The Show for June 23, 2026: EEOC and demographic data, foraging in the desert and more

A federal agency wants to stop collecting certain employment demographic data. We’ll hear from a former agency official who thinks that’s a problem. And boiling up Palo Verde pods and grinding up mesquite beans with Cactus Kelly.

Transcript

UNDERWRITER: KJZZ’s original production, The Show, is supported by Banner Health, Arizona’s largest nonprofit healthcare system. Last year, Banner reinvested more than $1.1 billion in community health and charity care. Banner Health, nonprofit for Arizona. bannerhealth.com/nonprofitforaz.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning. It’s The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I’m Mark Brodie.

LAUREN GILGER: And I’m Lauren Gilger. Coming up, a former general counsel of the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on why a proposal to stop some data collection would be a problem.

MARK BRODIE: And learning how to forage for ingredients in the desert.

LAUREN GILGER: But first, last week here on The Show, we brought you the first half of my interview with Representative Yassamin Ansari, the only Iranian-American Democrat in Congress. We talked about her view of the war and the nuances of it for folks whose parents fled the oppressive regime there, like hers.

She also talked about a measure she has introduced that would provide temporary protected status and work authorization for the more than 12,000 Iranian students in the U.S. legally, who are now facing uncertain futures after the Trump administration paused U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services processing.

YASSAMIN ANSARI: You know, my own dad came here as a student all these years ago. And in one generation, his daughter became a congresswoman. So, we’ve already invested in these people. They’ve gone to our universities. They’ve been working here. Like, it would be such a shame to let that talent be lost.

LAUREN GILGER: We spoke more about immigration, as well as the Democrats’ message heading into the midterm elections. Here is more of our conversation.

LAUREN GILGER: I want to ask you a question quickly about what you’ve seen inside the detention center here in Mesa, because you and some other congressmembers went and did like an unannounced visit and saw some of the conditions.

I think one of the stories that maybe has been under-told as we’ve been watching this immigration crackdown around the country is that there are record numbers of people being held in detention and with, you know, varying levels of, of, you know, of length of stays, etc. But most of them, we know, have not committed any crime.

What did you see? What are your concerns there? How do you think you get the public to look at those places in a real way and say, “Wait a minute, this is in my backyard?”

YASSAMIN ANSARI: Well, first of all, there are somewhere around 60,000 people being held in detention centers across the country. There are two major private prison companies, CoreCivic and GEO Group, that are making record profits based off of all of this.

And I really want to emphasize that I think what’s happening with these detention centers is part of a much larger corruption story with this administration. These companies gave a lot of money to make sure that Trump won.

Their CEOs and their chairmen of their boards have said things like, “This will be an unprecedented business opportunity for us.” And it has been. They have made so much money. Republicans just voted to give another $70 billion to ICE. So that brings the total to over $250 billion as healthcare is being ripped away from people.

The conditions are abysmal. These are like horrific prisons. I’ve described them as concentration camps. I have talked to dozens of people inside these centers — women, men. Women have described everything from being given used underwear that has resulted in infections.

There’s a severe medical neglect going on. I have a constituent with cancer inside the Eloy Detention Center, who I witnessed vomit blood one of my visits there, and took two hours for somebody to come try to even attempt to feign like they want to be helpful.

I’ve talked to people who’ve described what’s happening as psychological and physical torture. A lot of racism, abuse, lack of clean drinking water. The night we showed up unannounced the first time at Mesa Gateway, where there’s an ICE holding facility — this is the place, it’s the last stop for people, right about when they’re going to get on their deportation flights.

They’re supposed to be, I think, around 150 people max. There’s like concrete cells inside this holding facility. Each room was at like triple capacity that night. People were crammed in these concrete cells body-to-body, desperate to talk to us. ICE had made very clear we’re not allowed to talk to anyone, but they couldn’t really stop it because people were just like through the window, eager to talk to us, showing us how many people there were.

One of them was saying they had a fever. I was trying to get them to bring medical stuff. There are no medical staff at this place. It’s awful. Like, it is disgusting what is happening with our taxpayer dollars. And as you mentioned, there are no criminal records here. Ninety percent of people, more than 90% in ICE detention, don’t have criminal records.

People are being held longer than they need to be so the companies can make more money. And they’re not even providing the very basics of any sort of standard that anyone in this country would find acceptable.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. I want to ask you about the upcoming midterm elections. The GOP could be facing some really tough outcomes here. The president, as you mentioned, continues to face low approval numbers that are underwater. And I think a lot of that has to do with maybe immigration, but I think more likely affordability issues, right?

