The Show for Aug. 14, 2026: Friday NewsCap, Fulbright scholar traveling the world and more

Gov. Katie Hobbs has made it official, naming former Mesa Mayor John Giles as her running mate. Our Friday NewsCap panelists analyze that and the rest of the week’s top stories. Plus, the retired University of Arizona professor going on his sixth Fulbright Scholarship.

Transcript

ANNOUNCER: 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: Hi, I’m Mark Brodie, co-host of The Show, 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.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, it is The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I’m Lauren Gilger.

And I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, a Chicano artist whose work shows the radical nature of everyday life.

And we’ll meet a retired U of A professor who’s about to head to Central Asia for a fellowship.

But first, it is time for the Friday NewsCap and some voices from the news this week.

KATIE HOBBS: I’m proud to introduce my running mate, former Mesa Mayor John Giles.

JOHN GILES: I was a lifelong Republican before becoming an independent because extremists shouldn’t stand in the way of getting things done.

SINE KERR: It’s really unfortunate that they don’t want to stand for a debate. They don’t want to answer tough questions. I think it’s very disrespectful to the people, to the voters of Arizona.

TIM LASOTA: It’s really a stunning example of what I think is even implicates criminal statutes that deal with defrauding people into voting for something they didn’t intend to vote for.

WARREN PETERSEN: Their sentiment, the current redistricting commission, was that the lines should be very similar. So a lawsuit probably wouldn’t make much sense.

JOHN MITCHELL: We’re just not seeing evidence of Section 5 being enforced within Arizona, and that means that it’s not the right time to continue litigating.

MARK BRODIE: And with me to talk about Gov. Hobbs making her running mate pick official, court battles over ballot language, and more are Chuck Coughlin of HighGround. Hey Chuck, good morning.

CHUCK COUGHLIN: Good morning, Mark.

MARK BRODIE: And Matt Grodsky of Matters of State Strategies. Matt, good morning to you.

MATT GRODSKY: Good morning.

MARK BRODIE: So, Matt, in a surprise to probably nobody at this point — maybe the worst-kept secret recently in Arizona politics — Gov. Hobbs named former Mesa Mayor John Giles her lieutenant governor pick. We can certainly talk about what he brings to the ticket or if a lieutenant governor actually matters. But I guess let me start with the idea that the governor picked somebody who is not a Democrat. Like, how is this going down in Democratic circles?

MATT GRODSKY: I think it’s being received really well. I mean, Giles has been a well-known name in Democratic circles for a while now. He’s viewed obviously across the political spectrum as somebody that can bring people together and govern on principle, not for party. I love this worst-kept secret. It’s been over a week, and this is who we’re talking about. I don’t even remember who the lieutenant governor pick is for Biggs. So —

MARK BRODIE: Sine Kerr.

MATT GRODSKY: Oh, who? I don’t know. So, this is great. So, we’re super happy about this, and I would expect us to keep talking about it. We can get into the minutiae of what the lieutenant governor will actually do and does it matter and all that stuff, but I think it complements her ticket in a good way, and I think it will add to some of the margin once we get to November.

MARK BRODIE: Is there a danger that some on the left side of the spectrum might not be thrilled enough with this to not vote?

MATT GRODSKY: You know, I’m sure there’s a select few that might be doing some hand-wringing over picking somebody that’s not a traditional Democrat —

MARK BRODIE: Or a Democrat.

MATT GRODSKY: I think most Democrats in this state, especially those that have been working in this space for a while, they’re pragmatic. They understand what it takes to win and how to appeal to independents across the state, those moderate Republicans that you need to win an election. So I think most people appreciate that. But I do think that his record is one that resonates with people all over Arizona, and I think that’s why it’s a great pick.

MARK BRODIE: What do you think, Chuck?

CHUCK COUGHLIN: Well, you know, if you’re going to win as a Democrat, the math problem, as Matt just pointed out, is a significant issue. They have an issue with numbers of voters. There’s significantly fewer Democrats than there are Republicans, and so you have to broaden the base.

And so, just from a math perspective, I’m with you. I had the same question asked me of a lot of people: “Well, isn’t that going to upset the Democrats?” And you’re like, “Well, when they look at who they get to vote for, no, I don’t think it is.”

