Scott Brocato spoke with Dr. Dulcinea Lara, Borderlands and Ethnic Studies (BEST) Department Head at NMSU; and Anita Lara, Program Manager of Oral Histories with BEST and host of "Jaggie Sounds;" about the new podcast, which aims to uplift voices and experiences from barrios, colonias, and classrooms. The podcast can be heard on Spotify.
Scott Brocato:
Doctor Delcenia Lara, talk about the BEST research center and what studies are covered.
Dr. Dulcenia Lara:
Thank you. So, we are about three years old, and we look at issues in the borderlands from an ethnic studies perspective. So the discipline of ethnic studies. that includes Chicano studies, Native American studies, relational ethnic studies. And really the center came about with support from private funders and state funding to do research on projects that address the Martinez-Yazzie legal ruling of 2018, which says that the public schools in New Mexico need to be culturally and linguistically responsive to all New Mexico learners, and so different groups of marginalized students are named in that lawsuit.
And so the lawsuit has been renewed this year, and there is a dire need for educational materials, teacher preparation, and pedagogy and ways of thinking about how to teach learners in land-based and place-based ways. So the research center is really looking at different ways of education through podcasting, oral histories, murals, different art forms, and more traditional units and curriculum that center stories that are not so well known or discussed in the curriculum.
Scott Brocato:
Let's talk about the podcast, Jaggie Sounds and what inspired its creation.
Dr. Dulcenia Lara:
We had an opportunity through Senator Heinrich's office to get some support to start collecting oral histories and stories from here in the borderlands to serve as curricular supplements, if you will, to the New Mexico curriculum. And so this support that came our way last year is housed under the Research Center, and in the summer we built this really beautiful state-of-the-art sound studio here in Garcia Center, and that's where the work is taking place.
We have one sound engineer who has learned how to do this work kind of from YouTube. And then our hostess, Anita Lara, who's a local educator, and she wears many hats--I recruited her to be the hostess because I thought she would be perfect because of her land-based approach to education and healing and sort of centering voices that have not been part of the traditional curriculum.
Scott Brocato:
Anita Lara, as the host, when (Dr. Lara) offered you that, how did you feel? Were you pretty confident that you could pull something like that off? Have you ever done anything like that before, radio or a podcast?
Anita Lara:
I've never done anything like this before. I have experienced storytelling, writing. I have experience in, you know, curriculum, resource and content construction and creation. I have a lot of really beautiful connections to the land. And for me, it seems to be like a love letter to the borderland as a person who is from this area, natural to these lands. So taking on the role, I jumped right in, and I'm taking it one step at a time, one day at a time, and learning as I go as well. But the part that is most encouraging to me is sitting with the people and hearing all of these beautiful cuentos and histories and the experiences of how people are living in our areas.
Scott Brocato:
Let's talk about the name, Jaggie. That's a combination of Aggie and the borderland jaguar, correct?
Anita Lara:
That is right.
Scott Brocato:
Talk about the importance of the borderlands jaguar to the show's identity.
Dr. Dulcenia Lara:
I found out a few years ago, Scott, that the native jaguar was being spotted in this area in parts of Arizona and I think even a sighting in New Mexico, and I think it was around the time of an employee picnic here at NMSU, and it was around Halloween, and I decided to go as a jaguar. And it stirred some conversation about the mascot, the current mascot of NMSU. And I was sort of thinking about what would a jaguar mascot feel like, right? And sort of thinking at that time about the mascot conversation that is at the national level with national teams, NFL and NBA, the baseball teams as well.
And so it just kind of got into this bigger conversation that developed over campus with different units and different folks talking across campus about mascots and representation. And so in conversation with someone here who lives in the area, we were talking about what are people's commitments to Pistol Pete, for example. And so we talked about the Aggie identity that's really rooted, to use a pun there. But this is an ag school. and so from talking to various people over the past few years, there seems to be a real commitment to the agricultural identity of the university. And so "Jaggie” came out as kind of a fun play on Jaguar and Aggie and sort of connecting those. And so we're trying to have fun and be clever and kind of introduce something lighthearted that at the same time has a serious meaning behind it.
Scott Brocato:
What was it like putting that first show together, and how long did it take?