You mentioned gas prices, but housing prices, grocery prices, like everything is more expensive for people. Inflation continues to remain high.

I wonder how do Democrats, you think, heading into the midterms here, convince voters that they have solutions as opposed to just criticism of what’s gone on in the other side?

YASSAMIN ANSARI: I believe that Democrats need to be very clear about tackling corruption. This has been the most corrupt administration in American history. And to me, the most glaring thing that’s happening as it pertains to affordability is that on one hand, you have Donald Trump and his family making billions of dollars, building a $600 million ballroom at the White House, half of which is being funded by taxpayer dollars.

The Trump kids making billions because the government is contracting with companies they’ve invested in. Starting wars that are helping the military-industrial complex and the oil and gas CEOs. All of this while they’ve ripped away healthcare, they have cut food assistance and continue to make life more unaffordable.

I think Democrats need to be very clear about de-rigging the economy, de-rigging this system, and going after this corruption, and making sure people are held accountable. But then having that positive, affirmative vision.

I’ve been doing, preparing some of that work with the Progressive Caucus in Congress. We’ve released something called the New Affordability Agenda that includes 10 flagship bills that we are working to get broad support for. These are policies that we found that Democrats, independents and Republicans support.

Things like taxing oil and gas profits to give rebate checks to American people. Policies like going after AI price gouging that’s happening at grocery stores that is raising our food prices. Things like abolishing super PACs that are making our election so insane and, and bringing about more corruption. Policies like a $10 cap on childcare a day.

So really again, broadly popular policies that are even really popular among Republicans. I think we need to have these ready to go and pass them early on when we take back the House.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. So, first thing when you’re looking toward a potential win for Democrats taking back the House in November. I mean, that’s obviously on the agenda, but you’re still going to be facing the veto pen of the president.

YASSAMIN ANSARI: Absolutely. At least in that case though, that becomes clear to the American people if we’re passing policies that are broadly popular and will benefit people, and the president decides to veto them, that’s on him. But I think that would make their 2028 prospects even more challenging.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. Rep. Yassamin Ansari joining us, representative for Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District. Thank you very much, congresswoman. Appreciate you coming in.

YASSAMIN ANSARI: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

MARK BRODIE: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission wants to get rid of a provision that requires certain private businesses to collect data about who they hire. Those companies have had to submit information like the race, sex, and ethnicity of their workers. Those data help firms see if certain populations of people weren’t being hired or promoted. But under the proposed change, that data collection would end. NPR reports it’s been submitted to the White House for review.

David Lopez is a former general counsel of the EEOC. He’s currently a distinguished professor of practice at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and the founder of the school’s Civil Rights, Migration, and Workplace Law Initiative. He says you have to look at these changes in the context of what’s going on both at the EEOC and more broadly within the federal government with regards to civil rights.

DAVID LOPEZ: The EEOC, when I was there, was a bipartisan, deliberative, policy-making body, very inclusive in terms of reaching out to stakeholders, reaching out to the business community, the civil rights community and career staff. And now what they’re doing is they’re basically functioning as a passthrough for administration, what I would call like almost like culture war priorities. And they say as much.

MARK BRODIE: What kind of data did the EEOC collect that they’re proposing to no longer collect?

DAVID LOPEZ: Yeah, I mean, what the EEOC would do is private sector employers over a certain size had to list the number of people who were employed in different job categories. And these were very rough, very general job categories, right? And then you would identify how many people are employed in each category by race, by national origin and by gender. And then this information was often used by social scientists and sometimes by the EEOC cumulatively to understand job patterns.

MARK BRODIE: Well, is it right to say that the data itself would not necessarily trigger an investigation if there was a complaint, but it was data that investigators could use to look into whether there was a problem?

DAVID LOPEZ: Yeah, it’s a tool, but it’s not — the data is too raw to be dispositive. And so, even if you had an employer that said, “Hey, there are zero women in this technological job category out of, you know, 50 employees,” that itself is not enough. Like, you need to do I think a more refined statistical analysis to demonstrate discrimination.

But if you saw that, that’s a little bit of a green light, like, “Hey, maybe I should look at this a little bit more.” And that’s what the data’s been useful for. Like, employers are like, "Hey, wait a second. Does this present a problem?"

It’s not a silver bullet, and I think for litigators like myself, who like to dig deep into the granulated numbers, we always wish that we had more. But not to have it at all just really is a retreat in terms of the historical mission of the agency.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah, so what will we lose by not having this data, assuming that this rule goes into place?

DAVID LOPEZ: I mean, I think both what the agency will lose and what the private employers who collect the data will lose is the ability to assess whether there may be discriminatory barriers in the way that they hire and promote employees, right? And part of this is sort of the philosophical idea that to talk about race at all means that you’re necessarily going to lead to discriminatory hiring, right?