And then the additional question is, the biggest problem with this now is polling, because do you put this person’s name on the poll? Because it makes the poll a lot longer if you have to put everybody’s, because there’s a Green Party candidate, there’s a No Labels Party candidate, there’s the Democrat, there’s the Republican —

MARK BRODIE: That’s the biggest issue?

CHUCK COUGHLIN: That’s the problem for me, man! Paul [Bentz] and I were talking about it the other day, and we said, “No, don’t put it on there,” because nobody’s voting for the lieutenant governor pick. You’re voting for the governor.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so that kind of raises the question, and Matt, I kind of joked about it with Matt, like, does the lieutenant governor matter in terms of who voters are voting for? Like, will some people look at Andy Biggs and say, “Well, I’m not sure, but Sine Kerr, she really seems to know about water, I like her background, I like she’s done this, she has this experience and that experience. I’m going to vote for them now”? Or somebody look at Gov. Hobbs and say, “I’m not really sure about her, but oh, you know, John Giles, he’s a guy I can get behind, I’m going to vote for that ticket.”

CHUCK COUGHLIN: Yeah, there’s a couple messages that get sent here. John’s also a member of the LDS community. That’s a message to that community that she’s OK, she’s not going to be evil incarnate. That’s a base buster for Biggs. That’s a problem.

And so there’s tactical, textual messages here that will be sent out. But then the question becomes, how are they going to use this person? I mean, are they going to put him — I mean, that’s a big question for a campaign, because staffing the governor is one thing, right? Now you’ve got to staff this other person, too.

So they’re going to be out like campaigning, and so you’re going to have to have people with them, that, you know, the body man, the advance person, all of the people that accompany this. So that becomes an additional problem. So, it’ll be interesting to see how in our inaugural cycle of this, how this all works out.

MATT GRODSKY: And they’ve got the staffing for it. I think the real objective is you want to be additive when you pick a running mate, right? And I think that, as Chuck pointed out, there’s big demographics across the state where you can have Giles speak to them specifically one-on-one and pull them in, and it takes away from the coalition that Biggs needs, right? And I would argue that his pick doesn’t do enough to add to the margin he’s going to need. So, we’ll see, but again, I think it’s a good ... pick.

CHUCK COUGHLIN: I recalled this the other day, so this is going back into the history books again. Remember when Russell Pearce got recalled?

MARK BRODIE: Yeah.

CHUCK COUGHLIN: And he was recalled by members of the Church —

MARK BRODIE: In his legislative district.

CHUCK COUGHLIN: In his legislative district. And lost to a Democrat in a very heavily Republican district because in that race you can get a headshot, you get a one-on-one race in a general election where everybody — there’s no primary. And so, members of the Church — and then they went on, and John was part of this recently, a couple years ago, they expanded in-state college tuition to people who are Dreamers. And they put that on the ballot, they ran that campaign.

So there’s some textual stuff here that I think will help her. I’m not clear what Sine really adds to Mr. Biggs’ ticket. He’s got a native base of support from greater Arizona. He’s got the ag community; she comes from there.

And she was one of the principal reasons we still don’t have a rural groundwater code in Arizona, because as a member of the agricultural community, they oppose that. They like the free-market principles of drop a well and take as much as you want, brother. And so, that’s the status of the law in greater Arizona.

MATT GRODSKY: I think she does add some awkwardness to it, too, because I think one of the big things that’s divided some of the moderate Republicans, from my perspective, is the Jan. 6 issue, right? So, I think not completely shoring up that divide between the two of them, I think, exacerbates existing problems versus helps mend them. So.

MARK BRODIE: So, Matt, before we move on, I do want to ask you about the fact that, as with the governor, they said that John Giles would not be taking part in a debate. The governor obviously said recently that she would not be doing the debate either. Is that a mistake, do you think, on her campaign?

MATT GRODSKY: I don’t. I love the debate stuff here because I think it’s really a “Choose Your Own Adventure” as a political campaign. I think in their camp, the way they look at it is Biggs is a proven liar, right? This is an election denier. You’re not going to gain anything by going and giving him airtime so that he can go on there and spew lies.

