The Show for May 26, 2026: Outgoing Maricopa Community Colleges chancellor, philosophy camp, more

As GOP lawmakers and the governor continue their budget talks, this educational entity is asking to be funded. We’ll hear from the outgoing chancellor of the Maricopa Community College district. And, with all the options out there for how kids spend their summers, how about philosophy camp?

Transcript

MARK BRODIE: Hi, I'm Mark Brodie, co-host of The Show and an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday, we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at theshow.kjzz.org. Here's today's episode.

Good morning, it's The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I'm Mark Brodie. Coming up, we'll hear from the outgoing chancellor of the Maricopa Community College District and putting a modern twist on a classic game. But first, GOP leaders in the state Senate say they're optimistic about having a budget deal with Governor Katie Hobbs in the near future. Senate President Warren Petersen has said the sides are, quote, "probably 97% of the way to an agreement." This comes after the governor vetoed a Republican budget proposal that she called unbalanced and reckless. With me now to talk about the prognosis for a new spending plan by the end of the fiscal year is Howie Fischer of Capitol Media Services. Good morning, Howie.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, Howie.

HOWARD FISCHER: Good morning. As the days continue to count down, I try to remain optimistic, but, you know, anything's possible in this place.

MARK BRODIE: Anything's possible. So, Howie, you had a chance to catch up with Gov. Hobbs yesterday. Does she share Senate President Warren Petersen's optimism?

HOWARD FISCHER: I think she does. She didn't put a percentage on it. The problem of percentages, you say we're 97% of the way there, but the 3% could be major things like tax cuts. So, you know, numbers make little sense.

The really big change is the rhetoric. You know, the governor, as you pointed out, called the legislative budget irresponsible, reckless. You know, said we can't live with that. You know, the the veritable "people will die in the streets if we do this."

Well, by yesterday, she was saying, "You know, we've got a really difficult revenue picture here, and we're doing the best we can." And she also said, "You know, I knew when we started out, we were going to have to compromise." Now, that's a whole change in tenor there, which suggests that, A, she recognizes that she wasn't going to get all she wanted, and B, that everyone realizes we've got July 1 approaching. And if we don't have a budget by July 1, certain state services shut down.

Capitol Media Services
Howard Fischer

I think there's also a realization what she is and isn't going to get. Remember, this governor put out a budget, which included various revenue increases. Some of it was supposedly found money, like $760 million the federal government would pay us for border costs during the the Biden administration. ... Not going to happen. There was a tax hike for certain forms of of online gaming — not going to happen. There was a plan where she said, "We're going to limit who can get vouchers based on parental income" — not going to happen. Same thing with a fee on short-term rentals, you know, there's just no appetite for that.

So, the other side then becomes what does the Legislature give up? They had a plan for across-the-board budget cuts. She says that's irresponsible. I think that's not going to happen because she's going to tell lawmakers, "If you say we only have so much money, you make the decision about which agencies you're going to cut. Don't don't dump that back in my lap." So, I think that's exactly where we are, you know, as as of 9:11 a.m. on the 26th of of May.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so, Howie, if those revenue enhancements, which were probably always a long shot from the governor from her budget in January, seem unlikely to happen and across-the-board 5% cuts as the Republicans propose in the vetoed budget plan are not going to happen. Given the state's fiscal situation, does that leave room for new programs, new initiatives?

HOWARD FISCHER: Well, here's where it gets really interesting, because now we're into, I'll call it voodoo economics, to borrow from a phrase years ago. All of this depends on what are the revenue projections.

Now, we already knew that the Legislature said we can adopt across-the-board conformity because there's enough revenues for this year. Now, revenue numbers come out pretty much new every month, and if the economists squint one way or the other, all of a sudden, there's another $100 million or $200 million. ... I'm not blaming them. I mean, you know, how do you make projections based on what's happening in Iran? How do you make projections in in terms of what the traders on Wall Street are thinking?

So, I think the next step is going to be we're going to come up with some revenue numbers that's going to allow for some new programs. It's going to save some programs. For example, the governor has as a high priority saving the Rio Nuevo project in Tucson, which is basically a a downtown improvement project. The the legislative budget had called to wipe that out, which also would have left something like $9 million in debt that somebody would have to pay off or we'd be defaulting in that.

So, I think they will find the money. I think they will all declare victory, sing "Kumbaya," and say that's great. And then if the revenue numbers go in the tank somewhere down the road ... we'll deal with it then.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so Gov. Hobbs has pointed out that, you know, she and Republican legislative leadership have done this before. They've obviously, you know, she's been in office, this is her fourth year. They have passed budgets before the end of the fiscal year each year. But, some of those have sort of been received better than others. Any feeling as to like — this doesn't seem like sort of the Oprah budget where, you know, the first year where every legislator kind of got a pot of money to do with what they wanted. Does this seem like it's going to be more of sort of a "traditional budget"?

