Pati Jinich Explores Panamericana

All right, people, it's time.

Welcome to the Poetry Show.

That's right.

[applause] LOGAN: We get to welcome a very special guest.

Please welcome Pati.

[applause] [crowd chanting] Pati!

Pati!

Pati!

Hello.

[laughs] [guitar music] PATI: My life's work has been about forging bonds between my homeland of Mexico and my new home of the U.S.

Oh, yay!

Now, I'm embarking on a journey inspired by the Pan American Highway, a network of roads connecting the Americas and a symbol of collaboration across countries.

Join me as we share meals, make friends, and reimagine what it means to be American.

I'm Pati Jinich, and this is PanAmericana.

[engine starts] PATI: My PanAmericana journey continues from Albuquerque, New Mexico into Arizona, to a city I keep coming back to, Tucson.

[music] And every time I return, I'm surprised by how much deeper I can go.

60 miles from the border, Tucson was Mexico before it was the United States.

People have been farming this desert for more than 4,000 years.

Not much here had to cross a line to arrive.

The line came later.

As a Mexican who made her home in this country, I sense that the moment I get here, in Tucson, I feel like I never have to choose between the two places that made me.

I can see them both in Barrio Viejo, the old heart of Mexican Tucson.

Its adobe row houses look just like the ones in Sonora, built by families for whom Sonora was simply down the road.

Not all of it is still standing.

What survives is adobe, color, and the people who remember every street and would not let it be forgotten.

This time I came to hear their stories.

I'm loving the feel of the Barrio Viejo.

First of all, the name.

We're in Tucson.

It's north of the border, and its most iconic neighborhood, tiene nombre en español.

As I ventured deeper into the heart of Tucson, newly named Poet Laureate, Logan Phillips, wanted to meet me at El Tiradito, or the Castaway Wishing Shrine.

Tell me why you wanted to come here.

Yes, the origins of this place are from the 1870s, and this shrine it has become a space of resilience and reflection.

So Tucson is a place that has such a deep history and so many changing borders that have washed over it.

And we're actually standing near one of those borders now.

Barrio Viejo, which is a nationally recognized space, was originally two-thirds bigger, but it was destroyed in the late 1960s as part of a urban renewal project.

There was further plans to destroy the last remaining third here, but that was stopped by the people who were in shock and horror at what had happened and how much had been lost.

It is thanks to this site that my home is still standing.

It could have easily been torn down in the 1970s for a crosstown freeway.

[traffic noises] So in Barrio Viejo we have some of the oldest Sonoran row house architecture in the United States.

So this street we're walking on really is a border in our city.

Everything behind us here is Barrio Viejo and everything on this side is new.

So at the time it was the most densely populated 80 acres in the state of Arizona.

It was a multi-ethnic, multi-national community.

So it was a very rich, diverse community.

LOGAN: The people are still here.

The community is still here.

And it's important to remember that the point is the people, not the buildings.

PATI: Logan had some tips for me to learn how to write a poem, so we headed back to his backyard.

Welcome.

¡Qué belleza!

[guitar music] I'm obsessed with grapefruit.

Oye, estoy viendo que ese cactus tiene hoyos, it has holes in it, and there's birds coming in and out.

LOGAN: That's right.

And the saguaro cactus itself works almost like an air conditioner because it's so filled with water that it stays nice and cool.

¡Es increíble!

I'm learning so many things.

So how do you make a lemonade?

LOGAN: We harvest all of our fruit in January and February.

And it's so cold those months of the year that we decide to freeze the juice concentrate as cubes, and then we can use it when it's the hot part of the year.

That is so smart.

LOGAN: We usually just combine it with simple syrup using Arizona honey.

You know what I do?

I take whichever one I see being the most ripe and I cut it into smaller pieces and I add to the blender the whole thing.

- Wow.

- Con la piel, con el rind.

It's super refreshing because the bitter satisfies the thirst.

But something I'm hearing is the amount of cars.

Tell me what's happening here that there seems to be so much traffic and movement.

LOGAN: Tucson had a freeway blasted right through the middle of it, just shortly before what happened with Barrio Viejo.

Because originally the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty that made the whole western part of the United States the United States rather than Mexico, that did not include Tucson.

Five years later, a former railroad lobbyist was sent by the U.S.

government back to President Santa Anna in Mexico City to negotiate just a little slice more in order to put a transcontinental railroad through.

And so this railroad is really the reason that Tucson is part of the United States.

[chickens clucking] It feels very Mexico, especially with the chickens and the roosters.

¡Salud!

A ver... ¡Qué delicia!

So good!

Logan, when you started writing poetry, were you writing it for yourself?

Were you writing it for someone?

LOGAN: At the time I was terrified to show anyone anything I was writing, and so it was very much just for me.

To try to figure out what it was that was happening inside of me and in the world around me.

- You have a notebook?

- I do.

There you go.

I have a little notebook that I bring along when we travel.

Well, when starting to write a poem, I say the most important thing, never start with a blank page.

I'll give you the beginning of a sentence.

Okay.

The phrase we'll start with is, Tucson tastes like... Oh, I love that.

[guitar music] Don't laugh!

Tucson tastes like the puff inside of a cooked tortilla.

LOGAN: Amazing!

Yes, Tucson tastes like leaving the rind in the limonada.

