Feeding Tucson’s Soul: Jessica Escobedo’s Journey with Tucson Meet Yourself
Immerse yourself in a conversation that uncovers the essence of one of Tucson’s most beloved events, “Tucson Meet Yourself.” As you dive into this podcast, you’ll journey with Jessica Escobedo, whose personal history with the festival is as vibrant and rich as the event itself. From heartfelt memories to the inner workings of this annual celebration, get a front-row seat to the stories that make this festival so special.
The spirit of “Tucson Meet Yourself” is more than just an event—it’s a testament to the incredible cultural tapestry that our community represents. After listening, let the stories inspire you to attend the festival this weekend, and experience firsthand the beauty of diversity and community. And remember, we thrive on hearing from you! If you have exciting ideas or topics that you believe deserve a spotlight, reach out to us. Let’s make our community’s voice even louder and prouder.
Key Moments in the Conversation:
- Jessica Escobedo shares her deeply personal connection with the festival, including cherished memories with her family.
- Discover the evolution and exponential growth of the festival since its inception in 1974.
- The importance of maintaining authenticity and affordability for all festival-goers.
- The festival’s impact beyond Tucson, representing the broader Southern Arizona and even extending into Mexico.
- Insights into the vision of the festival’s founder, Big Jim Griffith, and his lasting legacy.
Got an Idea for Our Next Podcast Topic? We’re always on the lookout for engaging stories and themes that resonate with our community. If you have a topic or know someone who’d be a great fit for our show, don’t hesitate to contact us. Your insights help shape our platform, ensuring that we continue to spotlight the best of Tucson.
Transcript (Unedited)
Tom Heath
Good morning. It’s a beautiful Sunday in the old Pueblo. And you’re listening to Katie. Tucson. Thank you for spending a part of your brunch hour with us on your downtown Tucson community sponsored all volunteer powered rock and roll radio station. This week, we’re going to celebrate the 50th Tucson. Meet Yourself. It’s launched in 1974, and this annual event can drive 150,000 people to downtown Tucson.
We’re going to revisit an interview we did in 2018 to get some insight of the festival and a little backstory of its origins. Today is October 8th, 2023. My name is Tom Heath and you’re listening to Life Along the Streetcar. Each and every Sunday, our focus is on social, cultural and economic impacts in Tucson’s urban core, and we shed light on hidden gems everyone should know about.
From a mountain to the University of Arizona and all stops in between, you get the inside track right here on 99.1 FM streaming on downtown radio, Dawg. Also available on your iPhone or Android by getting our downtown radio Tucson app. If you want to interact with us on the show, maybe head over to Facebook and Instagram. That’s a good way to connect with us.
You can also learn about our book and listen to some past episodes on our website. Life Along the Streetcar, Dawg, and the podcast is available for streaming on many of those podcasting platforms. Well, 1974 is considered an Ed Sullivan show of sorts. Were being Jim Griffin got together with others and the community wanted to celebrate the cultural and diversity of Tucson.
We know this event is Tucson. Meet yourself and it is an annual event. Now, other than I think 2020, it’s been happening every year since 1974. And we wanted to kind of celebrate that 50 year stretch by going back to an interview that we did back in 2018. It was actually with Jessica Escovedo. She is the she at the time was the director of the volunteer management.
And we got some insight into the festival, some of the people behind it and a little bit of its history. So this is Jessica Escovedo from 2018 about Tucson. Meet yourself.
Jessica Escobedo
My name is Jessica Escobedo and I’m a volunteer manager for Tucson Meet Yourself.
Tom Heath
So as a volunteer manager, that means you manage the volunteers, not that you’re volunteering your time to manage the festival.
Jessica Escobedo
Yeah, that’s correct. But I did start off volunteering. But yeah, I managed all the volunteers and then we got a new volunteer coordinator named Tyler and she’s been amazing. So I’m helping her kind of navigate through how to bring in more volunteers for the festival.
Tom Heath
You probably have a more unique path to this festival than a lot of others because your dad’s kind of in charge of what’s happening. And so you spend a lot of time as a in your younger days just supporting him.