I also don’t think the viewership base is gigantic enough where it’s really consequential in terms of people making their decisions. Now, on the flip side, right, candidates can go on there and debate their ideas on the merits, and that’s great, too. But I don’t think that their time is best spent going and giving their opponents airtime. I think it’s much better for them to campaign across the state.

MARK BRODIE: But I mean, the Republicans will still get that airtime.

MATT GRODSKY: They’re going to be on there, I think, with the other gubernatorial candidates from the other parties, too, right? So, they’ll be on there, but I think people would have tuned in to watch the fireworks between Hobbs and Biggs, right? And now they’re getting “robbed” of that. So, again, I don’t think as many people tune in, and Biggs can talk to himself.

CHUCK COUGHLIN: OK, going back old school again. Debates, I’m totally with him. Nobody really cares, nobody really — it’s a, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody’s there, that type of deal. But so what I’m — Bob Robb wrote a column a couple, like five or six weeks ago. What we’re being denied as voters is a legitimate discussion of the issues confronting the state.

For instance, we need a long-term money supply for our long-term future water supply. That’s a significant question.

We have a significant problem on K-12 with Prop 123 and reforming the State Land Department. What are we going to do about that? That’s two years running now that we’ve left $400 million on the table. So, who’s going to do that, and what are you going to do about that?

You got DPS officers that aren’t getting paid as much as a Gilbert police officer. That’s probably a problem. You got a prison healthcare system that is under receivership.

That probably needs to be — I mean, there’s all kinds of issues that I think a journalist such as yourself or — God bless Lauren Gilger — could like have this really good discussion and force a conversation. At least nerds like us would like enjoy that give-and-take there, and it would be fun. And I think we’re being denied that, and I’m disappointed by that.

MATT GRODSKY: I totally agree. We were joking before The Show of the dumb timeline that we’re in, right? I mean, I think too often in these past election cycles, there’s one party — I would argue the Democratic Party — that’s the grown-up in the room that’s trying to talk about these issues, and then there’s the Republican general election nominees that are election deniers and try to talk about things that aren’t real, right? And aren’t necessarily the true issues facing our state.

So I think we’re being denied a conversation about serious issues across the board in this country, right? Not just for this debate, but we got to get out of this timeline first.

CHUCK COUGHLIN: But even that’s a good issue to talk about, right? Because, you know, you could call them out — that’s a liar. You’re a liar. So you’re running for office and you’re lying about the 2020 election.

MATT GRODSKY: There’s going to be some ads that do that, I have a feeling.

MARK BRODIE: I suspect that’s where you’re going to see that. All right, we’ve got to take a quick break. Matt Grodsky and Chuck Coughlin. I’m Mark Brodie in Phoenix. The Friday NewsCap continues in just a moment.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s the Friday NewsCap here on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie. My guests this week: Matt Grodsky of Matters of State Strategies and Chuck Coughlin of HighGround. And Chuck, what’s in a name when it comes to the word "vouchers"?

Apparently, you can’t say that on the ballot.

CHUCK COUGHLIN: Apparently, it’s a loaded word, and Mr. Fontes tried to stick it into one of the ballot descriptions and was told, “No, no, no, no, no,” because they’re Empowerment Scholarship Accounts.

That’s what we’ve dubbed them in Arizona. And the discussion we’ve been having for over 20 years now is, you know, is there going to be choice in public education? I think as a matter of policy, that decision’s been made. I think the voters have decided we’re going to have choice.

For one, I would love the opportunity to stop this debate, accept choice, but my friends in the Democratic Party refuse to acknowledge that, and I would rather have them talk about maybe funding Title I schools, where kids of poverty are educated. And we all know, matter of policy, it costs more money to educate a kid out of poverty than it does a kid who’s blessed to live in a better environment.

But we don’t have that discussion because we get bottled up in this partisan discussion about choice, and we really don’t do anything. So, I presume everything’s going to fail this fall, and we’ll move on to talk about something else.

MARK BRODIE: Chuck’s a ray of sunshine this morning, I love it. So, Matt, we should mention before we go any further that you are affiliated with the Fontes campaign, not with his role as Secretary of State, which is what we’re talking about here.

But I wonder, so he is charged with writing up the descriptions that are on the ballot. So when you get your ballot, you go to the polling place, you get it at home, you read sort of like, “Here’s what the initiative does, a yes vote would do this, a no vote would do this.” Like, do people actually read those? Like, how important are these descriptions?