PATI: Oh my gosh!

It's okay to throw in dishes?

Also taking those notes, even if it's not written out in complete sentences.

Yeah.

It's just like assembling your ingredients.

Oh, oh, oh, the puff is the Caesar from Tijuana.

The puff is the nachos from Piedras.

The puff... Oh, oh, oh, I'm so excited!

Ideas for my poem kept flowing, and Logan invited me to my first ever Poetry Slam.

LOGAN: Welcome to Bar Crisol.

This is one of our neighborhood hangouts.

¡Hola!

Mucho gusto.

- Mucho gusto.

- ¿Y cómo te dicen?

Hi!

So nice to meet you.

We were talking earlier about, it's not the buildings, it's the people.

- Yeah.

- And for me, this is some of the people that make the place for sure.

All right, people, it's time.

Welcome to the Poetry Show.

EV: That's right.

LOGAN: Thank you for coming together on a beautiful Tucson night.

So we've got some fantastic Tucson poets for you, and then we have a special surprise at the end that you're going to see.

Who's ready to hear some poems?

EV: Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

History is an old theater turned museum.

MELANI MARTINEZ: In this vessel you are knit, a vapor fills your lungs, a penny rattles on tin.

EV ESSIF: The century desert sentinel sequoias accelerate the sun's senescence.

MARI HERRERAS: I'll remind them that as a family in 1975, we had it all.

We had each other.

ENRIQUE GARCÍA NARANJO: At the bottom of a caldera, broken volcanic rim, where the mountains form part of an unbreakable horizon.

Wow!

That's right!

That's right!

LOGAN: So next up... LOGAN: We get to welcome a very special guest.

Please welcome Pati.

[applause] [crowd chanting] Pati!

Pati!

Pati!

Hello.

[laughs] Thank you so much.

It is my very first time reading a poem to people.

[applause] So I'm going to put my glasses because I can't see anything anymore.

Tucson tastes like the puff inside of a tortilla.

Tucson tastes like leaving the rind in the limonada.

And the rind is that in between that makes the pulp taste sweeter and the peel less bitter.

The rind is that part that most people would want to discard.

That part that holds the center and the cover together.

That makes the whole lemon shine and the limonada stand out.

Just like the puff inside of the tortilla lets it fold and have its two sides get the heat it needs to be able to hold.

The puff is a Caesar salad from Tijuana.

The carne asada from Sonora.

And the fish taco from Ensenada.

The chun cun from Mexicali and the date shake from Yuma.

Is it Mexican?

Is it American?

Well, it's just that puff, that much needed heat and steam that makes every single taco roll.

[crowd chanting] Pati!

Pati!

Pati!

Thank you, thank you.

[music] The Chinese presence in Tucson is one of the least known and most consequential stories in the history of the American Southwest.

Feng-Feng Yeh is a chef, cultural organizer, and artist.

Her Chinese Chorizo Project began as a personal investigation into the culinary history of the Chinese community in Tucson.

Hi!

So nice to see you!

How are you?

Estoy feliz de estar aquí contigo.

Yes!

Yes!

I wanted to invite you here because this is a really incredible relic from the history of Chinese grocery stores.

You can feel the history of like every piece of wood.

FENG-FENG: Yeah!

Out of the 582 unique Chinese grocery stores that existed from 1881 to 1991, there are only two remaining, and this is one of them.

And this one also has maintained its historical integrity.

PATI: So how many generations has this grocery store been - in your family?

– ALVIN LEE: Close to four.

So we had a great-grandfather who was here during the 1880s, during the railroad times.

We had four of these.

We had four Empire Markets at the time, during the late 50s, early 60s.

PATI: And now one.

Now one, because the big chains started moving in.

The big corporations started moving in.

We kept this one going.

PATI: By 1900, Chinese grocery stores were the largest Chinese industry in Tucson.

There was an entire generation of Chinese immigrants who dedicated their lives not only to providing for their own families, but to nourishing their communities.

Patsy, this is it?

That used to be my dad's grocery store.

Now it's my new home.

And I'm gonna move in after 75 years growing up at the grocery store.

[music] PATI: So you worked in your store your entire childhood and you started working since you were how old?

I would say at least five, six.

If we could add, we worked at the grocery store and you know we had the little adding machine.

That's where we gave change, learned our math.

Everybody asks why Chinese kids are so good at math.

Because we grew up with a cash register and giving change.

At that generation, it was all your kids were your employees.

And did you sell Chinese chorizo?

PATSY: Yes, we did.

PATI: Because someone wants to know.

Yes, yes.

PATI: At first I thought Chinese chorizo would be a chorizo infused with Chinese flavors and spices.

But it turned out to be Mexican chorizo made by Chinese hands for Mexican neighbors.

An ingredient born not from one culture, but from the space between two.

PATSY: Because we live in the barrio, and Mrs.

Amparano and Mrs.

Marin, they would test my dad's chorizo and say, "Hey, Ellen, not enough spice."

So, because everybody always asks, even Feng-Feng asked me, "Do you have a recipe?"

No recipe.

The only thing that's consistent is the chili flavor.

– PATI: Dry chilies.

- Yes, and chili powder.

And vinegar.

Yes, that's always the same thing.

But the meat products that go in are the leftovers from the butcher block.

- The ends of bologna, the... - PATI: Pork, beef.