But I think the other view that many people in the civil rights community hold is that by eliminating this, you basically freeze in place and eliminate any enforcement mechanism that’s designed to eliminate discriminatory barriers. A lot of this seems to be predicated on, “Hey, we don’t need to ask these questions anymore. We don’t need to use these mechanisms,” and it’s part of a broader agenda.

So, the EEOC also very early on announced that one of its big priorities is to address DEI. And they said it. Like, this is not me. This is the chair of the agency saying, “If you’re a white male and you believe you’ve been discriminated against, come in and file a charge with the agency.”

Of course, that’s always happened, but for some reason, because this was a national priority, the chair used extremely finite resources to make this a priority.

MARK BRODIE: There had been some concerns about the data being misused in some ways. Was that a concern that you share?

DAVID LOPEZ: Yeah, I mean, I, I think, um, having been at the agency both in the field and at the political level and having been part of many trainings, they’re basically taught, ”Hey, this is not going to be the be-all and end-all. Like, this isn’t going to make a case.”

MARK BRODIE: It’s a data point, not the data point.

DAVID LOPEZ: It’s a data point, exactly. And, you know, the thing — one thing I’ll say about the lawyers at the EEOC, having been one, what they’re looking for is they’re looking for good cases. They’re looking for cases of — that they view as are righteous, and they want to judge those based on the facts that are before them.

So, if you have like a company that says, "Hey, we, they haven’t hired EEO-1 says they haven’t hired women, um, in, you know, a tech job, that alone, um, for the attorneys at the EEOC — and there’s multiple layers of review — that would be enough to go to court.

They wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t take that case just because of that. They might look a little bit deeper, and they might find out, “Hey, but wait a second, you know, for these particular jobs, there aren’t that many women candidates,” right? Or there were women candidates and they didn’t, you know, and they were made job offers, but they didn’t go. Like, there’s a lot of nondiscriminatory reasons you can use to explain, you know, these sort of disparities.

MARK BRODIE: I want to read you something that the head of the EEOC said recently, and she said, “The way to stop discriminating based on race is to stop discriminating based on race, the end.” I don’t want to get into, you know, what exactly she was thinking when she said that, but what do you think of that, especially as it relates to some of these changes that we’re seeing potentially at the EEOC?

DAVID LOPEZ: I mean, what she’s doing is she’s quoting Chief Justice (John) Roberts in a school desegregation case. So, that’s not her own quote. And I assume that she she didn’t try to not quote it and not attribute it. And what she’s doing is she’s trying to like, “Oh, well, that also applies to employment.”

Like, you can’t have these policies that will give preferential treatment to Black workers over white workers, or women over men. But you know what I say to that? That’s a duh. Like, that’s a case that was decided in 1973 that said that white men could bring claims under Title VII. So, for her to say that like it’s some like grand revelation instead of like 50 years of case law, I think is intellectually dishonest.

And what’s happening now is that you’re trying to — that, you know, this whole effort to like, you know, vilify and stigmatize diversity, equity and inclusion is sort of like the suggestion that lesser qualified people are being hired or promoted. If they are, that’s against the law, right?

But if you’re asking yourself the question, “Hey, why don’t I have Black workers here?” maybe it’s because you’re not recruiting at certain sources, right? Or maybe because you have selection devices that have nothing to do with the job. Or maybe because there are are managers in there that are engaging in deliberately discriminatory behavior. But if you don’t have the data, you don’t have the tools, you’re not going to ask questions.

And the reason this is really important now is we’re in the age where you have these emerging technologies that screen employers, recruit employers, you know, help hire employers, right? And if you don’t have the tools and the data to say, “Hey, what’s going on with that?“ what you’re going to end up with are, you know, employers that are like all male.

If you don’t have the tools to dig deep and say, “Hey, you know, maybe this algorithmic selection has built-in biases,” if you don’t have the tools to even ask the question, you’re never going to be able to figure out what’s going on.

MARK BRODIE: All right. That is David Lopez. He’s the founder of the Civil Rights, Migration, and Workplace Law Initiative at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, also the former general counsel for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. David, thanks so much.

DAVID LOPEZ: Thank you. My pleasure.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning. It’s The Show here on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie.

LAUREN GILGER: And I’m Lauren Gilger. Coming up, how to harvest and process the fresh beans and edible flowers already growing in your backyard.

KELLY ATHENA: Right now, in June, there’s mesquite beans. And most people see them as a problem like, “Oh, litter, and it’s in my pool, and oh, what a hassle.” But I say it’s not litter — it’s lunch.