MATT GRODSKY: They read them. They’re always confusing, right? And I think a lot of it is up to interpretation. Now, I think the real takeaway here is a judge made a decision whether we agree with that or not, he’s going to respect the rule of law. Unlike his opponent in the campaign that I’m working on, who was sanctioned by the Arizona State Supreme Court and the Arizona Bar. So, that’s a little fun nugget there.

But look, you know, I think “voucher,” what’s in a name? You know, a tomato is also a fruit, right? I think we can go back and forth on the nuances of that word, but I think —

CHUCK COUGHLIN: Don’t use a tomato in a fruit salad, though.

MATT GRODSKY: That’s true. Yeah, that’s not a fun surprise. But look, you know, I think you can have the debate on the ESAs, the, you know, Empowerment Scholarship that I think empowers a lot more financial corruption. We can have that conversation, but look, it’s a word on the ballot, it’s going to get shifted based on the judge’s ruling, people are going to move on, most people are not paying attention to these types of debates.

Elections

Judge rejects America First Legal's claim Fontes tried to mislead voters about Arizona Prop. 144

Howard Fischer/Capitol Media Services

The conservative legal group accused Fontes of trying to mislead voters about Proposition 144, a Republican election-reform ballot measure.

MARK BRODIE: All right, so Fontes also was questioned over his description of Prop 144, which is the legislative referral making a lot of changes to election rules. And Chuck, the judge said, “You’re good on that one. What you wrote is fine.”

CHUCK COUGHLIN: Yeah. And these kind of challenges, Matt just said, happen all the time. This is the professional legal kingdom moving in in the world of politics to make sure that commas are in the right spot, the words are in the right spot. People will read these descriptions and decide for themselves.

I would think most of the things that the Legislature’s going to put on the ballot are all going to fail. It’s a base turnout measure for them. But they — and as we know, it’s a minority that actually runs the Legislature. It’s not a majority of voters that decide who these people are, and their predilections reflect that when they put things on the ballot.

MARK BRODIE: So, you think all the legislative referrals are going to fail?

CHUCK COUGHLIN: Ah, God, I hope so. I think that would be really helpful. I mean, they’re just not great ideas. There’s one in there about public school funding that requires like 60% to have a vote. So like, when we did Prop 100 for Jan Brewer when the state had a $3 billion —

MARK BRODIE: The half-cent sales tax increase, yeah.

CHUCK COUGHLIN: Yeah. I mean, we got 63%, but that’s a rarity. You just don’t normally get that. And so, you know, what’s wrong with just a majority? But the Republicans years ago, John Shadegg put it on the ballot that it takes two-thirds to raise taxes at the Legislature. Now they’re going to put that back on the ballot.

And who’s questioning that, “Oh, the state is really had Republican leadership for eons, and is anybody wondering if it’s an adequately funded institution to educate our kids, to — as I was just saying earlier — to pay police officers? Oh, maybe technology updates at the state level.” We’re an underfunded state institution, and yet we’re putting more shackles on our decisions as voters.

MATT GRODSKY: You talk about likelihood of failure, too. Look, you know, the longer this ballot is, the less likelihood that people are going to want to fill out the whole thing. You know, we talked about how many gubernatorial candidates are up there, now you add the lieutenant governor aspect to it, right? Which is a headache for us as Democrats for downballot legislative races, which we’ll talk about later. But yeah, I’m with Chuck on that prognosis, but we’ll see.

MARK BRODIE: All right, so you brought up the Legislature. Let me ask you about that because the group, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, kind of rolls off the tongue, has added two more races to its target list. They say Democrats are, quote, “within striking distance” of flipping control of at least one of the chambers for the first time since the ’60s. These districts, one of them is in the southwestern part of the state, one is in North Phoenix.

We were talking before the show, like Democrats have been talking about flipping the Legislature basically forever. I mean, for at least a decade, maybe probably more than that. Is there a realistic chance of this happening?

MATT GRODSKY: Look, we were close in 2020. There’s been no better time than right now, again. It is déjà vu for a lot of us in the consultant world. Look, I think the thing I’d like us to pull on more is: Do you intend to fill out your entire ballot, right? Because unless you do, you know, we’re not going to be able to do that.