HOWARD FISCHER: I think it's going to be much more traditional. I don't think you're going to see a lot of new programs. I think there may be a few which get a new or expanded, you know, the governor's got a thing about more help for folks who need money for for energy, you know, given the, you know, like APS wants a 14% hike in its power, you know. Well, you know, somebody's got to got to pay for that.

I think that what we're going to see is something that's cautious, but it's going to be cautiously optimistic that the revenues are going to get better, that the war in Iran will finally drag to an end, that the stock market will will stabilize, and everything will will be fine.

But also remember, and you know, you've been a student of this, too, we have gotten sometimes five, six months into the budget year, in other words, the next January, February, and all of a sudden, we realize, uh-oh. The numbers are not going to do it, and you end up with these mid-year budget cuts. Sometimes with a little bit of of of fancy footwork where you borrow money from one agency and you move it around, and somehow they're just trying to get through the end of the fiscal year.

So, that is definitely not off the table. I think there's a lot of crossing of fingers and a little prayer, say a little novena, and hope that the numbers come out.

MARK BRODIE: All right. So Howie, about a minute left before we have to let you go. We have heard some lawmakers say they expect to be voting on something in early June, which would be next week. Obviously, that would be, you know, several weeks before the end of the fiscal year. How — I know you don't want to put percentage on it — how optimistic would you be that the budget gets done, let's say, before June 15?

HOWARD FISCHER: Oh, I think June 15 is the date I've been thinking about. I think that that they're shooting for that, recognizing they got to give themselves a little bit of elbow room there, because it's like so many things, something comes apart at the end. The wheels come off, some Republicans say, "We're not going to vote for the plan because it's got too much money for Democrats." And the Democrats say, "We're not going to provide you with the votes unless we get something else, and those little last-minute negotiations there."

We also know quite frankly that there are many legislative Democrats who are not in lockstep with the governor in terms of some of what she wants to do. So, the at what point does somebody like a Mitzi Epstein from from Tempe, who's in her last term and says, "I'm not going to just buy on to everything," says, "No, you can't just count on my vote"?

MARK BRODIE: Interesting. All right. We'll be back at it next week to see where they're at. Howie Fischer with Capitol Media Services, thanks as always.

HOWARD FISCHER: You're welcome.

MARK BRODIE: The Maricopa Community Colleges will be getting a new leader. The district's governing board last week approved Steven Bloomberg as the new chancellor. He's been serving as chancellor of the Kern Community College District in California. The Maricopa Community College District's current chancellor, Steven Gonzales, announced earlier this year that he'd be stepping down. He's been in the role for six years, and by way of full disclosure, KJZZ is licensed to the Maricopa Community College District. Gonzales stopped by the studio late last week, and we started our conversation with a recent request he made to the state legislature to allocate funding to the district in the new state budget. Lawmakers and the governor zeroed out funding more than a decade ago, and I asked Gonzales what the impact of that has been.

STEVEN GONZALES: Right, so we have um every year since, uh the state has decided not to fund us. In fact, this is going back since 2015, we were removed as a line item from the budget. Within a year or two after that, we were put back into the budget, but we have never received a dollar in the operating line since then. So, it's had tremendous impact, probably the accumulation of $250 to $350 million over that 11-year period.

MARK BRODIE: And what has the district, I guess, maybe missed out on because of that? Or what have the implications of that been?

STEVEN GONZALES: Well, it's it's forced us to really tighten the belt, which, you know, an organization, especially a public organization, should do. It should be very fiscally conservative with and a good steward of taxpayer dollars. I I believe we've done that. Over the last several years, we've engaged in, you know, a different budgeting approach. Um, each of the colleges and the district office have undergone a minimum of 1 to 3% budget cuts each year uh to adjust for the impact. At the same time, we've had rising costs uh to just simply conduct business, so we're having to make those adjustments. Our employees uh depend on annual increases. There's medical uh costs have gone up and we're we're self- uh insured organization and the costs of doing that business has gone up. So, when we don't have that consistent operating aid that doesn't come with any strings attached and how we use that to run our organization, um, we've had to make some pretty tough decisions. Sometimes that might impact the night the number of people that we can employ, uh particularly those that uh serve our students on the front end. We'd like to reduce our student-advisor ratio, for example, um but it might make it challenging to do that across our large system.

MARK BRODIE: Have you made this request in the past?

STEVEN GONZALES: We have made this request every single year.

MARK BRODIE: Do you have any measure of optimism that the result this year will be any different?