PATSY: Yes, and they combine that chicken.

- They just ground it up.

- That's why it's so tasty.

They make it to their neighborhood favorite, because we have regular customers.

So that's why chorizo was so important for my father.

These grocery stores are so important because they not only provided banking systems, they also provided groceries on credit.

Stores like yours were foundational to Tucson.

PATSY: I think we're like the center of the neighborhood community because the kids all grew up with me.

They all hung out at Alan's Market.

Ah, after school.

Because my mom would feed them.

So it was like their bank, their daycare.

Yeah, it was a community.

It was a huge community thing for us.

PATI: Feng-Feng invited me to try the Chinese chorizo recipe she developed.

Because I couldn't find the Chinese chorizo at any place in Tucson, I was like, let me just recreate this, I guess.

So you are making your chorizo to like soothe your soul?

Yeah, exactly.

This is soul food.

What makes you happy?

Yeah.

She has her own mix of Chinese and Mexican spices with a wet mix of ginger, garlic and black vinegar.

It seasons the meat and builds flavor.

[sizzling] [swing music] I love chorizo.

¡Salud!

FENG-FENG: ¡Salud!

Mmm.

Mmm.

Mmm.

Mmm.

I love the amount of seasoning.

FENG-FENG: Complex flavors for complex stories.

I love that.

I need to find a way to get these chorizo to my house.

Tasting that chorizo transported me to another era, and I was hungry to find out more.

I want to offer you a cochito that I made, and they have some mesquite flour, some flaxseed meal a little bit of whole wheat flour but they're in the shape of javelinas.

PATI: Javelinas.

So I grew up eating piggies or cochinitos or marranitos.

So this is a take on those?

WOMAN: Yes, it was my favorite cookie as a child.

Mmm.

Mmm.

Truly Sonoran cookie, right?

With the mesquite and chilies.

PATI: This is so delicious, Terry.

WOMAN: Oh, thank you.

PATI: But wait, this is very Mexican.

– WOMAN: Yes.

- Are you Mexican too?

Yes.

Our mother was born in Arizona, but my grandparents on her side were born in Mexico, so she's Mexican and our father was born in China.

And it was against the law for them to get married in the 40s.

PATI: And so they fell in love?

WOMAN: Yes.

PATI: And they weren't supposed to be in love?

Right.

PATI: But did you guys live with fear?

We had a grocery store so we were very visible.

Nobody turned us in and I didn't even know that we shouldn't even be together as a family until I was in high school.

There was a certain amount of prejudice I felt.

People pulling their eyes or making comments.

You're not like us.

You know, that type of thing.

And then we saw a certain amount of prejudice towards our mother as well.

So not really accepted in the Chinese community, not really accepted in the Mexican community.

At one point when we were little, all five of us, three of us and our parents lived in the same room and we had an upstairs.

They were being very protective of us.

PATI: I see.

[music] At the Coronet Restaurant, the sons and daughters of Chinese grocers gathered for a modern day interpretation of their parents' Chinese chorizo.

MALLORIE HART: So it's a Chinese pork chorizo on top of a lime-seasoned tostada.

I just learned how Feng-Feng makes her chorizo, and it was so delicious.

In a city that I love so much like Tucson, these two mother cuisines have come together in such a beautiful way.

RAUL E. AGUIRRE: You know, the Chinese community has always been very intricately involved with the Chicano community, the Mexican-American community.

My parents used to have an account with TNT Market, so we used to go in there and sometimes we get extra stuff like cigarettes and beer that we shouldn't get, but it was really a lifeline to the community.

MAURO TREJO: That fusion of cultures, that coming together, is really what makes Chinese chorizo so significant because it represents the origins of the culture of Tucson.

FENG-FENG: I think that these histories of food really lead us towards each other, which is so beautiful, and it helps us to understand the complexities of our relationships.

[guitar music] [wind blowing] AARON: I'm born and raised in the desert.

I love how resilient you have to be.

You have to have a lot of tenacity.

Everything's sort of on offense here.

The plants and the weather and the animals.

[birds cawing] Everything wants to attack.

So like many people from the desert, you run away.

PATI: We often think of the desert as a place that is trying to kill us.

But we hardly ever think of it as a place that is willing to feed us.

In these chefs' hands, that is about to change.

A lot of the things that we harvest from up here is we'll use multiple parts of this mesquite, which is this right here.

Oh, this is a mesquite tree!

Yeah, so we'll use the bark, we'll use the leaves, the catkin.

PATI: Ah, beautiful!

And what else do you eat from here?

Right now is the perfect season for palo verde.

So beautiful.

Now, do you eat the flowers?

Yeah.

So this is actually a really good stage for the flowers.

It's so tasty.

It's powerful.

Very floral.

We collect these buds at this stage.

We use these as capers or olives on plates.

And you said there are snakes around here?

There are.

I don't know if they're out now because it's warm.

- Now, do we eat the snakes?

- We do not.

No.

[laughs] And we're looking for?

So this is the barrel cactus.

It is majestic.

AARON: We're going to use this as the opening bite.

And this dish is really important to me because it was inspired by a story my grandfather told me.

Tell me the story.

AARON: My grandfather is from Superior, Arizona, which is a mining town not too far from here.

But when he was a child, his mother, my great-grandmother, sent him out to the desert to go collect barrels.