And I think we’re in a great position to do it if we message appropriately, if people are fired up enough to turn out. But I think the message, and this is what I certainly relay to my clients, is: Look, you’ve got to make the case to that independent voter in Arizona that, look, if you’re voting for a Democrat at the top of the ticket — as you should — but then you vote against them by going with a straight party ticket for the Republicans, or not voting at all, then you’re literally hamstringing what you just voted for at the top. You’re sacrificing a long-term vision.

And I do think sometimes in the daily bustle of our lives, we kind of forget the connection of that, and so we have to make that case to voters, that it’s all intertwined. If you want the governor to be successful, if you want the Secretary of State to be successful, give them a legislature that can work towards those priorities that clearly you care about, right? So, I think that’s the disconnect.

MARK BRODIE: Chuck, that’s a tough sell, though, I would think, for some, especially Republicans who maybe, like for example four years ago, we heard from a lot of Republicans, “I can’t vote for Kari Lake” —

CHUCK COUGHLIN: Oh there’s a long-term vision there.

MARK BRODIE: But like, so they voted for Katie Hobbs. But like once you get down the ballot, and there was some thought that at least like even once you got to like Superintendent of Public Instruction, like that’s where some number of Republicans were like, “OK, I’m not a Democrat, I can’t vote for all Democrats.”

CHUCK COUGHLIN: So, here’s the mechanics of it. The mechanics of it is, just as we were talking earlier, there’s more Republicans. It’s going to be about a 9% Republican turnout advantage in this cycle. Nine percent more Republicans than Democrats turn out. And about 30% of the electorate will be unaffiliated. And so, those unaffiliated voters are going to decide how these races go.

Currently, Republicans are struggling because of the orange man in the White House is not doing a great job of recruiting these voters, or actually expressing any sympathy for anybody else on the ballot. And so, they’re going to face some serious headwinds here, which brings the aforementioned two seats into play, and brings these legislative discussions, which probably shouldn’t be in play, into play.

And it all comes down to how campaigns get run. Do they run good campaigns? Because those legislative candidates are going to — and who’s going to run the best campaign? And it actually matters. It actually — candidates matter.

MARK BRODIE: As Mitch McConnell famously always said, it really comes down to candidate quality.

CHUCK COUGHLIN: It does. And so, they have a couple of opportunities. I was looking at all this yesterday. There’s five or six districts that you could argue that could be in play. We’ve got them lined up to watch to see how those things happen. And as Matt just said, how these campaigns play out. Who’s going to run a good campaign?

MARK BRODIE: Right. Very quickly, Matt, anything you want to add?

MATT GRODSKY: No, I was just going to say, I think mathematically, from Chuck’s, with the example he just gave, I think there’s additionally more in play that historically probably shouldn’t, right?

But again, it’s going to come down to not just candidate quality, but coming back to that idea of: Do enough of the unaffiliated voters know to turn out to vote their entire ticket? I think we can win those in polling and in things from an ideological perspective — especially given Trump’s popularity — but getting them to turn out, that’s where we’ve struggled, that’s what we need to do next.

MARK BRODIE: Interesting. All right. Matt Grodsky, Chuck Coughlin, thanks to you both. I really appreciate it.

MATT GRODSKY: Thank you.

CHUCK COUGHLIN: God bless you, brother.

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

LAUREN GILGER: And I’m Lauren Gilger. Carmen Lomas Garza’s artwork is a case study in how making art about ordinary life can be a radical act in itself. You might recognize her paintings of everyday scenes of Latino life from her children’s books. In a new career retrospective at the ASU Art Museum, Senior Curator Alana Hernandez highlights Lomas Garza’s work and how it’s embedded in the Chicano arts movement. I spoke with Hernandez more about the new exhibition and why she wanted to do it.

ALANA HERNANDEZ: Carmen Lomas Garza is someone that had come up over and over again, mostly because of how kind of generous the entry point is into their work, right? Children’s books are often disseminated — that’s how so many people know Carmen’s work to begin with.

LAUREN GILGER: That’s how I recognized it, exactly.