STEVEN GONZALES: We try to remain optimistic every single year. Um, this year is especially tough, you know, understanding the uh the budget challenges that the state is facing. There have been really good years uh that the that the state has had in terms of revenues coming in uh to to dole out across the many uh areas that the that the state funds, and we thought for sure in those years we might, but um, you know, to no avail.

MARK BRODIE: So, let me ask you about another source of of revenue for the district, which is enrollment, of course. And I'm curious where that is. I mean, we've seen reports that, you know, in some places community college enrollment is up, in some places it's down. How are you doing?

STEVEN GONZALES: Well, during the the the pandemic, which started in spring of 2020 for us, uh beginning that fall 2020, we had a 20% decline in enrollment, which would be equivalent to one of our mid-size to large colleges just wiped out in one semester. Over the last several years, we've engaged in a number of efforts to increase enrollment. Um, as you mentioned, we've got two primary sources of revenue. One being tuition, the other one being property tax. And, um, we have now had 12 consecutive semesters of enrollment increases, single to double digit, low double digit increases, which have helped. Um, some of our colleges have now met or surpassed pre-pandemic numbers, and on the whole, uh we've probably still got a little ways to go for the numbers that we were seeing prior to the fall of 2020.

MARK BRODIE: To what do you attribute enrollment being where it is? As you say, at some some of the colleges, there are 10 colleges in the district, at some of them, enrollment is sort of where it was before COVID, at others, it's not.

STEVEN GONZALES: Well, we we provide a number of programs. We offer s- between 600 and 700 degrees and certificates. We've got something for everybody, and we've got the the traditional what might take most students two years if they were going full-time and then we've got short-term certificates. In a little as two weeks, you can earn a certification that um can land you a job opportunity that could turn into a career. Um, we have also started offering bachelor's degrees in the fall of 2023. We opened up with seven bachelor's degrees, and by the end of the fall semester, we had nearly 2,000 students who had indicated that they were in one of the bachelor's degrees, and today, I'm happy to report with 11 bachelor's degrees now, we have um well over roughly 10,000 students. So, that has really helped our uh our enrollment across our system.

MARK BRODIE: I wanted to ask you about the bachelor's degrees. Going back to the legislature, that was something they allowed you to do. Um, there are some rules ar- around like what you are and are not allowed to do in terms of programs offered for bachelor's. It sounds like that's been a pretty significant development for the district.

STEVEN GONZALES: Right, so we're we're eternally grateful um to the legislature that that year that um that supported our ability and for the governor that year who supported our ability to offer bachelor's degrees. It has been a tremendous opportunity um for a number of reasons. But, I would like to think that we've created bachelor's degrees that have an interest and that are going to meet the needs of the job market, and they're also accessible, and then there's the affordability. Um, we have kept our associate's degree level courses at the $92 to $94 credit range. We're allowed to charge 150% for the upper division courses, but still when all said and done, a student can complete a a bachelor's degree with us for under $15000 in most instances.

MARK BRODIE: Do you anticipate that the colleges will continue to look to offer more bachelor's degrees and more programs?

STEVEN GONZALES: Absolutely. Um, this earlier in the spring semester, um a task force that's been charged with looking at the landscape of the bachelor's degrees that we offer and ones that we will continue to possibly offer, uh they rolled out a five-year plan to add 15 more. Um, we're not in any sort of arms race. Uh, we're not looking to become of course a research-one institution. We are looking to meet the needs of our community and our industry partners in the number of bachelor degrees we offer. They're labor-intensive, and they're of course they they cost um to produce, and so we're very mindful of what we're going to do, and we want to ensure more than anything that students who come out with that bachelor's degree, that there will be an opportunity for them to be gainfully employed.

MARK BRODIE: When you look at the state of the district's finances as you're heading out the door, how would you describe them?

STEVEN GONZALES: I think that we are better off today. For one, we've got a a balanced budget. Um, that's critically important for an institution to operate within its means. But, the demand is not going away and technology is changing incredibly fast, and we're trying to ensure that our students are meeting the needs of our communities and our industry partners, ensuring that they're they're rel- that their education is relevant, which requires that our equipment and learning spaces are relevant as well. All of these things have a high very, very high price tag, and what we have seen over the last several months in terms of the economy and and the the cost of conducting business is is is only increasing.

MARK BRODIE: You're dealing with the same inflation that everybody else is.

STEVEN GONZALES: Absolutely. Yes, we have a fleet of cars and we pay the same amount for gas that you and I both pay when we fill up our personal vehicles.

MARK BRODIE: So, I assume that you will or have spoken to the person who will be replacing you. Um, not asking you to get into into specifics of private conversations, but what advice would you give him taking over your job?