LAUREN GILGER: We’ll hear from a desert forager about what’s in season and how to eat it.

MARK BRODIE: But first, an ASU researcher has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors they can get. Amber Wutich is a Regents and President’s Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change. Her research focuses on water insecurity, and a few years ago, she was also selected as a MacArthur Fellow. When Wutich stopped by the studio recently, I asked what the election to the National Academy of Sciences means to her.

AMBER WUTICH: It is incredibly thrilling. I have always looked up to scientists who are elected members of the National Academy, and so to be among them is very exciting.

MARK BRODIE: How did you find out?

AMBER WUTICH: My colleague, Anne Stone, who is in the National Academy, texted me. And I was so surprised that I sent her at least 11 emojis.

MARK BRODIE: [LAUGHS] Was this something that you were thinking about or like thought was a possibility?

AMBER WUTICH: It’s very top secret, so people do not know when they’re being considered. They don’t put in an application. It’s just a complete surprise.

MARK BRODIE: So, what will this mean for your research?

AMBER WUTICH: I think that my research will carry on as it always has. We are so fortunate to have incredible support at our university and our state for the kind of work that we do on water insecurity. But I think that it will give me and my group a chance to speak to members of government and society in new ways that could help the research have more impact.

MARK BRODIE: And a lot of the research I know that you do happens in sort of lower-income parts of the world. Might your access to, you know, government officials — either here or elsewhere — help you advance some of the things you’re trying to do?

AMBER WUTICH: Definitely. One of the reasons that the National Academy of Sciences was created in the United States was in an advisory capacity to the government. And so, members are often asked to do special reports on issues to advise the government on how they could make better policy or do better research. And so, I hope I’ll have a chance to inform in that way.

MARK BRODIE: So, you mentioned that you do a lot of research in the area of water insecurity, which is obviously an issue that a lot of people in this part of the world are thinking about right now. What are — what specifically are you working on? What are you thinking about now as we’re hearing all of this stuff about, you know, the Colorado River continues to, you know, we’re all going to get cut back on the amount of water we get? How is that impacting your research?

AMBER WUTICH: Sure. So, we know that the ways that we live in the world are going to have to change because of greater droughts, a warming climate, and what my group works on is how we can change our lives in ways that address these problems but also make our lives better. So, one of the things that we work on is how people can get more involved in managing their water at a household level, work with their neighbors and communities in ways that make their lives feel meaningful. And so, we’re hoping that we can help facilitate transitions towards sustainability or toward safer water futures that are also enjoyable for people.

MARK BRODIE: So, when you’re talking about people maybe working together, like is this sort of on the neighborhood scale, like a block of of houses doing something together?

AMBER WUTICH: Yes. One of the things that we know from 10,000 years of human history is that when there are periods of climate stress, people seem to break up into smaller communities that are more tight-knit so that they can band together and help each other in different ways. And so, one of the things we’re studying is what might that look like with modern technologies and in modern society?

MARK BRODIE: What might that look like?

AMBER WUTICH: Well, one example we see in Arizona a lot is that people’s wells have run dry if they live in rural areas, and so they’re needing to haul water. And they band together to create a group of people who are strong enough or have the right trucks to go get the water, and then they distribute it to the grannies and households that need that help. And so, this is — , from one perspective, it can be more expensive and more labor-intensive to do this kind of water work, but it also creates a huge amount of meaning in people’s lives to know that they’re neighbors helping neighbors, that they have a valued social role. And so, we think that this can really make people’s lives more meaningful.

MARK BRODIE: It’s interesting because when you think of water, obviously we need it to survive. So I wonder if there’s maybe a different level of meaning for neighbors who are helping each other get access to water — as opposed to maybe neighbors helping neighbors do other things.

AMBER WUTICH: Absolutely. Water is life. It’s the most essential thing that people need to live. And so, when you know that you are helping your neighbor survive by getting them water, I think that that does give people a sense of great meaning in their lives.

MARK BRODIE: Do you see a role for new technology in this kind of thing? Like, I’m thinking of like a Nextdoor version like for people who are looking to help each other with water, something like that. Like, a way to use, you know, all this technology that we have at our fingertips now.

AMBER WUTICH: Yes. In fact, that’s why my group is integrated with Paul Westerhoff’s engineering group, because unlike 10,000 years ago, it’s not going to work to just dig out a river or a canal or a well. We need these technologies to be able to create small-scale, household-level and community-level solutions. So, examples are reverse osmosis or atmospheric water harvesting, that are these modular, small-scale technologies that can help households make ends meet with regard to water.

