This article is part of the Kazakhstan Artisan Initiative, a community-based cultural sustainability initiative in the country of Kazakhstan developed through a partnership between the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and the Union of Artisans of Kazakhstan. The collaboration aims to strengthen artisan networks, enhance the skills and income of artisan enterprises, and increase youth participation in craft practices. It is made possible with support from Chevron.
Tucson, Arizona, sits in the heart of the Sonoran Desert, in a county of over a million people, on the modern border with Sonora, Mexico. The city of saguaro cacti, Gila monsters, and the Santa Cruz River encompasses the ancestral homelands of the O’odham, Yaqui, and Apache. Today, it is known for its unique blend of Indigenous, Mexican, and American cultures. But its role as a cultural sanctuary was not inevitable; it was cultivated by artists, activists, and tradition keepers who tended its roots.
In the 1970s, Tucson was a small desert city that, like many other small- and medium-sized cities across the United States, had recently experienced urban renewal, a sweeping set of policies and programs aimed at “revitalizing” American cities, particularly from the late 1940s through the 1970s. These ill-conceived regulations altered the makeup and landscape of Tucson’s historic downtown, and millions of dollars were spent bulldozing adobes from the Spanish, Mexican, and early American periods of Tucson’s past. In their places stood faux depictions of what outsiders thought a “modern desert city” should be without appreciation for what it was.
Tucson Meet Yourself
During this time, folklorist Dr. James “Big Jim” Griffith and his wife, Loma Griffith, had lived in Tucson for years. Like many people who adopt Tucson as home, the Griffiths fell in love with the landscape, year-round sunshine, and people who have stewarded and cared for the Sonoran Desert.
Big Jim’s six-foot-seven stature added to this larger-than-life support of and companionship with the diverse tradition bearers of the region. After listening to the O’odham, Yaqui, Mexican, and Chicano communities, Big Jim was welcomed into salas (living rooms) and invited to the carne asadas (social gatherings), coming-of-age ceremonies, and weddings as the gentle giant whose jovial nature enabled authentic relationships that influenced his scholarship and position in Southern Arizona. Big Jim became an expert of the Southwest within academic circles—but perhaps more importantly, he was respected among everyday community members, many of whom he called friends.
In 1974, spurred by fieldwork throughout Arizona and Sonora, their love of Tucson, and their respect for the region’s diverse cultural communities, the Griffiths conceived the idea to bring the cultural expressions that were happening inside homes, backyards, and temples into the public forum. They wanted Tucson to meet itself (literally!)—the people, cultures, foods, and traditions of its inhabitants. They reached out to local social clubs, communities of global heritage, and Indigenous leaders, and invited them to share their art, culture, and traditions on their own terms. With $7,000, a handful of volunteers, a space in the city’s El Presidio Plaza, and over 2,000 attendees, they founded and hosted the inaugural Tucson Meet Yourself (TMY) folklife festival.
In 2025, TMY marked its fifty-second year as an annual celebration uplifting the living traditional arts of Southern Arizona and Northern Mexico’s ethnic and folk communities. The free, three-day event features hundreds of artisans, home cooks, dancers, musicians, and special exhibits. These programs focus on presenting artists and communities that carry on living traditions rooted in a group’s own definition of identity, artistry, and cultural significance.
Each year, 150,000 people attend the festival, and 700 volunteers help the small staff make it happen. All proceeds from the vendors stay in their own pockets, and TMY annually generates $5 million in the Tucson economy. TMY’s success extends far beyond its annual celebration. In 2014, recognizing the power of cultural connection, the festival’s leaders envisioned something greater: an initiative that would carry its impact into everyday life and engage the community throughout the year.
TMY’s dedication to cultural and community empowerment is one reason why it will be a collaborator in Of the People: The Smithsonian Festival of Festivals in 2026.
Southwest Folklife Alliance
By 2014, the community managing TMY had grown the festival’s impact but saw the limitations of a once-a-year event. Under the directorship of Dr. Maribel Alvarez, the Jim Griffith Chair in Public Folklore at the University of Arizona Southwest Center and School of Anthropology, TMY created a nonprofit to continue the work of educating the public, uplifting the people and cultures of the region, and supporting culture bearers and traditional artists throughout the year. This new organization, the Southwest Folklife Alliance (SFA), started with modest goals of managing TMY and creating experiential programming in the Arizona-Sonora borderlands.
In 2015, SFA granted its first Master-Apprentice Artist Award, a $5,000 prize for tradition bearers to pass on their knowledge to an apprentice of their choosing. Each apprentice receives $500 to support their efforts to teach their tradition. Through this program alone, by creating space and funding to transmit cultural knowledge within smaller communities, SFA has supported 98 artists along with 98 apprentices. Other resources, like the e-commerce platform Loom Market, and partnerships with leaders in the cultural field, such as the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, further SFA’s impact.
Together, SFA builds more equitable and vibrant communities through celebrating everyday expressions of culture, heritage, and diversity rooted in the Greater Southwest and U.S.-Mexico border corridor. Nationally, it amplifies models and methods of meaningful cultural work that center traditional knowledge, social equity, and collaboration.
Supportive Networks Create Lasting Opportunities
In early 2025, the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage approached Alvarez to partner with its new Kazakhstan Artisan Initiative. The Center aimed to connect thirteen artists in Southern Arizona with a large group of artisans from Tucson’s sister city, Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Excited at the opportunity to engage global craft traditions with local artisanal communities, Alvarez brought in SFA’s manager of artist services, Denise Uyehara, a leader with established and trusted connections with regional artists, to help develop a cultural exchange visit. Uyehara’s close relationships with SFA-engaged artists exemplified how SFA treats the artisans and tradition bearers it works with: it meets them where they are, prioritizes their strengths, and creates space for everyone to be present as their full selves. This value-driven work is lived among all SFA staff.