He hacked one down, dragged it home, and what was cool about it was his mother cut down all the ribs, got down to the core, and then nixtamalized it, and then turned that into a candy.

- ¡Ay, como acitrón!

– AARON: Exactly.

PATI: Wait!

Oh, my gosh.

I just connected the two things.

AARON: Yeah.

- This is that cactus.

- It is.

PATI: I mean, oh.

I've eaten that citron all my life.

AARON: Is that right?

PATI: My mouth's watering thinking about it.

We don't use the heart.

We do leave the cactus intact so that it does produce for next year and we use this fruit, the piña.

[guitar music] PATI: Esto está precioso.

Can we eat it?

AARON: Yeah, yeah we can.

I love the color, it's so stunning.

Yum!

I love how resistant to the bite it is.

AARON: Yeah, taste how bright it is, lemony.

PATI: So lemony.

The seeds are irresistibly crunchy.

AARON: And then we'll kind of leave the rest for the birds.

PATI: There's another Tucson treasure that Aaron wanted to share.

Native Seeds SEARCH.

An organization restoring heirloom crops and seeds to the communities that once thrived on them.

Aaron brought me here to harvest an ancient Sonoran desert staple.

So, scallions, spring onions.

So these are I'itoi onions.

These are our onions here in the desert.

We're just trying to loosen up the soil.

There you go.

You can do another little pull.

Cool.

Okay, here they come.

So now if you want to pull them up here.

- Oh, yeah.

- Oh, you did great.

Yeah, I know.

You can already smell it.

These are so pretty, kind of.

- They want to be shallots?

- Sort of, yeah.

But they're not?

It's like a multiplier onion is also what a lot of people know them as.

So you plant one and you get all of these?

– JUSTIN: Yeah.

- This is incredible.

This is such a beautiful thing.

JUSTIN: They have a cultural significance to the people of this area, the Tohono O'odham.

And so I'itoi is the name of their creator.

These onions were much favored by the people native to this land.

People are always super excited when we grow them out and are able to share them and distribute them.

Are we taking these?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- Yeah?

JUSTIN: They're meant to be eaten.

And shared.

AARON: Let's take these.

Thanks, Justin.

[music] This evening we'll be experiencing the Southwest Desert.

Each dish honors heritage crops from the region reimagined through Chef's modern cooking approach.

Beautiful.

This first dish is inspired by Chef's grandfather.

It's the fruit of the barrel cactus, which has been aged in ash, topped with a chiltepin paste and preserved chiltepin leaves.

And it is meant to be enjoyed with your hands.

I just harvested these fruits with chef in the desert.

Talk to me.

So this is gonna be our elk machaca and then with it is going to be a Pima Club wheat flour roti.

It just tastes so Mexico Norteño.

MAN: We pickled the Pima Club wheat berries, as well as I'itoi onions.

I used to not really love or enjoy the very modern, modernist, molecular, extreme dining experience.

And learning crazy things you can do with techniques in cooking.

Did you have fun?

- One more little small treat.

- Oh yes!

- Yeah?

- Oh yes!

- All right, let's do it.

– PATI: Oh yes!

This is a marshmallow that's been infused with creosote, which is a monsoon tree that grows all over here.

It's iconic to the desert because after it rains you can smell the creosote everywhere.

And so we like to end the meal for every guest.

We drop this as a surprise.

And the reason that we chose to do this marshmallow is the night that we decided, one, on the name of Ursa, but when it sort of all came together, June and I were toasting marshmallows under the sky.

Cooking saved me.

You know, I was sort of just lost at a young age.

I left a small desert town, and this gave me structure, and it gave me something to believe in, and it gave me something to strive for.

At the end of the day, Ursa is kind of a coming home story for me.

You know, this is a place that had a lot of trauma for me, the desert.

And so coming back home, telling the story of where I'm from, facing my demons and falling in love with the place that raised me.

So there's a lot of meaning to this place.

- Let's eat a marshmallow.

- Yes.

[music] What a marshmallow.

Aaron ran from the desert that raised him.

Now he brings it into his kitchen.

The kitchen is how I found my way too.

When I moved to the U.S., I left political analysis to cook and sharing Mexico's food with my new home kept my roots strong.

Run from home or carry it with you.

Food can ground you.

In Tucson I keep meeting people who refuse to let a place disappear.

Aaron does it with food.

Jorge Ruiz does it with his hands.

Jorge builds miniatures of the old buildings of Tucson's neighborhoods, many no longer standing.

They took me back to the tiendas de abarrotes, taco stands, and small shops of my Mexico City childhood, many gone now too.

He builds each one down to the last light bulb so a neighborhood's memory can outlast its walls.

I'm so excited to be here, Jorge!

Y platícame, ¿qué es lo que te inspira a hacer este trabajo?

To me there's beauty in everything.

So I really try to highlight the relationship that people have to their objects.

Acosta Radio TV, there was some tearing going on and this hand-painted sign, the fact that that didn't stop someone, and they just painted it to cover up a hole in the wall.

I love those details.

This is one of my favorites, La Rancherita.

This is a raspado place.

It has like all the flavors of raspados you can get, and that's also, if you go to the real one, you'll see it.

The thing that's missing on this one is the light bulbs in the marquee.

Okay.

So I used a 3D printer to make these tiny tiny bulbs.