STEVEN GONZALES: Well, the the person who is named to um to come in after me was was just approved yesterday and he and I have not had an opportunity to talk. I will give um advice as long as it's solicited. Um, I don't I want to make sure that uh he's going to have an opportunity to come in and be very successful. I have a vested interest in Maricopa continuing to be a successful institution. I'd asked the board on my way out that they find someone who can take this to an entirely different level. It seems that on paper, they have found someone to do that and um I'm going to be his biggest fan.

MARK BRODIE: What does taking it to a different level look like to you?

STEVEN GONZALES: Uh, you know, growing the necessary programs, um getting some successful wins down at the state legislature, seeing the return of operating aid, continuing to uh grow the number of employees in areas where we are meeting our student needs and and our community needs and meeting students where where they are.

MARK BRODIE: Okay, fair enough. That is Steven Gonzales, the outgoing chancellor of the Maricopa Community College District. Thanks so much. I appreciate it.

STEVEN GONZALES: Thank you. I appreciate this opportunity.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it's The Show on KJZZ 91.5. With Lauren Gilger, I'm Mark Brodie. Coming up, how a spin-off of the classic Mexican game of Loteria inspired a wave of bilingual children's books.

MIKE ALFARO: I think creating these books were also a way of me of uh reminding me that I need to be speaking Spanish with her and also giving my wife tools so that she can also uh help my daughter learn Spanish as she's growing up.

MARK BRODIE: We'll hear from the creator of Millennial loteria.

LAUREN GILGER: If you’ve ever watched our state Legislature in session, you might notice something you don’t hear that often in American society anymore: A prayer.

SPEAKER: If we can get everybody onto the floor. Senate will please come to order. Please stand for the prayer by Senator Shope and remain ...

LAUREN GILGER: Every time the state House or Senate comes to order, they say a prayer.

T.J. SHOPE: Thank you Madame President. If everyone could please bow their head and pray in the way they would like — Thomas More counselor of law and statesmen of integrity and merry martyr and the most human of saints, pray that, for the glory of God and in the pursuit of His justice, I may be trustworthy with confidences, keen in study, accurate in analysis, correct in conclusion, able in judgement, loyal to clients, honest with all, courteous to adversaries, — yes, even on this floor.

LAUREN GILGER: It’s a fitting intro for a legislative body that is significantly more religious than the American — or the Arizona — public. Lawmakers of all stripes espouse religious messages and motivations, some more explicitly than others.

SPEAKER: Arizona Republican state Senator Anthony Kern invited an anti-abortion prayer group to the Senate floor. Seen in a video filmed by an anonymous attendee, Kern led the group through a prayer and speaking in tongues as they knelt over the state seal.

ANTHONY KERN: Let it be so, Lord God. Let it be so. Let it be so. Right now, release the presence of the Lord in the Senate chamber. [SOUNDS OF PEOPLE TALKING IN TONGUES]

LAUREN GILGER: But, even for those who don’t speak in tongues on the Senate floor, it’s clear that religion plays a real role in how many of our state lawmakers think, how they vote and why they’re there.

And that’s exactly what we spoke with a slate of legislators about for a new series here on The Show we’re calling Ditat Deus. Which is, if you didn't know, actually Arizona’s state motto. It means "God enriches," and it has been used since 1863, before Arizona was even a state.

But, before we get to those interviews, let’s get a lay of the land. And for that, I am joined by KJZZ’s Camryn Sanchez, with our Politics Desk. Good morning, Camryn.

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Good morning.

LAUREN GILGER: Okay, so you've spent a lot of years now reporting at the Arizona State Capitol, Camryn, and I know you've had an eye on religion all along. How much does religion come up on the floor, in committee hearings? How much do you hear about religion from lawmakers?

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: It honestly comes up a lot in a little little peppering of different ways. So, we hear lots of religious comments and the prayers and things like that folded into the legislative process, and it's largely, as you may expect, from Republicans. But as you said, we do have a lot of religious, deeply religious lawmakers throughout the legislature on both sides of the aisle.

LAUREN GILGER: And from a mix of religious backgrounds, it seems.

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Yes, although it's mostly Christians, and on the Republican side especially, it's Christians, Christians, Christians. On the Democrats, there are a couple more. We've had a few Jewish people, a few Jains, a few Natives, a few atheists even, which was a a problem for Republican lawmakers. But yes, on on the whole, it's mostly Christians.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. And you did sort of an informal survey on this a few years ago. Couldn't get answers from everyone, but were able to tell that most were coming from this kind of background.

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Yes, for those who actually answered the question, it was almost all Christians, and I even had a couple people be offended. They're like, "Could you not tell that I was a Christian?" Like, I didn't know by looking at you. But yes, that was the overwhelming response.