Jessica Escobedo
And just coming to the festival, enjoying it. And then he would get us all to volunteer and then just come on volunteer. And then I even have a video of the couple of minutes since they were five, like soda water, $2 like yelling to get people to volunteer. But yeah, we’ve been part of it for a while now and then gradually started becoming part of the staff and I’ve just loved it forever.
Jessica Escobedo
So and I love the whole meaning of it. So yeah, it’s stayed with me.
Tom Heath
Well, let’s dive into it. The event is called to Son. Meet yourself. And you love the idea of it. Can you tell me a little bit about the history of it and what really excites you about the festival?
Jessica Escobedo
Yeah, to some of yourself has been in operations since 1974 and just the whole meaning of it, it’s just been this beautiful thing. It’s so diverse, it’s cultural, it brings together some over 55 different cultures, and that’s just not with just the vendors, that’s with the participation as well. So all these cultures come together to enjoy food, culture, diversity, and I think that’s just the most amazing, beautiful thing about it.
Jessica Escobedo
During all this time, you know, people actually really enjoy each other and there is no hate, there’s no ugliness. It’s just beauty and just, yeah, enjoyment.
Tom Heath
So and this event takes place over a matter of a few days. And can you tell me a little bit what what a day looks like with two sumptuous off.
Jessica Escobedo
Into the Friday, Saturday and Sunday and during these three days. So it takes well over two weeks to start setting up the festival. Yeah, you’ll go downtown, they’ll start seeing tents going up come Monday and then everyone’s getting ready. Vendors start coming in, setting up come Friday. You know, people are coming out from their businesses and they start enjoying the food because there is 60 different food vendors out there of different cultures and varieties.
Jessica Escobedo
And you just see people start gathering and coming downtown. Then comes Friday night and that’s when the music starts happening and the performances. And Saturday is definitely our busiest time and the get downtown, just get packed it. But I mean, it’s just so nice because the weather is perfect. You download, you get this music, you get different foods, and then Sunday, I’m still pretty busy during Sunday as well.
Jessica Escobedo
Sunday night the staff is just like, my goodness, you just got here with, you know, 120,000 people out here. So, yeah, it’s just it’s big and just wonderful.
Tom Heath
So somewhere 100,000 plus easily, I think I’ve seen estimates of 245,000 that come during that that window that it’s open.
Jessica Escobedo
That’s correct.
Tom Heath
And there’s a lot of people coming to the downtown and you mentioned it a couple of times, but there’s a lot of food vendors in this. I think over the years this has gotten to kind of a nickname of Tucson each year. So.
Jessica Escobedo
Yeah.
Tom Heath
Because of all of the different varieties of food. Yes. But one thing I found interesting and I just learned this recently, you actually have the vendors cap the cost of their food at some point.
Jessica Escobedo
The center has got a collective collectively about $350,000 and there are a lot of keep all of their proceeds because that’s just us giving back to the community as well.
Tom Heath
But I think there is something that they can’t charge a certain amount. They can’t charge more than a certain food to keep it a very affordable for the community.
Jessica Escobedo
Yeah, we, we limit it to well and they help out in a lot of ways as well. They have to make their food like promptly enough, fast enough for the community, for the alliance to go kind of fast to ensure their money making as well. But yeah, we don’t want it to be like a festival where people are just outraged by the charges and stuff.
Jessica Escobedo
It’s a free festival. No one has to pay to get in and we don’t make moneys very much. We try to get donations and, you know, selling sodas and water is.
Tom Heath
But with your five year old nieces. Yeah.
Jessica Escobedo
Don’t don’t put this one on there. But yeah, they do They don’t charge. I mean, I honestly don’t know the exact amount of how much they’re able to.
Tom Heath
A unique way to make sure that it stays a community festival.