What I do is I grab it by the bulb, I insert it.

Oh!

Yes!

See?

This building always stands out so much to me because it's pink.

It's so pink.

For them to see it put in a proverbial pedestal, it was a recognition of all the years that they have been there.

If someone doesn't keep track of these things that are meaningful to so many people, they will be gone to the wind.

There's a lot of power in preserving these.

Seeing the reaction of the people of seeing this immortalized in a way, that's priceless.

PATI: And this one, did you go in?

Did you know the owner?

Um... It's so pink.

PATI: Jorge keeps Tucson's history alive in miniature.

Others here keep it alive on the grill.

Take the Sonoran hot dog.

It arrived in the United States with German immigrants.

Then traveled south to Hermosillo, where Sonorans wrapped it in bacon, tucked it into soft rolls and piled beans and salsas on top.

Then Sonorans brought it north to Tucson.

It crossed the line twice and it keeps getting better.

Every time I come to Tucson, I try a different one, because every stand has its own cult following and its own claim to being the best.

This time, it was Los Chipilones.

¡Hola!

¡Hola!

¿Cómo se llama usted?

- JESÚS HERNÁNDEZ: Jesús.

- ¡Jesús!

¿Tú cómo te llamas?

JESÚS MACIEL TORRES: Mucho gusto.

Jesús.

¡No!

¡Los Chuys!

¡Los Chuys!

¿Cuál es el color que más te piden?

¿Es el Sonoran?

Sí, es el Sonoran hot dog.

Va tostado con mantequilla a la plancha.

Este es frijol.

Cebolla cruda.

Este es tomate.

Luego ya la mayonesa.

La mostaza.

Ajá.

- ¡Más, más, más!

- ¿Más mostaza?

PATI: Sí.

OK.

Este es salsa de jalapeño molida.

OK.

Y va un chilito güero que se llama caribe.

Muy bueno.

¡Increíble!

- Muchas gracias.

- ¡Qué rico, Chuy!

Yo soy de Michoacán.

Todo viene siendo estilo Sonora, nomás que nosotros somos de Michoacán.

Mi hermano fue el que empezó el negocio.

Ya tenemos 19 años.

¿Casi dos décadas?

Casi dos décadas.

Gracias a Dios.

PATI: Just like Sonoran dogs are essential to the gastronomy of Tucson, Brian Lopez is essential to its soundtrack.

His music carries everything I love about this city.

The heat, the mystery, the mix of cultures and the border always goes by.

He has played all over the world, [Brian singing] ♪ I'm on my... ♪ including with Tucson's cherished indie rock band, Calexico.

♪ Lord, I'm having such a hard, hard time ♪ After years of listening to his music, I was lucky enough to hear him play in the middle of a saguaro field.

♪ Voices tangled up together ♪ ♪ Miles across Sonoran desert ♪ ♪ Whisper wind, whisper for us ♪ ♪ Jane is here, she wanna show us ♪ ♪ Three thousand stories before us now ♪ ♪ Married to the land ♪ The desert is a very unforgiving, relentless environment and to come from the desert you have to be a little bit relentless yourself.

With your music, is it something that you had to struggle through?

No, the music industry is super easy.

There's no struggle at all.

[laughter] No, it's a constant struggle, and that's what you love about it.

Doing it the hard way by being in Tucson because it's not a music industry city at all.

If I were more practical I would have moved to Los Angeles.

But I stayed here and just embraced my roots, and it's just, I don't care of other people's perception of success, so it's much easier to let go.

Maybe you started out wanting to be a famous musician or famous rock star or something, and those sentiments kind of fade and turn into something that's a little bit superficial, and you realize that at some point, and then it's just like, wait, I'm really good at this thing.

Let's just stay curious, and let's, let's keep that wonder.

It's so freeing and it makes you such a better musician.

What does Tucson do to you?

And has that evolved over time?

You see these saguaros.

You see this exquisite, exotic beauty of the desert.

And it's something in my 20 years prior that I had not recognized.

The city now finds its way into my songs all over the place, and I embrace that.

♪ It's this black mountain memory I recall most ♪ These are not very old songs.

These are more of you embracing the Tucson story.

BRIAN: Yeah.

I was watching a story regarding the remains of migrants traveling from Sonora up to the states that didn't make it.

So there were about 3,000 undocumented bodies.

If they don't have anything, at least they have a song.

♪ Three thousand faces before us now ♪ ♪ Buried in the sand ♪ [guitar music] PATI: As the sun set over the Sonoran desert and most of Tucson went to sleep, Brian told me to pull up to the St.

Charles Tavern, walk through the bar, then through an alley.

[music] Hey!

BRIAN: Hey Pati!

Hi!

Bienvenidos a St.

Charles.

- ¡Gracias!

- Meet my good friend Gabriel.

Hey!

Pleasure, Pati.

PATI: Okay, so tell me a little bit about your guys' story.

Have you worked together for a long time?

We met 15, 16, 17 years ago, a lifetime ago, traveling in Europe.

So what's the story of the bar?

Elizabeth Churchill, who sadly passed away, started the bar 10 and a half years ago, and it's just become this place where you got the neighborhood locals as well as creatives, and musicians, and artists all mixing together.

Eventually, last year, we ended up moving my recording studio, Dust and Stone, to the apartment attached to the bar.