LAUREN GILGER: All right. Many lawmakers will say, Camryn, that they even felt called by God — you've heard that phrase — you know, to serve in the Legislature, to be a public servant in this way, including some we spoke with for this series. Tell us about some of those folks.

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Yeah, I think the first time I heard that, it kind of caught me off guard. Some people say it really with their full chest. And sometimes it's more subtle, like, "You know, my family and I are praying on the decision of whether or not I should run for office." And some people say, "God wants me to run for office. God called me to run for office, and I'm here because God wants me to be here."

Sen. Jake Hoffman said that recently to us um on a podcast that we did about him picking candidates to run for state offices, and when I asked him how he got into his position, this was his answer.

JAKE HOFFMAN: I say God, that was my initial answer because look, I'm not doing anything greater or better than anybody else. But he keeps putting opportunities in front of me, and he says if if you'll do these and do do them to the best of your abilities, he's like, "I'm going to let you be successful." And I feel like that's what I've done.

And at one point, God's going to call me out of politics. He's going to call me to go do something else, and honestly, I hope it's ministry or something like that. But he's going to call me somewhere else, and when he does, I'm going to go. Because I don't need the title. I don't care about the title of, you know, what state senator or state representative or councilman or school board member. None of that matters. That's all the glitz and glamour and shiny object that the world uses to distract us from the actual mission. And the actual mission is to serve the people of this state to the greatest extent possible.

LAUREN GILGER: So, Camryn, let's talk about some of the kind of big stories on this front, some of the notable instances when religion pops up at the state Capitol. We heard about the prayer, that happens at the beginning of each floor session. Those have also been controversial at some points, right?

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Yes, there was one particular instance that comes to mind. We had a couple of lawmakers, Athena Salman and Juan Mendez, they're actually a married couple, and they are not religious. And they would not do a religious prayer, but they did do more of a humanist prayer or a non-denominational prayer and that did not fly.

It was the subject of a lot of controversy and anger from Republicans who um were also in the majority party, and they were in the minority party. Typically how it works, they rotate who says the morning prayer, so each lawmaker gets a chance to do it, and when their chance came up, this is what they produced and it was a fight.

LAUREN GILGER: Let's hear a little bit of that.

ATHENA SALMAN: We come from a variety of backgrounds and interests, but the passion that ignites us, the fire that burns within us is similar. We all seek to form a more perfect union, creating change from an abiding passion to improve the lives of humans of this city. There is wonder in that. More importantly though, there is unity. Remember the humanity that resides within each and every person here, and each and every person in this state, and in all people in the nation and the world as a whole.

LAUREN GILGER: So, that humanist prayer, as she called it, caused quite the uproar, and afterward, Rep. Mark Finchem actually got up and offered his own prayer for the day. Let's hear that.

MARK FINCHEM: I rise for a point of personal privilege to have a second order of business under prayer of the day.

SPEAKER: Understood. Please proceed, sir.

MARK FINCHEM: Heavenly Father, I ask that you forgive us for our arrogance. Forgive us, Father, for those things that we do which are delusive to the to the world which you have blessed us with. Father, we ask for your blessing, for your wisdom, for your patience, for your understanding, whether we believe in you or not. At least have the opportunity for our hearts to be opened, our minds to be enriched. And we ask for your blessing in Jesus' name. Amen.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so we heard a little bit about what Salman had to say. The immediate response to that was not good, as we heard as well. Why did Republicans object to this so much?

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Well, it's because religion plays a large role in what they see as their life and their duty and their calling as a lawmakers. So, they're there for moral reasons, I think is how they would probably describe it as well, for, you know, as they're representing their constituents, they have moral obligations and to take God out of it is, for a lot of these folks, an insult.

LAUREN GILGER:: When lawmakers cite religion, Camryn, is there a concern that is voiced ever from either side of the aisle that there should be a separation between religious beliefs and policy, between church and state?

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Yes, and I always hear the exact same argument. I hear the argument of separation of church and state from Democrats, and then my Republicans will say, "Well, actually, that's not in the Constitution." They remind everyone that that's actually a quote from a letter that was sent by a founding father, and it's not actually part of the law. So they say it's really not binding and it's misinterpreted and it's sort of a mischaracterization of what our founding fathers would have wanted in their infinite wisdom as they were crafting, you know, the rules and regulations for how we should lead this country.

The whole separation of church and state thing also it comes up in education conversations. There's been a push here and there to incorporate more religion into public schools, like there was a bill to require classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. And this came up in that context as well.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK. There's a bill this session, right, to allow kids to leave school for religious instruction.