MARK BRODIE: How do you make sure that people are more collaborative than competitive when it comes to this increasingly scarce resource?

AMBER WUTICH: Well, it is true that people will be both collaborative and competitive because this is a basic aspect of human nature. But we know that there are certain kinds of relationships that make people be more collaborative. And so, kinship relationships, neighbor relationships, co-religionist relationships are the kinds of bonds that historically do help people get through hard times. And so, finding how to get people to invest in those bonds and leverage them to be more water-secure is one of the things that we work on.

MARK BRODIE: Might this be a way to sort of fight back against some of the polarization we see in society, or … maybe that is an impediment to doing what you’re suggesting?

AMBER WUTICHIC: It can be a bit of an impediment because as we see trust in science and public health organizations declining, we also see people getting ideas that perhaps scientists would not support with regard to water quality or safety or ways that people are consuming water and — such as the raw water movement. And so, yes, the polarization does complicate this, but we always hope that with a fundamental resource, it causes people to come together and overcome those differences in a way that they wouldn’t otherwise.

MARK BRODIE: Are there examples that you’ve seen, either here in Arizona or elsewhere, where this has really worked?

AMBER WUTICH: Yes. Every place that water is scarce and humans are alive, they have found a way to cooperate and get each other the water they need.

MARK BRODIE: I guess you kind of have to, right?

AMBER WUTICH: You have to. And that’s why water’s so interesting to study, because there’s no other option than to find a solution together.

MARK BRODIE: Right. How much promise do you think some of those new technologies hold? I mean, we’ve seen that, you know, there’s a memorandum of understanding now … with a desalination plant in California to try to, you know, move some water around, desal water in Southern California and, you know, maybe Arizona and others get some more Colorado River water. Cities are investing in these ... advanced water purification facilities. How much promise do you think those hold?

AMBER WUTICH: I think they’re going to be essential because the thing that people often don’t realize is that the amount of water that the Earth has is pretty much constant. So, it’s not — when we say water scarcity, we don’t mean that the water has disappeared. It means that it’s harder to get. It’s more expensive to get to where it needs to go, and it’s more expensive to clean.

So, every technology that we can create that helps us deal with those problems of locating the water, transporting it and cleaning it, will help lower the price and make it more accessible to people — especially the people who are the most water-insecure that we work with.

MARK BRODIE: Well, you mentioned price, and that seems to consistently be a pretty important issue, right? I mean, water is this — obviously, as we’ve talked about — a finite resource. It’s something that one needs to live, but on the other hand, there’s been a lot of criticism that especially in a place like Phoenix, it’s been so cheap for so long that people don’t really think so much about how much they’re using.

AMBER WUTICH: Yes. There’s a basic tension between the idea that water has a value and water is a human right. And so, every society I think is trying to strike that balance in terms of making water affordable enough so that no one is sick or dying because they don’t have enough. But finding the pricing level so that people don’t use it irresponsibly.

MARK BRODIE: All right. That is Amber Wutich, a regents and president’s professor at ASU and a new member of the National Academy of Sciences. Amber, good as always to talk to you. Thank you.

AMBER WUTICH: Thank you. A pleasure to be here.

MARK BRODIE: And now let’s revisit a pair of makers in our series, Made in Arizona.

LAUREN GILGER: Adriana Quintero and Luz Violeta are a mother-daughter team and the force behind Machika Collectivo, a family-run group that creates contemporary jewelry using traditional beadwork and teaches others how to do it as well. They’re members of the indigenous Mexican Wixarika culture, and they see the beadwork and the way you methodically make it as almost a form of prayer. The collective offers workshops and sells its wares to help support the community. I spoke with them more about it last year.

ADRIANA QUINTERO: Mexico, you know, is very colorful, and art is everywhere. For me, art is inspiration. I want to start with: Art will heal the world.

LAUREN GILGER: Tell me about growing up and making jewelry like this. Did you learn how to make it as a kid?

ADRIANA QUINTERO: I was in my teenager age because same as here as United States, the reservations are in certain places. Then I grew up when I was little away of the reservation.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.

ADRIANA QUINTERO: When I was a teenager, I used to start looking for my traditions.

LAUREN GILGER: So you didn't grow up on the reservation. So as a teenager you tried to find some of that culture, and this was part of that it sounds like?

ADRIANA QUINTERO: Yes. Yes, it is like that. And I found it.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.

ADRIANA QUINTERO: And I found my brothers, my sisters and all that beautiful world that is all about origin.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So you're a mother-daughter pair here, and you work together in this collective, making this jewelry.

Luz, tell me about your experience and learning about this and learning about your culture in that way.