Jessica Escobedo
Right. And what’s unique about it also is that it’s volunteer gets a $7 food voucher and they can use that at any of the eateries there. And all of the vendors accept those food vouchers for volunteers and many of them, which is amazing. Just don’t make us pay for the stuff. And so at the end they could come back, you know, collect their money from the volunteers that, you know, they’ll go up to one of our staff and, you know, turn in their vouchers and we’ll give them the money for what the volunteers have paid.
Jessica Escobedo
And a lot of times the vendors don’t do that and they kind of give back to us and that. So a lot of them are amazing and they understand the beauty of the festival as well.
Tom Heath
Let’s talk about the reach, because this isn’t just what’s happening in Tucson, as I understand it. It’s it’s about southern Arizona and even moves into Mexico as far as the cultures and the people that you’re you’re trying to highlight. Is that accurate?
Jessica Escobedo
Yeah, that’s very accurate, actually. It comes from all over the state of Arizona. I mean, like I said, we have about over 35 different cultures that come to the festival. So, you know, we’re getting the Sonoran region, we’re getting, you know, cultures that you didn’t even know that were part of Southern Arizona. Arizona itself, like when I first came, I heard some 96 different cultures were there and I was like, wow, you know, you don’t you don’t realize how diverse Tucson really is.
Jessica Escobedo
And it brings people from I mean, we focus Tucson, Southern and Southern star Maria as well. But yeah, just the way this US all gather is different from different areas. And Tucson just amazing.
Tom Heath
And it’s still amazing. It’s going to be happening this weekend, starting on a Friday the 13th, all the way through Sunday of the hockey players outside of the public library in downtown. We’re in the middle of an interview that we were doing with Jessica Escovedo back in 2018 about Tucson. Meet yourself. At the time, she was the volunteer manager over, oversaw the volunteers.
Tom Heath
And when we come back from break, we’ll get a little bit more about the history and some of the other people that make the Tucson Meat Yourself event so special. But first, I want to remind you that you’re listening to life on the Streetcar Downtown Radio at any 9.1 FM in or streaming on downtown Radio dot org.
Tom Heath
All right. We are back to that interview we did back in 2018 with Jessica Escovedo. At the time, her father was the festival director, Tim Escovedo. He is now with the El Toro of Tucson. He’s helping with that effort. And in this segment, we’re going to talk about some of the origins and the founder and just a driving influence.
Tom Heath
Big Jim Griffith references that he is still with us, but he did pass after this interview in 2021. But up until that timeframe, he was heavily involved with Tucson. Meet yourself. So we’re going to include a little bit about his history and involvement with how he got this going and just what he meant to this amazing festival here in downtown Tucson.
Tom Heath
So much about the foundation, I think it was, isn’t it? Name was Big Jim, James Griffin. Do you know much about in 1974 when when he’s spearheading this concept, what was in his mind?
Jessica Escobedo
You know, he comes to meetings, he has these amazing stories, from what I take it is he started off as an anthropologist. He comes out, starts off the couple people they’re selling, and then it starts going to, you know, the next year, maybe ten people. And his family’s always been part of it. His daughter and Kelly, she’s been there since she’s been little.
So, you know, it’s always been like a family kind of trait where she comes out every year still and they’re always part of it. You know, they’re there from morning to night, just, you know, being knowing what they’ve done from the beginning. But yeah, he wanted it. He wanted it to be exactly what it is. And he was just always amazed at how big it’s gotten.
Jessica Escobedo
But bringing culture and diversity together is what his main one goal was and starting it from scratch, you know, and seeing how many people it’s like he’ll tell stories about only, you know, a couple of people trickling by, but they were happy about the couple of people. But yeah, how big it’s gotten. I really truly I mean it’s it’s him so.
Tom Heath
It’s gotten very large. In fact, this year I remember reading an article in the paper that said that the Tucson meat yourself has a weight problem because of the size of this crowd, 130, 40,000 people. And traditionally it’s been held since I’ve been in Tucson at the Presidio Park in front of City Hall. But underneath that is a parking garage.
Jessica Escobedo
That’s correct.
Tom Heath
And the weight has been a little bit of a concern for engineers. So this year, you guys made kind of a momentous decision to change the location slightly.
