadido o como abono fértil para hogares y empresas. Waste Not: Innovaciones en el Manejo de Desperdicios Alimenticios en la Zona Fronteriza cuenta con la participación de gente jóven a través de la investigación etnográfica, los talleres prácticos, y la educación emprendedora. Los jóvenes investigaron las prácticas de gestion de residuos tanto en hogares como en el sector de la industria; también entrenaron a otros en temas de sostenibilidad, como en el uso de abono y la jardinería, y desarrollaron técnicas emprendedoras para identificar y solucionar problemas generados por la basura en la región. Este folleto representa una parte del proyecto, en la cual los jóvenes participantes fueron capacitados en la investigación etnográfica básica y luego entrevistaron a residentes de la zona fronteriza sobre sus tradiciones culturales con respecto a los desperdicios alimenticios y las prácticas sostenibles caseras.

Waste Not es una colaboración entre VozFrontera (Southwest Folklife Alliance), Startup Unidos (SU), y la Oficina de Sostenibilidad de la Universidad de Arizona.

With funding from: Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice, ArtPlace America, and the UA Confluence Center’s “Fronteridades” program.

Project Manager: Nelda Ruiz
Project Folklorists: Nelda Ruiz & Kimi Eisele
Project Entrepreneurial Leader: Stephanie Bermudez, sb@startupunidos.com

Stephanie is a gifted community builder whose innovative ideas create cross-border communities and environments. She helped develop Connect Coworking in Tucson, AZ and served as a board member and youth mentor at COSHARE: The National Shared Workspace Association. In April 2018, she was recognized and certified by Harvard University, University of Sonora and sonora:lab for her business project, Startup Unidos and for her contributions in Strengthening The Innovation Ecosystem In The State Of Sonora. Stephanie is actively working with startups across the Arizona-Sonora by implementing Startup Unidos ; most recently Startup Unidos Youth VozFrontera in Nogales, AZ, LatinX In Tech in Tucson, AZ and Emprende Amigo in Phoenix area. In March 2019 she was recognized Minority Business Owner of the Year at Inside Tucson Business Women of Impact. In October 2018 she was recognized at Idea Funding for initial and future efforts to build the entrepreneurial community in Tucson and received the Larry Hecker and Sherry Hoskinson Bright Futures Award. In December 2016 she was recognized by Arizona Daily Star and Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce as 40 under 40 Woman of the Year.

Barrio Stories explores the history and heritage of Nogales, Arizona through oral history and theater. Youth are learning to conduct oral history interviews with elders in Nogales. This ethnographic work, augmented by archival and historical research, will open a window to the history, traditions, and ways of life that give Nogales its character.

 

 

Lead Artist: Marc Pinate
marc@borderlandstheater.org

Marc David Pinate is a theatre maker, producer, and educator. His passion is in the field of civic practice and creating sacred moments of theatrical beauty. Marc was the founder and director of the Hybrid Performance Experiment in Berkeley, Ca known for their site specific theatre performances. Since arriving in Tucson in 2013, he has concentrated on theatricalizing local narratives (Más, Barrio Stories, Sonoran Shadows) in non-traditional settings, collaborating with an array of institutional partners, artists, and community members. He is the Producing Artistic Director of Borderlands Theater and an adjunct instructor at Pima Community College. 

 

Lead mentor: Cesar Lopez
clopez.arizona@gmail.com

Cesar Lopez is a community organizer and cultural worker from the borderlands in Nogales. His work in community development has focused on establishing youth job creation programs, community food/urban agriculture programs, youth leadership development, creating community art and helping build capacity and skills of community members from the barrios around water harvesting in the desert.

This program uses collaboration and learning among University of Arizona (UA) journalism students and Nogales-area high school students to produce stories about the borderlands using data gathering and multimedia tools such as: 360 video and photography, drone video, audio podcasting, and mapping. Through the program UA student trainers mentor high schoolers in Ambos Nogales to produce their own stories about their community, training youth in digital media, oral history interviews, and other media skills. The project aims to increase intercultural competencies and cross-border understanding among all students involved, as well as create opportunities for community interaction and change. Multi-generational activities–youth interviewing elders and Nogales “heroes”–aim to reinstating pride and appreciation for the community.

Lead artist: Dr. Celeste González de Bustamante
celesteg@email.arizona.edu

Dr. Celeste González de Bustamante is Associate Professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Arizona and an affiliated faculty member of the UA Center for Latin American Studies. She holds a PhD in history at the University of Arizona, and her research interests include: the history of news media in Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, and violence against journalists in Mexico and Latin America. Her course “Reporting the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands,” takes journalism students on a weekly basis to Ambos Nogales. Her work has been published in numerous academic journals. She is the current co-head of the Border Journalism Network/La red de periodistas de la frontera.

This exploratory program supports research on musicians and music venues in Ambos Nogales. A collaboration between DJ Dirtyverbs and BorderBeatz, it aims to create opportunities for young musicians and DJs and amplify border sounds in Nogales and beyond. A research phase of the program piloted in Summer 2018.

Lead Artists:  DJ Dirtyverbs (logan@dirtyverbs.com) & Gustavo Lozano (borderbeatz@gmail.com)

DJ Dirtyverbs uses cumbia and global bass as a lengua franca to connect communities and cultures on the dancefloor. Dirtyverbs (aka Logan Phillips) got his start playing backyard parties and mezcal speakeasies in Cuernavaca, Mexico in 2007, after falling in love with cumbia sonidera in Querétaro in 2003. Born and raised in the Arizona-Sonora borderlands and now based in Tucson, Arizona, Dirtyverbs has been a resident DJ at Tucson’s historic Hotel Congress since 2012 and is lead organizer and host of El Tambó (“Best Danceparty,” Tucson Weekly). He DJ’s and hosts at a number of Arizona’s keystone cultural events, including the All Souls Procession and the Rialto Theatre’s New Years Eve Party, leading both events annually since 2013. In addition to DJing, Logan Phillips works as a writer, educator and performer.

Gustavo Lozano is a musician, producer, and educator in Nogales, Arizona. He mentors young musicians through production studio program at EdOptions High School. He offers classes in basic music theory, technique and musicianship skills for guitar, piano, drums and voice; and leads and coordinates music sessions about recording techniques, songwriting and music production. He encourage commitment, discipline and originality in order to create unique songs, and is responsible for preparing and directing school presentations from the rock band and producing students original songs. He is the director of Borderbeatz, an equipped recording studio audio recording, mixing & mastering, songwriting/artist development, session musicians, music production & arrangement. As part of Soundscapes, he’s offering 5 hours a week of free studio time to young Nogales artists.