LUZ VIOLETA: So really, I'm so fortunate to have grown up with these practices. It's something that has just been a part of my upbringing, and that has given me a sense of purpose and a mission in life. And so, I'm really, really grateful that my mom was already on that path, on that journey to reconnecting and rediscovering where we really come from.

So that by the time I was born, I was born with a really deep sense of identity and of culture and tradition. And, it's taken me really far. I really think it's kept me grounded and kept my head on my shoulders through a lot of difficult moments. And it's also helped me to grow as a person to establish myself as an artist here in Arizona.

You know, I also was born in Mexico, and we moved here together when I was about 9 years old. So it's something that has stuck with us, even through all of these ups and downs and across borders. And it's kept us connected not just to our traditions, but to our family back home and to ourselves.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so tell me about the beading, right. This is what's called sacred geometries that you're kind of replicating in the beading. What does that mean? There are stars, hummingbirds, eclipses — designs we all know — but they mean something a little different to you.

ADRIANA QUINTERO: Yeah. It's a language of light. Because, native art, in the beginning, was a way to communicate with a spiritual world. Then, our ancestors, they wanted to communicate with a spirit. You know, we need the rain. Then we start making different patterns about water. It's more about being thankful, no asking. It’s just to maintain harmony and let them know to the spiritual world that we are grateful to be here. And we are grateful for the water. Grateful for the fire. Grateful for the air.

LAUREN GILGER: So it sounds like when you're beading, it's almost like a prayer.

ADRIANA QUINTERO: Yes.

LUZ VIOLETA: Yes. I like to say that beading is a way of telling a story with your hands. It's very much an expression of your inner world. And it's as much about the process as it is about the final product. So it's really a journey, and it's something that as you have your hands in the beadwork and you're making a piece, you are cycling through those emotions and expressing that inner world that comes out in the form of a pattern and colors. And in the different designs, the sacred geometries that come out from within us.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, that's a beautiful way to put it.

ADRIANA QUINTERO: Yeah. And that is a healing pattern because you have emotions that are not found in the way to go through. Then, when you put your hands in art — any kind, but we use beading — then you heal yourself.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So what does it feel like when you're doing this? Does it feel like a meditation? Does it feel like a catharsis?

LUZ VIOLETA: Yes, I would say so. Especially when you've been practicing the same pattern and trying to make something new or evolve that pattern. It's a connection with culture, with creativity itself. And really, it's very empowering to have that outlet. So yeah, it feels healing.

ADRIANA QUINTERO: And it can be, you can feel frustration.

LUZ VIOLETA: Yes.

LAUREN GILGER: Really? It's frustrating? OK.

ADRIANA QUINTERO: So, in the beginning when you try to put your mind in the present moment, that may be a little uncomfortable feeling. But that's part of the process.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.

LUZ VIOLETA: When I learned to make this, it was kind of in the downtimes that we had right before or after, in between a ceremony. And so, my grandmother, she would come up to me with a needle and beads and thread and she'd be like, “OK, this is how you do this pattern.” And the first one that we learned as little kids is making the bracelets.

So they're very thin bracelets. And she taught me a very simple pattern that looked like a snake. And snakes are kind of — they've been a favorite of mine lately, I would say. I really like to make these waterfall earrings.

LAUREN GILGER: Oh, beautiful. Yeah.

LUZ VIOLETA: But, it's taken time. I mean, you can ask our students. When they first sit down and feel that frustration, they can really appreciate. You come to really appreciate. When I first made that little bracelet, you know, I just really appreciated it.

Like my grandma, she made these great big medallions and flowers and just like 3D works that I'm still learning to make, even now. I'm 25, and I've got a long way to go.

LAUREN GILGER: Lots to learn.

LUZ VIOLETA: Yes, I’ve got a long way to go. I've only mastered, really, just a few patterns.

ADRIANA QUINTERO: It’s infinity universe of patterns.

LAUREN GILGER: Right.

ADRIANA QUINTERO: Never end. Never.

LAUREN GILGER: So you're teaching people in these workshops how to do this, which is a gift in itself, I'm sure. What does it feel like to get this into the world? Not just in selling these pieces and having other people appreciate them, but in teaching others how to do it?

ADRIANA QUINTERO: It's a call. It's a call that you have to attend, because if not, it's like a, you know, you have something to share, then you have to do it. It's not an option.

LUZ VIOLETA: The workshops are not just a teaching space. They're a gathering space. So it's an intergenerational practice, you know, with mother-daughter. And I'm a mother as well.

So I'm very eager and committed to continuing this to create spaces of cultural resilience, of sustainability, a place where we can appreciate beauty and human expression, especially being able to share it with people who might feel disconnected from their roots. This is an invitation, too. It's like a gateway to get back to that and to reconnect.