There's been a long lineage of Tucson musicians dating back to the early 80s that have come from Tucson, which is a strange thing to say because Tucson, especially in the early 80s, is not a densely populated city.

So to have this little weirdo town, which we've somehow maintained our weirdo status, and we guard it, we guard it with all our lives.

You see it when you're here, and you feel it, and it's in the music, and it's something that's very special.

We got a song we're working on and we have some eager musicians.

[crickets chirping] PATI: Nestled behind the tavern, a Tucson institution, Gabe's Dust and Stone recording studio, where artists from all over the Southwest and the world have recorded everything from desert rock to cumbia to folk.

Tonight Gabe and Brian's acclaimed band XIXA has gathered for a recording session.

Alright, so this is the studio.

This is Ryan.

You'll be playing bass.

Ryan Alfred.

- So nice to meet you.

– BRIAN: Gael Melgoza.

- Hey!

– BRIAN: Winston Watson.

Hi!

¿Entonces la canción se llama?

– BRIAN: Cholo de Galaxia.

- Cholo de Galaxia.

Sí.

One, two, three, four.

[band playing] ♪ In a time when we were fallen kings ♪ ♪ Light years beyond our glory ♪ ♪ She appeared with a ripple on the cosmic light ♪ ♪ Speaking tongues we did not know ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Cholo de Galaxia ♪ ♪ Solo quiero así ♪ ♪ Cholo de Galaxia ♪ ♪ Como creo en ti ♪ [music continues] PATI: I could have stayed and danced a little more.

But a story was pulling me north, off my route, to the edge of Scottsdale.

I passed the mountain that Brian sings about and that gave Tucson its name, Cuk Son, the base of the Black Mountain.

In the language of the O'odham, this desert was theirs long before it was Mexico's or the United States.

As I head up back north, here, in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, the O'odham and the Piipaash saw their land cut to a fraction of its size in 1879.

They're still here, and on their land, a field of dreams is uniting them with native communities from across the Americas.

MAN: All of us here today, I'm going to encourage you all to have a good thought for yourself.

Say your prayer in your own little way too.

Our parents, our staff, you know, they can receive a good blessing for being of support to our youth.

So we want that good spirit to look after them and take care of them and keep them strong, keep them safe throughout the day.

D.J.

: Hello everybody, thank you guys for coming.

I'm D.J.

Carrasco.

I'm the founder, my wife Autumn is the co-founder.

It's a really special opportunity for you guys.

We've tried to create our own pathway for Native American athletes to world representation at the highest level.

[crowd cheering] PATI: D.J.

Carrasco achieved what millions of kids can only dream of, pitching in the major leagues.

But his biggest accomplishment happened when he stepped off the mound and into his new role.

[music] So D.J., how did you get the idea?

D.J.

: So post-playing days, I think the most important thing was I was an ambassador to MLB.

So part of my jobs were to go across the world and teach the game from grassroots, t-ball, college speaking, World Baseball Classic coaching staff.

I did everything and everything in between.

When I came back home, it just all of a sudden hit me like, why are we not playing as Native Americans?

Like, we play too, right?

Why don't we have that same pathway?

Go!

Good job, good job.

D.J.

: We're excited.

Our first year was an absolute smash.

We had five weeks to plan something.

We had 40 tribes show up.

PATI: And what have been your main obstacles?

D.J.

: There's a lot of skepticism, but you have to have the people trust you and the kids come out and understand we're not travel ball.

Like, we are the only indigenous and Native American members in the World Baseball Softball Confederation.

That's our pathway to hopefully the Olympics and the World Baseball Classic representations.

We've done this model in Japan, in China, in Dominican, in Venezuela, in Puerto Rico.

- You have results.

- The model is already proven.

We just haven't done it in Native American circles as a combined nation.

[music] PATI: D.J.

invited me to take the same grip strength test as all the kids.

This is how he measures shoulder and elbow strength for pitching.

I'm guessing I'm going to be 46.

What do you guys think?

- 36.

- 47.

36.

D.J.

: Oh, let go, let go.

Oh my God.

59.4.

PATI: Turns out I'm stronger than I thought.

[laughter] D.J.

: She's just toying with them.

Turn your wrist, Pati.

You're just toying with them, Pati.

Hi!

Who's out?

[laughter] Who's next?

You look very big and strong.

[laughs] Seems like if I need to build more strength, I have to eat what these kids are eating.

Steps from the diamond, food today, is in the hands of Chef Leah Andrews.

LEAH: My nickname growing up is actually Leah Tortilla.

Really?

As we make the county's beloved Pima burger from scratch.

Starting with the tortillas that we're kneading by hand.

In our language it's called chumat.

- Which is made out of wheat?

– LEAH: Yes.

PATI: In 108 degree heat.

There you go, that's perfect.

And cooking with mesquite wood on a comal.

The burgers get open flame treatment, some melted cheese.

Then we top off with lettuce, tomato, mayo, ketchup, and mustard.

[rock guitar music] Mmm!

So good.

And someone who's been eating these Pima burgers, Chef Leah's husband, is one of the most beloved coaches here.

I grew up born and raised here in Salt River.

When I see that water tower, I consider it home.

I even got it tattooed on my shin.

- Oh my gosh!

- That's how I know I'm home.