When a group of artisans from Kazakhstan came to Tucson in July 2025, Uyrehara curated each moment of their experience to be meaningful. As an SFA folklorist and fifth-generation Tucsonense, I was their guide for their trip, sharing the history and living traditions of the regional communities. Dinner took place at Cafe Santa Rosa, a Tohono O’odham-owned establishment known for its fry bread, red chile, and cinnamon tea. Several SFA staff joined for the dinner, mingling with local and Kazakhstani artists alike with the help of English-Russian-Spanish translators.
But the highlights of the learning exchange, of course, were the studio visits with local artisans!
The Regional Artists
Local artists who partner with SFA expand their understanding of the artmaking world and their places within it as people who hold and use traditional knowledge in their crafts. One of the first communities that SFA planned for a visit was the O’odham Haha’adam Collective, a group that, with SFA’s support, is continuing traditional O’odham pottery methods. Kathleen Vance, Melvina Garcia, and Harrison Preston are members of the collective, and each helped host the Kazakh artisans during their visit to Vance’s home.
“We had such a wonderful opportunity to share what our homeland had to offer us as artists of this desert region, which intrigued our guests,” Vance said. “Material and processes of clay and basketry were shared but also how our deeper connection with the land is a way of life. In the evening, the Kazakhstani guests shared a little bit about themselves and showcased their own beautiful creations. They were such humble, kind, and loving people. It was truly an amazing experience.”
Vance is an SFA Master Artist awardee, Preston a member of Loom Market, and both are TMY folk arts vendors. Preston began learning traditional Tohono O’odham basketry from Terrol Dew Johnson, a noted Tohono O’odham artist, activist, and SFA Master Artist awardee. Under Johnson’s tutelage, Preston won several awards at Native American art markets at the Heard Museum and the Arizona State Museum. He is an artist and tradition bearer who contextualizes his practice in the art world.
“Our presentation with the Kazakhstan Artisan Initiative and representatives from the Smithsonian was a great experience,” Preston said. “The collective was able to share our knowledge about O’odham pottery and basketry, and we got to hear and see work by the Kazakhstan artists. My biggest takeaway from this time together was that even though we are geographically worlds apart, as artists we can find common ground and connection—even with all the tensions our planet faces.”
The artists also visited the studio of Barbara Teller Ornelas, a fifth-generation Diné tapestry artist who carries on the family tradition of Navajo weaving.
“I'm truly blessed to meet the wonderful artists from Kazakhstan,” Ornelas said. “I told them: once they are in my home, we are family. I love their curiosity about my work and how it would help them with theirs. Spending three hours with them, learning about their background and work, has truly inspired me as well.”
Alex Beeshligaii, a 2022 SFA Master Artist awardee, and his apprentice, Shane Beeshligaii, also benefit from SFA’s investment into regional heritage-based artists. Father and son, the Beeshligaiis exemplify the old-school ways that culture, tradition, and knowledge have been passed down from one generation to the next. As silversmiths, they use Diné imagery and technique to craft one-of-a-kind jewelry that transmits Indigenous culture.
“We enjoyed our well-spent time, and I got to talk in my language (Navajo, Diné Bizaad), which was a first for them,” Alex said of his Kazakhstani counterparts. “Plus, I sang a song appreciating the fellowship.”
By organizing three studio visits and a dinner among local and Kazakhstani artists, SFA helped provide space for cultures that are geographically half a world apart to witness, learn from, and share their commonalities on their terms. Regardless of language or cultural barriers, when you put artists together in a room, laughter, stories, and learning happens!
Learning by Listening
A successful intercultural exchange includes reciprocity, curiosity, and respect. The engagement between these Southern Arizona heritage-based artists and the Kazakhstani artisans, however short, has had a major impact on everyone involved. SFA leaders have been in awe that something as simple as hosting other craftspeople can establish connections that transcend geographic and cultural barriers.
This experience also led to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Preston. Upon invitation, in October 2025, he traveled with the Center to Kazakhstan to visit the studios of the Kazakhstani artisans and participate in ALA CRAFT 2025 International Crafts Festival in Almaty.
It took the collaboration of multiple artist groups, community partnerships, and funding streams—coming together at just the right moment—to make it possible for thirteen Kazakhstani artists to connect with peers in the American Southwest and for a Tohono O’odham culture bearer to journey to Kazakhstan. SFA staff recognize that intercultural experiences like the Kazakhstan Artisan Initiative learning exchange rarely happen, but when they do, their impact often stretches beyond the finite moments of the program.
Taking the time to reflect on the beauty that came from this experience is providing SFA staff the opportunity to dream alongside the communities we work with. Uyehara and I are taking our respective experiences administering SFA artists services and the National Folklife Network to refine SFA’s offerings based on artists’ needs.
In 1974, could Big Jim have imagined that the very first Tucson Meet Yourself could lead to such international, intercultural connections? What began as a local act of cultural pride became a seed that has blossomed into global recognition, reminding us how small community efforts can echo across continents and generations, carrying forward traditions in ways once never thought possible.
Alisha Vasquez is the disability cultures folklorist at Southwest Folklife Alliance and co-director of the Mexican American Heritage and History Museum in Tucson. Her Tucsonense family has occupied the unceded homelands of the Tohono O’odham, Pascua Yaqui, and Apache people for six generations.