LAUREN GILGER: All right. That is Luz Violeta and her mother, Adriana Quintero, joining us to talk more about their work. Thank you both so much for coming in. I really appreciate it. It was wonderful to meet you.

LUZ VIOLETA: Thank you, Lauren.

ADRIANA QUINTERO: Thank you.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning. It’s The Show here on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie.

LAUREN GILGER: And I’m Lauren Gilger. Next up this morning, let’s take a trip into the desert with Kelly Athena, aka Cactus Kelly, a master gardener and urban forager who teaches classes year-round on how to collect ingredients most people think of as debris in their yard and teaches folks how to make nourishing food out of them. She came into our studios recently and brought with her an array of goodies she harvested from trees you can find just about anywhere in the city for me to try. We talked more about what’s ripe right now and where it all started for her with her dad when she was just a kid.

KELLY ATHENA: When I was 10 years old, he gave me a book called “Native American Uses of the Plants.” So, I read that, and after that, I had to know every single bird and plant that I could see in my yard and everywhere I went. And I was just kind of an amateur naturalist my whole life.

LAUREN GILGER: As a kid? That’s amazing. … So, you’ve been foraging for a long time, and there are certain seasons to this, it sounds like. So, let’s talk first about the season we’re in right now and what you might find on a tree literally in your backyard or on the street, where you can get these ingredients. What’s blooming right now?

KELLY ATHENA: Right now, in June, there’s mesquite beans. And most people see them as a problem like, "Oh, litter, and it’s in my pool, and, oh, what a hassle." But I say it’s not litter, it’s lunch. So, all those dried beige pods on the ground or on the tree are edible. Take a little inch of a bean and just suck on it and bite into it a little bit. Maroon—

Make sure if gives you a sweet pop. Usually within a minute you’ll go, "Ooh, wow, that’s like brown sugar." You want to try it?

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Oh, it is sweet.

KELLY ATHENA: Oh, already good.

LAUREN GILGER: Immediately sweet. Wow.

KELLY ATHENA: Good.

LAUREN GILGER: I could see brown sugar in that. That’s amazing. OK. So, I mean, obviously, there’s a long history of this, like generations of people from Indigenous communities here have been using mesquite for various things. How do you use it?

KELLY ATHENA: Right. The O’odham have been using it forever, at least 13,000 years … in the Sonoran Desert. How I use it, I read the book by Wendy Hodgson, "Food Plants of the Sonoran Desert," and that was based on interviews with a lot of the O’odham people. And so, I just got the basics from her, "Hey, these are good to eat. You can grind them into flour." And they did it with the metate y mano.

But I found a machine that is the perfect mesquite mill, so I can make about 10 pounds of flour in one hour. And it’s delicious. The actual seed is inside and like glued into the bean. You cannot open this bean like most beans.

LAUREN GILGER: Right, it doesn’t just pop out, right? … So, you, you grind up the whole thing, the pod and all, OK.

KELLY ATHENA: Right. And the little actual bean, you can see over there, it is like a little flax seed that can be golden or brownish, and that has the protein. And then, all the stuff in between has the fructose and the sucrose, which makes it really slow digestion so that you don’t get hit with a sugar spike. So, this is really our sugar of the desert. It has overtones of honey and cinnamon, even chocolate, like in our drink here. I roasted up some beans. … And then, I grind them up, and then I put them in hot water for 10 minutes. Yeah.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, so it’s like a tea, almost like a coffee-looking drink here you’ve made me, and it’s delicious. It does sort of taste like a tea or a coffee, but it’s sweet, cinnamony.

KELLY ATHENA: Right. Most people think of the mesquite smoke that you barbecue things with, and that is a whole completely different flavor. And they’re just shocked when they try some flour and they found out I didn’t put any sugar in it. … It’s just the pure bean.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. And it’s and it’s so good for you. OK. So, that’s what’s blooming right now in June. You can get these mesquite beans everywhere. … We just went through palo verde season, and I think there were like two rounds of this this year, right?

KELLY ATHENA: Yes, they came 30 days early. So, that is a big wow for me. In all the years I’ve been here, this is the first time I’ve seen them ready in April. So, they are what I call desert edamame. Because you can just take a pod, and some of them are onesies, some have two, some have five. Yeah. And you just tease them out with your teeth.

LAUREN GILGER: So, you’ve got like a green pod there, and there’s like a bean inside of it?

KELLY ATHENA: It tastes just like a pea out of the garden.

LAUREN GILGER: I got to try this.