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Right.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. So, I mean, overarching question, Camryn. When you have been watching these moments over the years, it sounds like you've paid close attention to them because they are notable, right? That religion sort of permeates this house of law in so many ways. What do you think the effect is of that on what laws actually get passed?

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: I just think it's interesting to me because they are all sort of espousing religion and using it to sort of explain their actions. But obviously, they're not on the same page with one another, right?

So, everyone's saying, "Well, I'm doing what's best and what my faith tells me to do and what I think God would want me to do." And I'm going up against someone who's saying the exact same thing, and in many cases, is even from the exact same denomination.

So, how does that work? And then I think Arizona is a little bit unique amongst other states and countries with this incorporation of religion and the way that it comes up so often. And I think with some legislation, especially when there's been a conservative government, it's been more blatant. It's not just on social issues, but largely on social issues, like abortion.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK. Lots to unpack here as we continue. KJZZ's Camryn Sanchez with our Politics Desk, setting this all up for us. Camryn, thank you very much.

CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Thank you.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it's The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I'm Mark Brodie. With school out for the summer, there are all kinds of options for kids to go to camp. There's sleepaway camp, as well as day camps with activities ranging from sports to cooking to technology to the arts. But my next guest has an option many parents may not have thought of—philosophy camp.

Angela Rodriguez is assistant director for the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics at ASU and a PhD student in the philosophy department studying technology addiction. She's also the founder of The Dialectic, which started in 2022. She says kids come from all over the country to the camp hosted at ASU, and when she stopped by the studio earlier, I asked how she describes the program.

ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I mean, so the way that there's a whole community of people who do what they call philosophy for children. And the way that they describe the kind of environment is that it's a community of inquiry. So really the thing that we're doing is we're getting together to kind of investigate topics, investigate questions, and the the kind of highlight is that we don't give them any answers. And so really, it's up to this kind of group of students to decide what they're going to take away from the week that we spend together.

MARK BRODIE: So, you set sort of a topic or an issue that is to be discussed and debated, and you just kind of let them take it from there?

ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: Well, we design activities. We don't give them total free rein.People need a little bit of guidance, but no, most of the things that we try to do are we give them really short things to read to kind of spark thoughts, activities, debates. We've done scavenger hunts, just different kinds of skits, things that they can do just to kind of get the ball rolling.

And then, yeah, we set a topic every year. And then the whole week we are together from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. investigating things related to that topic.

MARK BRODIE: OK, so I want to get to the topic for this year's edition in just a moment. But, I've got to ask because stereotypically, summer camp for kids is you're swimming in the lake and you're playing sports and you're doing arts and crafts and all that kind of stuff. It's not so much philosophy. Is the stereotype I guess maybe wrong to some degree?

ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: No, I think the stereotype's right. And I should say I'm all on board for people that want to swim in the lake and play sports and do arts. I love doing all of those things.

The reason to kind of run this alternative kind of camp, this philosophy summer camp is for kids that the the thing that they really want is something that they haven't been able to experience kind of throughout the rest of the year, which is, you know, at school, it's kind of like, I'm going to give you information, you're going to digest that information, you're going to give that information back to me.

And so, it's really a different kind of environment for them to like be asked to think for themselves and be asked to solve problems and talk to their peers and work through disagreements. And it's I think the kids that are drawn to our camp are a particular sort of person, who are really interested in engaging with the world on kind of a deeper level where you question your assumptions.

MARK BRODIE: I was curious about who who typically attends your camps. It sounds like maybe students who aren't quite getting what they need or want in school and are looking for something maybe a little deeper, is that fair?

ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, no, I think that that's the right idea is that there's — I grew up in the military, and so there's what they call stupid questions. And so that's not a question about how things are going to go today or how things work in the real world, that's a question that's like somewhere out there in the universe that we're we're not really interested in answering right now.

And so I think a lot of kids have these questions, you know, teenager are naturally curious. Why are we here? What are we supposed to do with our lives? What am I seeing on the news? How am I supposed to digest that information? What am I supposed to do with my friends? They've got like all these questions going on and they don't often have places where they can go to have those conversations.

MARK BRODIE: So, this year's theme is building better communities. What kinds of topics and issues — because that could probably go a lot of different ways — how are you trying to sort of focus the conversation? What are you trying to focus the conversation on this year?

ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: So, one of our focuses in the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics right now is we're talking a lot about civic virtues. So the ways that we can kind of come together during really divisive times and arguably we're in a pretty divisive time right now.

And so one of the focuses for the week is going to be on what we call these civic virtues, which are things like empathy, humility, open-mindedness, civility, giving people the benefit of the doubt. And so, what these practices not only can add to our relationships with other people, but what they can add to our own lives.

