Recently in Our Region Category

Also on Wednesday, September 24th, The City of Tucson and the Tucson Presidio Trust will present a talk and a tour of El Presidio San Agustin del Tucson in the library's lower level meeting room from noon to 12:30 p.m. This lecture will be a brief history of the Tucson Presidio and the people that were the first European settlers of Southern Arizona. We'll explore why Tucson was founded and how the settlers succeeded in creating the community we live in. The presentation will be followed by an optional walking tour of El Presidio San Agustin del Tucson which will include an introduction to the reconstructed Presidio wall, a prehistoric Hohokam Pithouse, and to a renovated Territorial Rowhouse. The tour will also involve a short discussion about the Santa Cruz River.

Here's something different. Casey, a web developer in the next cubicle over sent me a couple links that just really interesting to see. The first link is a Flickr page Magic Carpet Golf, Tucson AZ. The info for the page tell us that "This mini golf course closed after about 50 years in Tucson on Speedway Blvd. Members of the group Vanishing Tucson got permission to visit it one last time to photo document the statues before they are razed."

For those you who have not visited Flickr, it's a Web 2.0 site where you can host your pictures (images, actually). Without putting you not techies to sleep, it gained popularity in part due to letting the users define the keywords (tags) describing their images.

What I find so interesting, and is likely as interesting to anyone involved with Tucson history and culture is Vanishing Tucson. Seems it is a group of people dedicated to capturing Tucson landmarks before the wrecking ball reducing them to a memory. Check out the images on Flickr, read boingboing's "Flickr photoset of last days of Tucson minature golf course," and a backstory blog entry. Maybe you'll even want to post a comment.

Today is Cinco de Mayo. Watch Big Jim Griffith's Arizona Illustrated segment explaining the southern Arizona tradition with Cinco de Mayo [MP4 video]

Over the years we've learned about the challenges faced by native speakers to preserve their language. Within the southern Arizona area, the Tohono O'odham Community Action (TOCA) has developed a strong cultural preservation program that includes such things as Rain Ceremony Revitalization, Traditional Singing and Dance Group and Traditional Storytelling Events. Here at the UA, CERCLL, The Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy, emphasizes 'strategically important and under-taught languages,' and brings together faculty members from throughout the UA.

Of interest to those of you active in language preservation (and to those of us on the sidelines) is an announcement from NSF of The Linguists, a documentary premiering at Sundance that highlights "endangered languages in Siberia, India and Bolivia."

Last week a student in a journalism class came by to ask me some questions about Through Our Parents' Eyes. I thought it was for a paper he was writing strictly for his class/prof. He told me that it was for the website Border Beat: U.S. Border News, Insight & Resources. Here are two sentences from the About page.

The University of Arizona's student-run online magazine, Border Beat, was established to explore and provide fresh perspectives on the people, places and issues of the U.S.–Mexico Border. This semester, with Professor Jay Rochlin, a team of journalism seniors will bring you up to speed on all things border related, brought to life through creative stories, captivating photos, multimedia, and relevant blogs.

And speaking of border issues, I'll take this moment to re-iterate my recommendation for Luis Alberto Urrea's outstanding book, The Devil's Highway: A True Story. Read a blurb on Google Books.