KELLY ATHENA: So fresh. Yeah.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. Oh my gosh. It tastes like a pea. Like a fresh little, wow, that’s so good.

KELLY ATHENA: A fresh little pea, yeah, they were just picked in April. And then, I have to freeze them. This is the one you have to keep in the freezer because just like frozen peas, it will go bad at room temperature, they go hard. I love it this way. Sometimes I steam them or boil them a little bit. And I like to put quail bush or saltbush. It’s a type of saltbush on top.

LAUREN GILGER: It’s like in a salt shaker here. Let me try this.

KELLY ATHENA: Yeah, we got some green salt in a salt shaker, so it’s

LAUREN GILGER: What’s a quail bush?

KELLY ATHENA: A quail bush is a type of salt bush. It looks like a sagebrush out in the desert —

LAUREN GILGER: Oh my gosh, that does taste like salt.

KELLY ATHENA: It’s kind of hard to find them, but you just sprinkle that just like salt on these palo verde beans, and it just gives them some pop.

LAUREN GILGER: That’s a great flavor.

KELLY ATHENA: Yeah, I just love it. I’ve had kids coming to my class and all they’ll eat is the saltbush leaves.

LAUREN GILGER: … You can pickle these as well, I hear?

KELLY ATHENA: Yes, you can. You can take them out of the pod. And if you blanch them or steam them, they’ll pop right out. And so, I’ve pickled them before. Like a Sonoran succotash where I have yucca flowers and ocotillo flowers and these beans and so on.

LAUREN GILGER: Oh, look like a caper. I love that, OK. So, what’s next? What’s the next season we’re watching for as the summer carries on here? Are there other types of trees we should be watching for, you know, little treats from?

KELLY ATHENA: Yes, definitely. The next one that’s ripe almost right now is the ironwood tree. And —

LAUREN GILGER: These are the ones with the kind of silvery pink flowers?

KELLY ATHENA: Yes, has gray bark or silver bark and very thorny if you get up close. You do not want to touch any twig or anything on that tree. … So, I wait until the beans are dried and dark brown like those.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, very dark brown, OK.

KELLY ATHENA: Yes, and then I put a tarp down and I tap the tree, either with a saguaro rib that I’ve gotten legally, or a pool pole. If it’s a tall tree, those extending pool poles … are lightweight and you can get them down. They’ll just rain down like hail. And usually, they only produce beans two out of three years, and they’ve produced for the last four years in a row. I think it’s like a mast year. There’s tons of them.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow. What do they taste like?

KELLY ATHENA: They taste like peanuts, soybeans, hazelnuts.

LAUREN GILGER: Let’s try this, OK.

KELLY ATHENA: Those are boiled. Okay. And then, the ones in the middle are actually the best. They’re air-fried.

LAUREN GILGER: Oh, it’s very nutty. … That’s a beautiful flavor.

KELLY ATHENA: You can actually boil them, put them in a blender, it’ll turn into a butter.

LAUREN GILGER: What do you like about this? Like, why do you think you’ve kind of created this whole world around it that you’ve I mean, you’ve you’ve dedicated your work to this?

KELLY ATHENA: Right. Right, and I have a master’s in piano performance. And, this is what I do. … And I have freckles in my fingers all the time. … Oh boy. It’s because I feel the most free in nature, just the connection with these wise beans, these trees. The ironwood can live over 1,000 years and they’re endemic to the Sonoran Desert.

And I just I think because nature’s looks are so perfectly beautiful that it reflects back to me that hey, I’m part of nature and it makes me feel better about myself. … And I just like to help people get environmentally literate.

Like, most people don’t know the name of the tree in their front yard They go, "Well, I think it’s a mesquite, maybe. Maybe acacia, maybe I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it," you know?

… And they’re not just background props or something. They are our life. We each have to have eight trees in order for us to live. But it’s usually NIMBY — not in my backyard. The biggest thing that HOAs get calls about is, "Get that tree cut down. It’s dropping leaves and pods into my pool." And so, they do. They they cut them down.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, and that breaks your heart, I’m guessing.

KELLY ATHENA: Yes. So, I just kind of guerrilla plant a few my own. Oh, that came up. Oh. All right.

LAUREN GILGER: That is Kelly Athena, aka Cactus Kelly, joining us to talk about foraging in the desert. She’s the founder of Cactus Kelly Urban Foraging Institute. She offers classes year-round on foraging, a master gardener as well. Kelly, thank you so much for coming in and teaching me about this and and letting me taste all this. It’s been amazing. Thank you.

KELLY ATHENA: Thank you so much, Lauren. It’s been fun.

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 @kjzztheshow.