PATI: That is ridiculously cool!

And what was life growing up here?

It was res life, so res life is rough and tough.

You're throwing dirt rocks at each other for fun, and you're playing in the dirt from sunrise to sunset.

Right now, the lifespan is only 55 years old.

PATI: That's so young!

And across the line?

WHITNEY: It's about 74.

Our tribe, we have what's called a five for five initiative, where we're trying to add five years on to each and every person's life.

We never had a program like Native Nations.

We never had camps or clinics along this line.

Never had major league players come out and throw us balls and play with us.

Like that is something new to us.

And if I had this when I was a kid, I probably would have been playing at a collegiate level.

PATI: Tell me the name of your son.

VERNIDA: His name is Pernell Cody Jr.

- And he's how old?

- 11.

PATI: Has he been playing baseball for a long time?

– VERNIDA HARNEY: Yeah.

- Tell me about your brother.

Yeah.

This is such a beautiful tattoo.

What was his name?

Sean Harney.

PATI: Sean Harney.

And how old is he here?

VERNIDA: This is a 10, 11, like my son's age.

Yes.

Yes.

He passed away.

It's gonna be four years on May 17th.

From an overdose.

And you were very close to your brother.

Yes.

Best friend.

Best friend.

And then my sister Terry, she passed from cirrhosis of the liver seven months ago from alcoholism.

She was only like 45.

– PATI: So young.

– VERNIDA: Yeah.

Everybody struggles with drugs and substance use, but it does hit us hard in our community.

With me, I am very, very powerful.

I actually stopped the cycle of addiction.

So I'm six years sober.

I just hit six years on March 13th.

And I'm a therapist, so I'm helping people that struggle with substance use and mental health challenges.

When it comes to mental health and addiction, I think that being open and being vulnerable and brave and just talk about whatever you want, it doesn't keep secrets in the family, so we don't go from generation to generation.

That is so powerful.

So I always tell that to my son all the time.

Everything that you do here, like with your children, grandkids, great-grandkids, like how you become this awesome human is going to affect the next seven generations.

So if you continue playing baseball, you continue playing sports, it's just going to keep going and going and going.

Your dad played, your grandpa played, but there wasn't a Native Nations national or international league before.

What does that thought mean to you?

JACKSON: My aunties and my dad are really big with all Navajo culture, and I always wish that Native Americans can play baseball against other people.

And if I can do this, it'd be really special for my family.

Can't wait to see you.

Bye.

I will beat you the next time.

JACKSON: The next time after I throw 15 innings?

- Yeah.

– JACKSON: All right.

I'm not selling big league dreams.

I'm selling team building, character building, opportunities.

You don't have to be as good as your U.S.

counterpart.

You gotta be as good as your countryman.

There's pride in playing with your own people.

That's beautiful, D.J.

I'm trying to make a difference in the world.

I had my moment, now I want to give everybody else an opportunity.

That's so generous and kind and beautiful.

From Alaska to Arizona, one thing keeps finding me on this journey.

The first peoples of this continent are still struggling to be heard, to be counted, and to feel at home in the place that was theirs first.

The communities are different, the tribal nations are different, but that struggle is what they all have in common.

I know I will find it again when I continue my journey down south and cross into Mexico.

But before I cross, I want to see what crosses the other way.

I'm headed to Nogales, Arizona, where 60% of the fresh produce that feeds the United States and Canada comes through.

[music] This is the main produce gateway of North America.

What most people don't know is how much of those fruits and vegetables never reach a single plate.

YOLANDA: So this is the Mariposa Crossing Gate.

Where billions of pounds of produce come across here.

And during the produce season we're talking about a thousand trucks a day.

Coming from Mexico via the United States and Canada for sale.

So the distributor won't know if they're going to give you a call and tell you, hey, I have a package for you until they get that in their warehouse.

That is correct, until it unloads.

[truck beeping] Maybe the trailer sat too long.

He'll unload it and he'll say, it's not good enough to sell, we better donate it.

In your opinion, is it things that should pass and should be sold?

Oh, absolutely.

Because some of the tomatoes, for instance, they're missing a stem.

And they're going to donate that load of tomatoes because it's missing a stem.

And whose fault is that?

The consumer.

The consumer wants perfect product.

And that's why we advertise we're a secondary style market.

Come to us.

And yes, it's rescued produce, but it's great product.

There's dozens, dozens and dozens of trucks coming by every minute.

Correct.

PATI: It's quite shocking, Yoli.

[truck rumbling] YOLANDA: We rescue this product from the distribution centers, knocking on one door at a time and educating them.

What are you doing throwing out this great product into the landfill?

– PATI: How did you find out?

- I'm born and bred here.

- Okay.

- From Nogales.

So I knew that the produce industry was throwing in our landfill.

[birds cawing] And I'm one of those people that care very much about waste.

Did you know about the dimension, like the amount of food waste?

- I didn't know.

- How big it was.

I didn't know how big it was.

I had an idea.

But some of the distributors are growers also.

And so the word started to spread after I was educating them and saying, okay, you're paying 35 or 40 dollars a ton to go dump in the landfill.

You're ruining the landfill.

You're helping with climate change and this was 30 years ago and I was already worried about climate change.

And there are so many people that could eat this product.

Please give me a call and anytime that you have product that you want to donate and I will send my truck, at that time I had one truck, and I will send my truck to pick it up.