ALANA HERNANDEZ: Exactly. And so, and the pictures are so, like I said, they’re so generous as an entry point. You know, we see birthday parties, we see, you know, kitchen tables, we see things like that. So, what I was really interested in is really underscoring kind of a retrospective — seeing a kind of in-depth look at this artist’s career. What did that look like over time?

But I think importantly, when we think of retrospectives, when we think of these kind of large looks at artists’ careers, we’re often, I think, taught that these artists work in silos, right? That an artist is a genius or by themselves or working by themselves, and that’s just not true, specifically for communities of color as well.

And so, what I was really interested in as part of the exhibition was really to show a contextual retrospective: Who was Carmen in her early years as part of, you know, growing up at the milieu of the Chicano movement? There are many Chicano movements, for example. And the Chicano movement in South Texas really was born on the campus of Texas A&I with so many of her peers.

And so, this show really shows that there are all these people she was working with and how these people not only influenced her, but she also influenced going forward. And so, it’s a really wonderful mix of other artists at really kind of pivotal points in her career.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK, five decades is a long time, and we should say she’s still alive.

ALANA HERNANDEZ: She’s still alive. She’s still — she’s definitely in kind of large-scale exhibitions. She’s also in this Frida Kahlo exhibition that had just traveled to the Tate. So, it is a really wonderful time to look at her career. I think in terms of timing for this particular show, you have to imagine the last retrospective she had was in 2001, and that’s not really the show that she thinks of as her retrospective. She thinks of the 1992 version really as her retrospective.

So, there’s a whole generation of people that didn’t grow up or know Carmen’s work at all. And so, it’s a really wonderful reintroduction and seeing her work in kind of a new light, in a new era. Perhaps there are things that have changed since she made them in the ’80s. A lot of things have not changed or regressed backwards, and so it’s a really interesting time to see how this work plays in our contemporary moment.

Nick Sanchez / KJZZ
Alana Hernandez in KJZZ's studios.

LAUREN GILGER: But especially doing it at a university art museum, right? Like, you are purposefully, it sounds like, exposing a whole new generation to this artist they probably don’t know, but whose work they might recognize.

ALANA HERNANDEZ: Yeah, I think it’s that. And then I think to the university, Carmen, you know, really her undergraduate was in arts education. Education was really, really important for Carmen. Disseminating to the youth is really important. That’s why she has children’s books.

And so, being at a university setting was really important for Carmen. We had a lot of conversations, was a good, you know, talking point, selling point, like, "Hey, I really think we’re the place to do this." Of course, the show is going to travel, but it’s really special that it happens on a university campus.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK, so let’s describe this work a little bit. This is radio, and these are, you know, visual art paintings, obviously.

So, talk a little bit about what speaks to you about these paintings, some of your favorites, what do they look like. I mean, you described some of the scenes that you see here, but it’s a very specific style and one that people might recognize, like not just from Carmen, but from artists of that era.

ALANA HERNANDEZ: Yeah. So, a lot of the scenes, they’re incredibly figurative. So, we’re seeing lots of figures. And what’s really special also about Carmen’s work is that she paints from memory, right? So, a lot of these scenes are her personal scenes, her family archive in many ways.

LAUREN GILGER: You see the same people in them, yeah. Probably her family members, yeah.

ALANA HERNANDEZ: Exactly, exactly. There is an intentional flatness to what we’re seeing, either the gouache, the canvas, the prints — she was trained as a printmaker. And so, you’re seeing what allows is a very specific perspective. Again, children and dissemination is a big part of Carmen’s aim.

So, you know, I remember us talking through some of the works, and she said, you know, she was really interested in intentional flatness so that if a child were to see that, they would see the flatness of the table. They could see, for example, like if it’s a lotería scene, they could see the cards, the hands of every person around the table, right? And so, in that way, it is a form of learning.

It is an intentional naïveté to see details, to see people and figures in what I describe as a really radical sense, to see them in an everyday scene of joy, of celebration, or of rest, right?

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Well, so why do you see that as radical, right? Because they are sort of everyday scenes of like Latino life for her, for her community.

ALANA HERNANDEZ: Yeah. Yeah, I think when you have to imagine when these pictures are made in the ’70s and the ’80s, some earlier, this is kind of the age of the Chicano movement, the late ’60s into the ’70s, right? So much of the images that were coming out for the movement were about LUCHA, were kind of fighting for rights. And that is really important, right? That’s hand-in-hand with the movement, of course.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.