Anita Lara:
It was a really beautiful process that I felt was really organic in a way. My teammate, Aramis Martines, is a graduate student at NMSU. He really brings a lot of grounding to us in our studio. I think both Dulcinea and I are dreamers, but also action makers. And so we tend to really want to just boom, make it happen. And Amamis has really been a beautiful addition to our think tank of making sure that we're on task, reminding us that not everything happens overnight, and also encouraging us to step outside of ourselves at moments, specifically with his own perspective of the way that we're storytelling and the way that the podcast is being produced, and also what our viewers might be thinking.
And so I believe that it's been a labor of love for sure, a lot of passion, a lot of moments where we're like, oh, what are we doing? But also, I think that with the three of us combined, we've really been able to keep sight of what our focus is and what our intentions are for what is basically a resource for curriculum.
Scott Brocato:
Dr. Delcinia Lara, one of the topics you alluded to a while ago was Pistol Pete. NMSU's mascot. I got to listen to a little bit of that on the podcast and what Pistol Pete as a mascot means to various people. What was the general consensus, and what does Pistol Pete as a mascot mean to you?
Dr. Dulcenia Lara:
Thank you for the question. The mascot has been around for a while. I've been faculty for 19 years here at NMSU, and I'm second-generation faculty. My parents are NMSU graduates, so I have a lot of pride in this university. And as long as I've been here, there's been conversation about Pistol Pete as a real person, as modeled after Frank Eaton. And there are descriptions in various places about him being sort of a militant, avenging his father's death. And also there's mention of him being an Indian killer or bounty hunter, something like that. So there's this kind of Wild West attribute to Pistol Pete. And I've been part of faculty senate conversations about problematizing Pistol Pete.
The conversation about Jaggie rose up again in March, this past March, where there was a mass shooting in Young Park here in Las Cruces. And there was also a presentation by a public health professor, Dr. Jagdish (Khubchandani) here at NMSU about the silent gun epidemic in New Mexico. And as knowledgeable as I am, I learned a lot about the homicide and suicide rates attributed to firearms in our state of New Mexico, particularly in rural areas.
And so I think--and I also sit on the public art committee for the university--and so this conversation about representation has surfaced. the entire time that I've been here at NMSU, and we know that there's been iterations in the past of Lasso Larry. They've taken away the guns, they've given him a lasso. There's been all this change over the course of many years. And so this is our playful, but also serious way of bringing up the idea of representation. So Jaggie is a character. There's a logo that was designed by a Creative Media (Institute) student here at NMSU. He won the contest. And so we're trying to elevate conversations that we hear in the streets, in our classrooms. on campus and just try to bring together various people around the table to talk about these issues.
And for me personally, I feel like that mascot represents some people perhaps, but a lot of people feel like that mascot doesn't represent them necessarily. And I'm talking about alumni that I've talked to outside of NMSU, but also students. And I think people who listen to the podcast will see that there's a sociology professor, Dr. (Cynthia) Pelak, on campus who talks about representation in mascotry, and actually does a survey with her students about what they think about Pistol Pete. So I'm really eager to bring conversation to campus with the question of the mascot since, you know, all of us know the mascot. It's a very universal topic.
Scott Brocato:
Anita, as the host of Jaggie Sounds, how do you see the show growing? How do you want to see it grow?
Anita Lara:
I really hope that it reaches classrooms, which is my main hope for this resource. It's in connection with a larger collection of curriculum within the hillborderlands.org website, which is a collection of curriculum that was created by New Mexico educators across the state. And secondly, I just, I really hope that it brings joy to people who are from the borderlands. It's not often that you hear your hometown being spoken of on a social media platform as big as Spotify or YouTube. And my introduction for the show is really, truly an uplifting ode to the beautiful people of our lands and the people who bring the color and the vibrant life to our valleys.
And so the way that I see it growing is that people will be able to show up at our podcast studio, or we'll be able to show up to them, and they just really get to truth tell and bring their experience to the table. And quite like the jaguar, who is re-emerging into this traverse-like landscape that has, you know, kind of been removed from the natural habitat in some ways, so are the people of the borderlands, We're rising up to tell stories, to tell histories, to keep traditions. And that's not often included in everyday curricula within the classroom. And so I see it growing. I see us getting better at what we do. And I think as we move along, we will also adapt and change and move in the ways that we need to represent our homelands. in the right ways.
Scott Brocato:
And when can we expect the next episode to drop?
Anita Lara:
So we'll be dropping monthly. So our next episode will drop in October. We have discussed possibly about doing little snippets here and there to give highlights to events or creators or art or you name it, things that happen within the Borderlands communities.
