Students bring recipes and playing cards to Tucson Meet Yourself

The crackling and popping sounds combined with the zesty, spicy aromas transport her to a beloved childhood breakfast that was always accompanied by warm tortillas.

“That smell would wake me right up and I’d run out,” she said of her childhood. “It's kind of like how people say, ‘Oh, the smell the bacon,’ right? But for me, it’s the smell of chorizo.”

Memories like that are what Sosa hoped to draw from her Utterback Middle School students during their fall projects, which will be presented at Tucson Meet Yourself this weekend.

Sosa, Miles K-8 teacher Patrick Kelly and Wakefield Middle School teacher Rickyana Estrada will display student projects inspired by their heritage and Southern Arizona culture as part of a fellowship project from the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. The center is partnering with Tucson Meet Yourself for this year’s festival.

“To mark the 250th anniversary of the U.S., we are collaborating with 37 festivals in 27 states across the United States on programs that aim to illuminate the distinctive cultures that make up the amazing mosaic that is the United States,” said Cliff Murphy, director of the Smithsonian's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

One of the center’s goals is to encourage cultural learning and sharing, which prompted the creation of this year’s pilot teacher cohort, Murphy said.

“We know that festivals like Tucson Meet Yourself create space for cultural communities to share about themselves to their neighbors, and that creates a sense of understanding and it can create a sense of belonging,” he said. “With (this) education work, we're also hoping to spark that idea in the classroom.”

A nationwide cohort of 33 teachers — including the three Tucson Unified School District teachers and Tucson Flamenco dancer and instructor Angelina Ramirez — met biweekly to explore the Smithsonian’s educational materials and share their experiences.

One of the fellowship’s biggest impacts was helping teachers show students how to connect with their culture and identity, said Philippa Rappoport, director of education at the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

“It was really important for their students to connect to their own heritage, and also that they have a role in transmitting culture themselves,” Rappoport said.

Throughout the nine-month program, the teachers found a sense of community among one another, she said.

Sosa, an English language arts and humanities teacher, said the cohort visited Detroit in July as part of their fellowship. There, they toured art and cultural museums and looked for ways to connect the themes they encountered.

During a dinner on their first night in the city, the cohort’s instructor asked an icebreaker question: How do you prefer to eat your potatoes?

“At first, I was like, ‘What? It was such an odd question,” Sosa said. But she soon realized everyone at the table had grown up eating potatoes differently.

“Whether it's eating your potatoes with chorizo, or adding specific seasoning to your potatoes, or eating the potatoes with steak — I mean, there's just so many different ways and different foods that our colleagues brought up,” she said. “It was that moment where I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I would really love to do something with my students where we get to focus on writing about food or trying to connect food with our identity, with our culture, with our tradition.’”

Sosa asked her students to write personal narratives about how a particular food connects to their lives. She also sent them home with an assignment to write recipes for those dishes with their families.

“Just getting to see the outcome was truly phenomenal, and you just see a variety of different recipes,” she said.

Sosa compiled the recipes into a cookbook that will be displayed at this year’s festival.

“The whole point of it is bringing community together, bringing people together,” she said. “I'm really really excited for the opportunity and for the students to get to lead their projects as well.”

Students share Southern Arizona culture

Estrada, an English language arts teacher, will display her students’ Lotería-style game cards that represent significant symbols in their lives, while Kelly, a sixth- through eighth-grade social studies teacher, will showcase baseball-style “culture cards” his students created featuring local cultural workers.

The cards highlight people from a range of backgrounds and professions, including musicians, artists, dancers, archaeologists and even a member of a local car club.

“I'm always trying to think of ways our students present our work,” he said. “I wanted my students to be interactive.”

As part of the fellowship, Kelly hosted 18 guest speakers in his classroom, including local Tohono O’odham singer Gertrude "Gertie" Lopez and flamenco dancer Angelina Ramirez.

But bringing in a deaf guest speaker proved challenging because a TUSD interpreter was not made available, he said.

“I teach (some) deaf and hard of hearing students, and I consciously try to integrate deaf culture into my curriculum, and I can't do it without interpreters,” he told the Star. “You got to make it a priority. It's important for these kids to see and have access to deaf culture.”

The experience reinforced his priority of making cultural representation accessible to students, he said.

Interpretation support can be requested at Tucson Meet Yourself based on availability, the event site says.

Sosa looks forward to the number of students who will attend Tucson Meet Yourself for the first time, she said.

She said the opportunity to work with the Smithsonian and present at her “favorite local event of the year” has been “lifechanging.”