ALANA HERNANDEZ: But another part of that is picturing our communities radically, just brown bodies, people of color in intimate scenes of joy, you know, in getting ready to step out to the world in adolescence, healing rituals. This wasn’t seen before. And so, in many ways, Carmen was so ahead of her time taking up space in a world that wasn’t, you know, ready to reconcile what that looks like.

And so, even today, that’s so important, right, when we’re still discussing who can say they’re American or not, what does it mean to be American? And here, she unabashedly says, "This is what it means to be American," right? "Cakewalk," for example, it’s like this beautiful scene where there’s children running around. There’s this game, it’s called cakewalk in the middle of the canvas with numbers on it. It’s kind of like —

LAUREN GILGER: You’ve done this at a party, right? You walk, you land on a number, they draw the number, you get the cake with the number. Everybody brings a cake, yeah.

ALANA HERNANDEZ: Yes! So, it’s a fundraiser, right? And so, her parents were organizers, right? And so, they were organizing funds to make sure that they could have scholarships for Mexican American students to go to college, right? And so, this particular scene is what? Community building.

But it also, the auxiliary that, you know, her mother and her father are a part of, they have uniforms that are red, white, and blue, right? Because they’re all, they were either in the army, they were in the service. But so much of the work they did was really under the guise of: We’re Americans, we’re sending our children to college.

And so, I mention this story because it’s — it’s important when we think about the context of where we are in this country now. And so, these pictures remain radical in that way.

Carmen Lomas Garza / Handout
"Abuelitos Pizcando Nopalitos" by Carmen Lomas Garza.

LAUREN GILGER: It’s fascinating. Do you have a favorite?

ALANA HERNANDEZ: A favorite image? There are so many that I am really drawn to. "Cakewalk" is one of my favorites, "Quinceañera" is one of my favorites. But on the cover of the book, it’s "Las Pachucas’ Razor Blade Do." It’s painted in this like kind of bubblegum pink color. It shows two girls kind of getting ready to step out into the world. They’re young girls, they have a cousin lying on the bed watching them. And it looks very sweet, looks like a very sweet scene. We see cats around, we see heels getting ready to be put on, this dress that’s hanging.

But then we also see a cousin kind of slipping razor blades into the hair as a way of protection. And it’s showing this image is both sweet, but also has this kind of dark side to it to understand that women, especially women of color, as they enter the world, it’s both an exciting but dangerous place.

LAUREN GILGER: It’s a subversive moment there that you almost don’t catch.

ALANA HERNANDEZ: Yes, yeah. And so, for me, it’s one of my favorite scenes. So, it’s a mix between all of these different things, an exciting yet complex time for women as they enter the world.

LAUREN GILGER: You put it on the cover for a reason, I guess.

ALANA HERNANDEZ: It is one of my favorites.

LAUREN GILGER: All right. Alana Hernandez, senior curator at ASU’s Art Museum, editor of the new book on Carmen Lomas Garza, "Picturing the Familiar." The exhibition runs through September 10th. Alana, thank you so much for coming in to talk to us about this. I very much appreciate it.

ALANA HERNANDEZ: Of course, thank you.

LAUREN GILGER: "Carmen Lomas Garza: Picturing the Familiar" runs through September 10th at the ASU Art Museum. And if you want to see what those paintings look like, head to our website, theshow.kjzz.org.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, it is The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I’m Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. A retired University of Arizona professor will be hitting the road again to teach in another country. Mark Frederickson teaches architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design, but he’s taught those subjects in many more places than Tucson. He’s used five previous Fulbright scholarships to teach in places from Oman to Botswana to Prague to Panama to Jordan. His next stop: Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, where he’ll spend about 10 months. I caught up with Frederickson before he left, and we started with the fact that he’s headed pretty far from Tucson.

MARK FREDERICKSON: I had to actually look it up on the map. Kyrgyzstan. So, yeah, I’ve had several Fulbrights, and this one is probably one of the more exotic ones that I’ve worked on. But I had — I taught in Turkey for several years, and several of my students there were Kyrgyzstani, and they’re just a really interesting culture, great students. And now they’re teaching at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, and they invited me over, and we used Fulbright to facilitate that.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so what exactly will you be teaching, and when you’re talking about, you know, maybe projects to do in the capital city, what kind of projects might your students be working on?

