ClimateLore
“If the Land Goes, Our Identity Goes”
NDN Collective’s Jade Begay on Climate Justice, Cultural Organizing, and Indigenous Visibility Interview by Kimi Eisele Jade Begay is the Climate Justice Campaign Director for…
What a Basket Can Hold
A Tohono O’odham contemporary basket weaver on facing the climate crisis by Terrol Dew Johnson, as told to Kimi Eisele We’ve noticed a lot of…
What Are We Going to Weave With?
An Akimel O’odham basketweaver on how a changing climate is impacting plant materials by Alice Manuel, as told to Kimi Eisele I started weaving baskets…
Essays
The Night the Devil Went Dancing
Essay by Karen Vargas | February 2021
Stitching: Finding new focus through a traditional practice
Audio essay by Ruxandra Guidi | December 2020
End-of-Life Care
A Great Mercy: A Death Doula on Grief and Transformation
Interview by Kimi Eisele ADRIENE JENIK is an artist, educator, and death doula living in the California desert near Joshua Tree. She is a faculty member at Arizona State University’s…
Possibilities at the Edge: David Fife on End-of-Life Comfort
Interview by Rebecca Crocker David Fife is Social Services Director at Casa de la Luz Hospice. As so often happens in Tucson, where a good dose of “old Pueblo” homespun…
Building an Archive: A Hospice Nurse on Working towards a Good Death
As told to Charlie Buck Marc Goodman works as a registered nurse case manager with Casa de la Luz Hospice, providing end-of-life care to patients in Tucson. Hospice care calls…
Master Artists
Que Canten Las Mujeres
Vocalist Diana Olivares on mariachi, forming an all-woman band, and “las grandes” who came before her. Interview by Kimi Eisele Diana Olivares is a mariachi vocalist who has taught vocal workshops for the Tucson International Mariachi Conference, Mariachi Los Changuitos Feos, and Mariachi Atzlán de Pueblo High School. She is…
Dirt Cheap: A Conversation with Adobe Brick Maker David Yubeta
Interview by Valentina Andrew David Yubeta is an adobe brick maker and conservator of earthen architecture. He spent 25 years preserving earthen resources in the arid Southwest for the National Park Service. He is the recipient of a 2019 SFA Master-Apprentice Artist Award. In March, just as shelter-in-place went into…
Tools and Time: A Conversation with Blacksmith, Zach Lihatsh
Zach Lihatsh is a blacksmith who has trained with teachers from Italy, Germany, Sweden, Estonia, and throughout the United States. A recipient of a 2019 SFA Master-Apprentice Artist Award, Lihatsh is teaching the trade to apprentice, Austin Rose, a former student of his at Pima Community College. BorderLore editor Kimi…
Thinking like a Folklorist
Folklife in the Age of Pandemics
by Maribel Alvarez As occupations go, folklorists are not usually in the top ten list of “first responders” most people think of when disasters or other major disruptions to everyday…
Reciprocity in Fieldwork
by Jim Griffith The relationship between folklorist and informant is, by its very nature, reciprocal. To start off, I don’t really like the word “informant” for the person who gives…
How Writing Docudramas Taught Me to Listen
by Milta Ortiz I came to playwriting from poetry, where I focused on writing from personal experience. When I started writing plays, I carried that along, writing from my own…
Remapping LA
by Alison M. De La Cruz On April 17, 2019, ArtChangeUS: Arts in a Changing America convened nearly 400 arts and cultural workers for ReMap LA, a Cultural Equity Summit at…