Jessica Escobedo
Slightly with the City of Tucson Downtown partnership. We kind of mapped out everything. Tim. That’s the beauty of Maribel Alvarez have kind of, you know, figure out ways to make it, make it still happen. Like, you know, there was some concerns to some of yourself, wasn’t going to happen this year. But, you know, everyone kind of gathered together and figure it out.
Jessica Escobedo
Road closures. So Church Road is going to be closed. Pennington will be closed. And now Stone. Stone wasn’t closed before, but now that El Presidio is closed down, we’re not going to be walking through the city hall. That’s going to be closed down. So all Herkimer Plaza is going to be used. I’m along with Pennington as well, so you know, it’s going to be more of a smaller space.
Jessica Escobedo
But I think what my dad actually mentioned, he’s like, I measured it all and actually will be bigger in square footage. So it will probably be a better layout eventually since everything is going to be all around the same area. And we thought it’s going to be a beneficial thing for.
Tom Heath
Us in stone. It’s because church typically has been closed and now stone It’s north of Congress up to around to be blocked off. So that stone.
Jessica Escobedo
Wall.
Tom Heath
But mainly what’s around that square. Hockley Plaza, which is in front of the library.
Jessica Escobedo
That’s correct.
Tom Heath
That will be blocked off. And I saw Tim speak and do kind of a presentation. And it sounds like with the layout, you’re able now to start grouping crafts together or start grouping things together to make it.
Jessica Escobedo
Yep. So our focus will be like here on Pennington near Scott, where Scott ends right there. So that’s all going to be closed down. Our folks are full, guards will be there. We’ll have food vendors all in camouflage there. We’ll try to do community matters during stone down stone. I know that things keep on getting moved around and see what will work best.
Jessica Escobedo
But since this new layout, it’s just, you know, a stepping stone. We’re going to try to hit or miss. We’ll see what works best for this year. But yeah, it’s easier to do it that way. I mean, I’m not sure how the field is going to be, but Fourth Avenue Street Fair is kind of like in our mind of how that works and that movement goes.
Jessica Escobedo
So we’ll see how that goes.
Tom Heath
Okay, so kind of Fourth Avenue Street fair means to summit yourself. Yeah. And the new format and you’re still having the car show, right? That’s a big driver here.
Jessica Escobedo
Yeah, we love the car show that comes Saturday. So it doesn’t come Friday because of all of the businesses still open on Friday. And we try to be cognizant of everyone’s work schedule. So the car showed off and comes in on Saturday and stuff.
Tom Heath
You just mentioned minute Alvarez can tell me a little about her role in what she does.
Jessica Escobedo
Yeah, she’s the executive director
Jessica Escobedo
and she it’s just amazing what this woman can do. It’s just mind blowing like she’s on top of everything and she knows, you know, she everyone goes to her for, you know, the best ideas and everything like that. She just in charge of everyone so she knows, you know, how many volunteers and she knows like how many vendors she’s in charge of her farmers and she brings them in and each performer’s paid the community matter.
Jessica Escobedo
She’s in charge of that area as well. And she brings in the community matters. Our media. She’s on top of the media. Have you guys gotten this? You know, she’s so much involved in everything and, you know, the capacity of let her brain holds is just, you know, an amazing thing. And we’re like, wow, how do you do this?
Jessica Escobedo
You know? But she’s still on top of everything. And if you happen to forget something, you see email from my mom was like, were you on top of this? So, you know, just just finishing things that she’s done throughout the year and definitely extended this festival.
Tom Heath
And I didn’t know these are the music fans. The performers are paid. Yes. I assume they’re all volunteers.
Jessica Escobedo
No, they’re all paid. That’s our way of giving back to the community as well, because the performers, you know, they bring so much energy to the festival. So a lot of what we do you to some of your yourself is giving back to community as well.
Tom Heath
Someone who’s been in Tucson for 25 years and probably gone to to something to serve almost every every year. I’m amazed at how similar it is every year, but how diverse it is every year. I think each time I go, I will see something that I think is a lawyer is the first time, and they’re like, No, we’ve been here for 20 years, right?