We've all had the experience of one day learning that we were wrong about something that we were really sure about. And so, kind of reflecting on those experiences and realizing that, "I might actually be wrong about a lot more things than I think I'm really right about," is one of the ways that we kind of cultivate humility and work with the people around us.

That's one of the things that we'll be talking about this summer is kind of the civic virtues, but also, you know, our information is sorted through algorithms and given to us by people who do not have our best interest at heart. And so how should we interact with the kind of information that's delivered to us and the epistemic bubbles that we're all sorted into, the echo chambers that we're all sorted into?

MARK BRODIE: What is it like hearing high school students talk about some of these issues?

ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: I am always impressed by how much our students have thought about these issues.

MARK BRODIE: Like before they get to camp?

ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: Before they get to the camp. Because if you would have 10 years ago run a program like this, most students would have, I would say, a lot less contact with the things that are happening outside of their immediate surroundings.

But now, most high school students, they have this magic box in their pocket that tells them everything that's happening in the world, and there's all this stuff going on on social media and they're they're just in this kind of swamp of information.

And so they've often thought really deeply about these things, even before they get to us. The thing that we provide is a way for them to kind of pick apart those issues into pieces that they can actually wrestle with, instead of these really overwhelming things that are kind of coming at them.

MARK BRODIE: Like things that maybe they can relate to or that are specifically relevant to their lives as part of a larger issue.

ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, absolutely. So ... some of the programs that we've run in the past have kind of taken on kind of timely issues. When smartphones were becoming really ubiquitous and we were coming out of the pandemic, we ran a program on technology and its effects on well-being.

And so, all of these students had been stuck at home, alone, in their rooms, on their phones, and they had thought a lot about that relationship, about their relationship with their phones.

When they get to us, that gives us the opportunity to talk about things like who designed your phone? What goals did they have in mind when they designed your phone? What kinds of things are you doing on your phone? What kinds of things could you be doing if you weren't on your phone? What's the opportunity cost here?

And so, we take that kind of big overwhelming issue, which is, "I'm stuck alone in my room on my phone," and break it down into these smaller pieces that we can digest and have conversations about.

MARK BRODIE: All right. That is Angela Rodriguez, assistant director of the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics at ASU and founder of The Dialectic, which will be taking place at the beginning of June. Angela, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

ANGELA RODRIGUEZ: Thanks for having me.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it's The Show on KJZZ 91.5, I'm Mark Brodie. The traditional Mexican Loteria game features iconic cards like La Sirena or the mermaid, El Sol, the sun, and La Dama, the lady. But our next guest made a name for himself with a version that went viral a few years ago, Millennial Loteria. In his version, La Sirena is La Selfie, La Dama is La Feminist, El Sol is El Global Warming. Mike Alfaro is the creative director and writer behind the popular game. Now, he's out today with a new children's book called The Unbreakable Piñata, book 10 of 12 books in a series of bilingual kids' books he's writing called Si Sabo Kids. My co-host Lauren Gilger spoke with Alfaro more about writing children's books, Millennial Loteria, and the importance of bilingual education.

MIKE ALFARO: I grew up in a household that spoke Spanish growing up in Guatemala, because I'm not from the United States. So, I learned English from books and TV shows and school. Um, my parents really wanted me to have that bilingual education, but they did not have that. And so, for me, now that I'm here in the United States, it's about maybe mirroring that process again but with Spanish instead of English, which in our household, we do speak English because my wife only speaks English. She has learned a little bit of Spanish with, you know, dating me for so long. She can she can carry a little conversation, but it's not something that's like fluent. And so, I think creating these books were also a way of me of uh reminding me that I need to be speaking Spanish with her and also giving my wife tools so that she can also uh help my daughter learn Spanish as she's growing up. And I know a lot of families are in the same situation that we are.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, yeah, like this sort of bilingual divide in the household but you're trying to bridge that gap, which is so important. What was the inspiration going from something like the success of Millennial Loteria and and switching to kids' books? Like, this was because you became a dad?

MIKE ALFARO: Yeah, I mean, it was because of—I think so many parents, you know, want to write children's books is that one thing when you become, you know, a a a parent and you have these ideas and you start telling your your, you know, your kids stories, and all of a sudden, you find yourself telling stories that you were like, "Wow, this might could actually be a good book." Uh, or finding ways to teach Spanish. And I think that's kind of how this whole process evolved. I also have to say my publisher who I work with, Blue Star Press, and they are huge with children's books. That's their bread and butter. So, we did Millennial Loteria together, and then they were like, "You know, we do children's books. You got any ideas?" And I was like, "Do I?" Uh, you know, here's all these different things that I've been I've been doing with my daughter, and uh they saw the vision and uh, you know, there's there's a big market opportunity right now to teach kids Spanish because it's a—it's a language that is just huge in the United States and continues to grow.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, and it's so useful for kids to be able to speak it, exactly. How hard is it, Mike, to write a children's book? Like, I have had that exact experience you described with my kids where I'm like, "Oh, this would make a great kids' book." But also, I can imagine it would be way harder to put together and actually make interactive and interesting and sort of visually dynamic for kids once you start doing it.