MARK FREDERICKSON: The last Fulbright was in Botswana, and I taught pure architecture there. And this is a little bit different. They have landscape architecture and urban design, and they’re thinking about starting an architecture program. But the project, the river revitalization projects always are a lot of fun. And what we end up doing is looking at the overall city, then zeroing in on the river, and then picking potential sites along the river that might include parks development, park designs, urban interventions, maybe some pieces of architecture, and then individual students can choose those and focus in and work independently. So, the project will have big team kind of thing, then small teams, and then individual work.

MARK BRODIE: Is there something that appeals to you about working in places like Turkey or like Botswana or Kyrgyzstan as opposed to anywhere else?

MARK FREDERICKSON: Well, I loved working here, but one of the things that I’ve always done, I was in Peace Corps a long, long time ago. I’m an old guy now, so this is — this might be one of the last Fulbrights I get. But what really happens is that we’re able to work on these projects, and the students begin to gain confidence, and the cultural boundaries diminish, and it’s really interesting to watch. I first started in Tucson a long time ago, and our students didn’t have an opportunity to travel much, and so I began to develop this thing we call Tejido, and it’s really kind of an applied research and community outreach office. So, it gives the students that haven’t had a chance to travel much, haven’t had a chance to be exposed to different cultures, an opportunity to work with other people side-by-side in similar professions.

MARK BRODIE: So, what is your goal for the places where you do these Fulbrights? Like, what do you hope for them to have there when you leave that maybe they didn’t have when you got there?

MARK FREDERICKSON: Well, not to screw it up too bad. A "do no harm" kind of thing, huh? Well, yeah, that’s — we usually give them an array of ideas. This system that we work in doesn’t need money. And so, when you’re working in academia, this Tejido group that we developed, it looks for really juicy projects that would be fun and would be really a challenge to the students and would facilitate their becoming exceptional practicing professionals. And so, regular practice, professional practice, the economics come to bear, and doesn’t enable them all the time to get into these situations that have these great projects. So, most of our clients don’t have two nickels to rub together. But they’re in a situation where they have some interesting, but dire needs, like in Oman and in Prague, and we can get in there with very little investment, and we can generate design and planning options for a lower price than would a normal practice.

MARK BRODIE: So, who are your clients then?

MARK FREDERICKSON: Well, in Oman, it was Sultan Harthi. He’s the head of the municipal planning agency. And in Panama, for instance, it was the governor of Panama.

MARK BRODIE: So, like public-type figures in these various countries.

MARK FREDERICKSON: Usually. Every once in a while, we’ll work with an independent developer, but that doesn’t occur that often.

MARK BRODIE: It sounds like, and please correct me if I’m wrong, you’re not necessarily going to these places and like just doing a lot of building, for example. It sounds like you’re more going and trying to get the situation to a place where they can then go and do the building themselves, or develop however it is they want to develop. Like, you’re sort of laying the groundwork and the foundation, pardon the pun, and they, the clients, the places you’re going, are following through and doing the building afterwards?

MARK FREDERICKSON: Yes, that’s probably a good way of saying it, Mark. I’ll use Oman again. Sultan Harthi asked us to come over because he had a very poor neighborhood for laborers, but it was also shared with Omani citizens. So, there was some social issues, strife, going on there. But it was incredibly poor, and incredibly challenging environmentally, no — and he just needed some help developing design and planning ideas, options. And so, what we do is come in, talk to the clients, talk to the citizens that live there, observe, develop an array of planning and design options, and then we’ll present them to our clients, and then they’ll say, "Oh, we like this one. This one kind of sucks. This one really has an opportunity." We’ll go back and redo them, re-synthesize them, and come up with one or two final design and planning options. And then they use the documents, they secure the funding, and then they go about hiring the design and planning professionals that hopefully will follow our lead in the design and planning monographs.

MARK BRODIE: Mark Frederickson is a retired professor at the University of Arizona. He’ll spend the next 10 months or so on a Fulbright scholarship teaching in Kyrgyzstan.

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.