And that's how we got started.

And grew it into, at that time it was 20 to 40 million pounds per year that we would rescue.

– PATI: That is so.

– YOLANDA: It is a lot.

[vehicle beeping] Each one of us has the inherent obligation to rescue and to help people.

Because everybody has the right to eat and eat nutritiously.

We just rescued this and it's a lot of watermelon.

We really need to find a home for every single product that's donated to us.

Except jalapeños maybe, unless we find pigs, because pigs will eat anything.

I also see you have a warehouse there.

It's a cold room for all vegetables that need to be kept cold.

This product is going to go for our weekend powwow.

One in Phoenix and the other two will be in the Tucson area.

So we have tomatoes and we have some mangoes.

I love mangoes.

I think it's one of my favorite fruits.

Well we'll have to taste one see what you think.

Yes, I'm really good at testing them.

This is what I do.

Now I can show.

¿Este truco se lo sabía?

No, no.

YOLANDA: ¿Es bueno?

Es muy bueno.

Está dulce, está rica, está... Mmm.

- It's mango perfection.

- ¡Qué rico!

– PATI: Ramon.

- Mande.

PATI: ¿Cuál es tu parte más favorita del trabajo que haces?

Me siento bien feliz cuando la gente sonríe, cuando le damos la verdura.

Tiene hambre, tenemos hambre, queremos comer.

Especialmente cuando ven una fruta así, qué rica, así como le dije, qué rico.

La gente encanta, eso es lo que me hace motivar.

MAN: Watch out man, it's kind of heavy.

YOLANDA: Come on.

You can do that.

Just the one box of tomatoes today?

- Yes ma'am.

- Perfect.

Thank you so much.

¿Y cada cuánto viene usted?

- Yo vengo cada semana.

- No, pues está buenísima.

- What are you taking?

- Two cases of each.

YOLANDA: We're helping millions and millions of people eat nutritiously, and I'm hoping that I find someone that is going to want to continue my mission.

[music] Pati, I want to introduce you to my son.

Hi Pati.

Hi Ricky.

Ricky has grown up in a place that exemplifies a border town.

His home lies in Nogales, Arizona.

Two steps away is Nogales, Sonora.

Together, they are known as ambos Nogales, both Nogales.

They were once separated by a line on the ground.

[music] And Ricky's lifelong proximity to both gives him a unique experience and perspective.

So, Ricky, what is it like to live right in between the two Nogales?

RICKY: Extremely peaceful.

As much as we see the border and everything that goes on, it still kind of has a peaceful aspect and a community aspect.

It's very unshakable and it won't go away.

That's kind of ironic that people think of the borderlands as a place of a lot of turmoil.

Even the entire Nogales is peaceful.

It really is.

Don't believe what you hear.

[laughs] When the line went up, my grandparents, they ended up on this side of the line.

That's how they became U.S.

citizens.

Because the line was so arbitrary.

That's right.

That's where they drew the line.

Because there's no river here.

That's right.

RICKY: They only had fence posts.

So there were concrete obelisks that they would have that marked the end of the country.

The border crossed us and divided the city.

Families would actually be able to go down and visit with other families and have picnics on the borders.

So they eat their food on that side, and the people are eating their food on this side.

And the fence is in between them, but it doesn't divide them.

A big inspiration for me is my Southwestern roots right here on the border.

I think Mexican-American heritage is really big.

It's its own culture in a way.

You've got that culture over here, you've got our culture here, but it comes together into a beautiful mix, again, of tradition.

Ricky, you're getting to something so important to me, like that third culture.

Ni de aquí, ni de allá.

That I hear from every fronterizo, every borderlander that I know.

You pick up aspects from both sides and you live them.

PATI: Like growing up, what was your choice of doing on that side versus this side?

YOLANDA: Well, my parents and I, and I did the same thing with my kids.

We just went to a lot of restaurants in Nogales, Sonora.

There are so many more and the food of course is so delicious.

PATI: What's unique about these beautiful border spaces that people don't understand.

RICKY: You do drive past this every day and see the despair, but when you live in a space like this, you have to look past it and see the beauty that there is.

PATI: Another leg of my PanAmericana journey is coming to a close.

From the Canadian border to the edge of Mexico, I've now crossed the lower 48, and the country I've called home for almost 30 years keeps showing me how little of it I knew.

It was the people who lead the path, the kids in Browning reclaiming their language and with it, their identity.

The women of White Sulphur Springs who turned one woman's spark into a town full of them.

The crypto-Jews of Albuquerque, opening their hearts after centuries of hiding.

The neighbors of Denver's Five Points, honoring a hallowed past.

The artists of Tucson, holding their city in its rightful place between worlds.

D.J.

and his players, taking the field for their nations.

I began PanAmericana to try to reimagine what it means to be American, in the full sense of the word and across all of the Americas.

Every person I met made that word bigger for me.

Now I'm standing at the border of Mexico, the country I come from, and the Pan American Highway stretches on ahead of me, far longer than what lies behind.

I'm carrying so much curiosity about Mexico's place in the Americas, and about my own place within it.

I wonder who I am when I stand in this line.

I wonder who I will meet, what I will taste, and what I will learn this time.

This is the continuation of my journey.

[Latin music] [flamenco guitar music] [music continues]