MIKE ALFARO: Yeah, I think for me, I worked in advertising for a long time. I worked as an advertising creative, as a copywriter, uh my art director who I work with at agencies, he also illustrates our books as well. So, we kind of have this partnership going on, and he also has children and also wants to raise them bilingual. And so, uh for us, it was, you know, it was a little bit of a team effort in how we did it. So, I got to really focus on the words and uh, you know, obviously, him the images. And we collaborated, go back and forth obviously, in in everything that we do. Like, I'll say something about images, he'll say something about copy. And it's a—I think because it was a team effort in how we did it, it felt fun and easy. And I also have trained my brain to write very short when I'm creating something because if I works in social media, I usually, you know, everything's around like, for me, 7, 15 seconds to get that information. Same with commercials, when I worked, I had to get so much information into like 30 seconds, 15 seconds, or even those 5-second tag spots. Uh, and so, I think that also helped train my brain in a format like a children's book which is, you know, getting the information out, having like a message, and having something entertaining that is an entertaining story that also educates you along the way was um something that I pulled from advertising as well, where you have to be entertaining first, and then you hit them with a message, and I think trying to make sure that message sticks, and I applied that same uh same idea to my children's books.

LAUREN GILGER: That's a great use of advertising knowledge. I love that. Okay, so we have to talk about Millennial Loteria before I let you go because this sort of began all of this for you. It became such a a hit. It hit such a cultural nerve. Tell us about where this idea came from for you. It seems sort of like organic, almost an accident.

MIKE ALFARO: It was, it was a—you know, I I like I said, I worked in advertising and I had quit my job uh when I got my green card because I'm like, "I'm free! I can do whatever I want right now." And so, uh I just I wanted to update my portfolio, and um I wanted to create a project that or something that represented Latino identity or how what I was feeling at the time about latinidad being so modern, but also being represented in ways that are outdated, I think, in a lot of media. And so, I wanted to represent our generation as, you know, modern and cool and funny and technologically savvy. That's why, you know, La Sirena became La Selfie, you know, El Catrín became uh El Hipster, El Sol became El Global Warming. You know, we talked about issues that were affecting our communities and, you know, millennials and um it was just an art project that I put on on Instagram, but it connected instantly with so many people who were feeling the same way and hadn't seen that representation. And it was funny that it took a Loteria game for people to see themselves represented uh and it had a huge impact on people. And I think that's why I know that there's a big market out there for people, Latinos, um here living in the United States that want products made by us, for us, but that also help other people from the community, like, you know, for for my wife or for other people who don't speak Spanish that want to teach it to their kids, I want to make sure that these products connect with that large audience out there that I think sometimes goes underappreciated uh by businesses.

LAUREN GILGER: And it really did hit this cultural nerve, I think partly because like you said, it was bilingual. It was hitting this Latino community that's not spoken to that often. But also because Loteria has this really long history and has been sort of relevant for generations, right?

MIKE ALFARO: I mean, it started in the 17th century um in Italy actually, that's where the first Loteria game came about. And some of the images, too, like the mermaid and the world and the star that were, you know, that people really recognize from from when you think about a Loteria game, you see them in those old games, you know, because a lot of it comes from inspiration of tarot and it's a huge, huge history of what Loteria has been through. I mean, people here in the United States uh, you know, you guys play bingo, you know, and people usually call bingo, it's like Mexican bingo, but in reality, like, bingo is like American Loteria. You know, it's like that's where it sort of comes from. And um, you realize that there's a a huge connection between the story of how this game began and how it came to America and how it became part of a a richer texture of Latinos trying to tell their own story. And I think I've just done the same thing that's been done for generations and generations. It was just my turn this time to do it.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, and it's so beautiful. Mike Alfaro, writer and creative director, content creator on social media as well, obviously, and author of the new kids' book, The Unbreakable Piñata, joining us. Mike, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.

MIKE ALFARO: Thank you.

MARK BRODIE: Thanks for listening to The Show's podcast. The Show is produced by Sativa Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankrah and Ayana Hamilton. The Show was created by Jon Hoban. Our executive producer is Amy Silverman. You can find more of The Show and sign up for our newsletter at theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram at @kjzztheshow.

KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text is edited for length and clarity, and may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio record.

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