Name: Apache County Voting Blues by Diné Situation Podcast
Duration: 51 min 41 s
Description: In this episode, Majerle and I talk to Torey Dolan (Choctaw), lawyer & voter rights organizer, and Arylssa Becenti (Diné), reporter for the Arizona Republic, about the latest fiasco on election day in Apache County. Dolan explains what happened at the various voting sites and why voting discrimination happens against Diné people.

In this episode, Majerle and I talk to Torey Dolan (Choctaw), lawyer & voter rights organizer, and Arylssa Becenti (Diné), reporter for the Arizona Republic, about the latest fiasco on election day in Apache County. Dolan explains what happened at the various voting sites and why voting discrimination happens against Diné people. 

Apache County Voting Blues

Politics and Prison Ink in Arizona: A Map for Navigation in a World of Post-structural Violence, by Enrique Alan Olivares-Pelayo was published in the Autumn 2023 edition of Journal of the Southwest. In this episode, the author of the piece discusses his work on embodied carceral geographies, how the punishment of the prison system manifests in and on the bodies it ensnares. And that's a lot of people. One in five prisoners in the world is incarcerated in the United States. Tens of thousands of those people are in Arizona. The state spends over a billion dollar of our general budget on the correctional system; it´s the third highest cost, eight percent. Enrique was confined in that system for almost five years. In his work, he situates prison, the constellation of institutions that create the penal complexes at every level of government, including those which retain people on behalf of national immigration and customs enforcement, as a landscape of structural violence. His piece on the Journal looks at the tattoos that many acquire during their time locked up as visible representations of their experiences.

Music Credits:
Nostalgia – Composed and performed by David Garrido Guil. Used with permission.
Sol de Invierno II – Composed and performed by David Garrido Guil. Used with permission.
Find more of his work at http://www.davidgarridoguil.com

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Enrique Olivares-Pelayo: Carceral Geographies

Our guest for this episode of JSW Radio is Alex La Pierre. Alex is co-founding director, with his wife Rocío La Pierre, of the binational, Southern Arizona-based non-profit organization, Borderlandia. Borderlandia’s mission is to expand public understanding of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands through a diversity of activities, including, especially, educational tours in southern Arizona and in Sonora, Mexico. I ask Alex about this work and about his view of public history more broadly. We also discuss how perceptions of the borderlands region seem to become more distorted the farther away one gets, and how Borderlandia’s work aims to combat this distorting effect of distance and politics. 
https://www.borderlandia.org/

Alex La Pierre: Borderlandia, Citizen-Level Diplomacy

Dr. Nicolás Pineda Pablos is a political scientist and researcher at the Colegio de Sonora, in Hermosillo, and one of Mexico’s foremost experts on urban water provision. Here, Dr. Pineda rings us up to speed on Hermosillo’s current water situation. Hermosillo, the state capital, is a Sonoran Desert city with close to one million people and faces profound climate-related challenges: a swiftly warming and drying environment, ongoing drought, and the threat of ever-more severe storms. Mexico’s north and northwest are currently experiencing some of the worst drought conditions in recorded history, with reservoir levels down by as much as 70 or 80% in some regions.

Dr. Pineda is part of a diverse group of concerned citizens and experts called Hermosillo Cómo Vamos? – Hermosillo, How are We Doing? –  working together to provide research-based solutions to this hairy problem. Dr. Pineda talks about all of this and much more, including the question of whether Hermosillo is facing a so-called Day Zero scenario, in which the city becomes unable to provide a basic reliable supply of potable water to its citizens.

Nicolás Pineda Pablos: Hermosillo Has a Drinking Water Problem

In this episode, we talk with Roberto Wolfe, Mexico General Manager for the Northern Jaguar Project, a binational conservation effort based in Tucson, Arizona, and Sahuaripa, Sonora. NJP’s mission is to preserve and recover the world’s northernmost population of jaguars, an apex predator and keystone species whose survival supports entire ecosystems.
Through partnerships with local ranchers, environmental education in Sonoran schools, and long-term scientific research --including extensive use of camera traps-- NJP protects over 56,000 acres of core jaguar habitat in the Sierra Madre foothills.
Roberto grew up in Mexico City and began his journey into wildlife care as a teenage volunteer at Chapultepec Zoo. Trained in veterinary science, he brings deep knowledge of big cat biology and a passion for transboundary conservation. As jaguar habitats across the Americas shrink due to deforestation, development, and border infrastructure, Roberto helps lead efforts to ensure these elusive cats continue to roam from Sonora to southern Arizona.

Roberto Wolf: Protecting the Jaguar in Northern Mexico

Cons and Clowns

In this powerful conversation, Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Southwest Center, speaks with Don Unger, recent PhD and environmental historian, about his groundbreaking research on uranium mining reclamation on the Navajo Nation. Unger discusses the ethics of storytelling, the balance between technical and spiritual approaches to healing the land, and his concept of Critical Reclamation Studies, a framework grounded in both Western policy and Navajo cosmology.
Together, they explore the lived realities of land restoration, long drives and “cabin conversations,” and the wisdom of community leaders like Mr. Melvin Yazzie and Mr. Ernest Greyeyes.
This episode opens a window into environmental justice, language, and the ongoing legacy of Cold War uranium mining in the Southwest.


Don Unger - Critical Reclamation: Uranium, Storytelling, and Healing on the Navajo Nation

Little Picture of a Butterfly

Keeper

Since 1986, La Estrella Bakery has been much more than a place to buy pan dulce, it’s been a pillar of Tucson’s cultural life, a space of ritual, memory, and early morning conversations over conchitas and cuernitos.

As we celebrate Hispanic Heritage month, host Carlos Quintero speaks with Erica Franco, second-generation member of the family behind La Estrella, about what it means to carry on a tradition baked in love, community, and resilience.

Erica shares stories of 3 a.m. baking shifts, drawings from kindergarten fans, and the return to the barrio bakery where it all began. This is a conversation about food, but also about family, belonging, and the quiet power of staying close to your roots.

Erica Franco: La Estrella Bakery and the Art of Baking Belonging

On April 25, 2023, a phone call from an out-of-state number ended La Estrella de Tucsón, leaving the city without a Spanish-language newspaper. For Liliana López Ruelas, who had spent years as an editor there, it was a moment of frustration—but also of determination.
Host Carlos Quintero speaks with Liliana about what happened next: a return to school, a master's degree at the University of Arizona, and the launch of Somos Tucson, a digital news outlet focused on serving Tucson's Latino community with útil, celebratory journalism.
Born in Douglas and raised in Agua Prieta, Liliana shares her journey across borders, from Mexico City's political magazines to Tucson's newsrooms, and why she now embraces her identity as a Latina journalist. This is a conversation about community journalism, collaborative resistance, and the power of staying close to the stories that matter most.

Liliana López Ruelas: Building Community in Tucson´s News Desert

We are a podcast that focuses on news and analysis for the Navajo Nation. We try to publish at least once every two weeks.

Apache County Voting Blues

Diné Situation Podcast

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