Jessica Escobedo
They get different vendors and small so they don’t get, you know, more than three of each kind of culture in there. They make that happen so they know it’s so diverse. And that’s just the way that we keep it diverse is limiting the amount of each culture being at the festival itself and that each culture I’m sorry, each food vendor and what they bring.
Tom Heath
They’re on your website. You’ve got a very good layout of the festival with. So we’ll link to that and make sure people can see that there be some obviously restrictions in driving to downtown to some partnership. And I talked to the folks over at Park Wise and there’s plenty of parking available with the various garages and of course the street car either.
Tom Heath
And people.
Jessica Escobedo
I mean.
Tom Heath
That you particularly are in charge of volunteers.
Jessica Escobedo
Yeah.
Tom Heath
And so I’m assuming at this point you have all the volunteers you need and don’t need any more hour.
Jessica Escobedo
How amazing would that be? Now we shoot for 700, you know, and I know it sounds crazy, but we need so many people to help you demand the festival. One of our biggest area is because we’re trying to be a green festival as well. We do about 50 £300 of compost, and so we have every so many volunteers buy each trash can trying to change the public what’s recyclable, It’s compostable and lunch ways and we’ll go to the landfill.
Jessica Escobedo
So that’s one of our biggest areas that we’re trying to bring in. Volunteers to teach the community how to go green better.
Tom Heath
And that’s a partnership with the U. Of a right.
Jessica Escobedo
With the compost cats. Yeah, and check the labs who is a professor at the AVAI has really manned that and brought some of Charlotte to the festival with that as well. I mean there’s so many things that I didn’t know. I know Campus Cats made a video online that we use as our training tool now like you cannot, you know, recycle plastic for plastic bags because you know, their machine cannot dispose of that.
Jessica Escobedo
Like, well, we never near that. I would always do that myself. So you’re just learning so many different things then? Yeah. I mean, the volunteers are definitely the backbone of the festival.
Tom Heath
So besides helping sort out compost, recyclable and landfill, what are some of the roles that volunteers play?
Jessica Escobedo
We sell beverages at the festival. That’s one of our ways of income. A lot of people don’t realize that we’re a nonprofit organization, and so, you know, we kind of have to live off of donations. And ways we make money is by selling beverages, sodas and waters and refillable waters. And so that’s one of the positions for the volunteers as well.
Jessica Escobedo
Volunteers are able to be leaders at the festival that are called area captains, and we kind of rely on them to manage certain areas of the festival. And they help us tremendously. And that’s a good leadership physician. I would say about 50% of our volunteers. Are you these students required to do for self-reliance through the hours, But a lot of them just come back and just do it out of the kindness of their heart, which is really amazing.
Jessica Escobedo
And the community We have returning volunteers for, you know, ten years. A lot of them have been doing it for much longer than that. So there is merchandise selling as well. That’s another way we try to make revenue. There is volunteers that, like I said, the charge there is volunteers that you have 16 different positions, 16, 16 campuses.
Tom Heath
I think the point is if you’re thinking about supporting the community, it’s okay to reach out just to to find out what’s available because there might be a sense for.
Jessica Escobedo
there is. Yeah. I definitely search for almost everyone. People who are introverted, you know, we have positions for them that are more behind the scenes and they don’t really have to speak to the community of people who want to learn more, you know, things like information booth Like they could just talk to as many people as they want to.
Jessica Escobedo
They could go online and to some of your self-talk. And there’s a list of all of our positions different times. It’s each position is only 4 hours long, so they could sign up for as many as they want and they get so many different little perks that we try to show that we appreciate them shirts. They get shirts.
Jessica Escobedo
But one of the big ones is the food voucher. And after each chef, they get some food vouchers age range, which is pretty amazing that we do that, too. So, you know, we try to show the community that we definitely appreciate them because without them, you know, the festival wouldn’t run the way it does. So.
Tom Heath
Yeah, last thing, if you want to touch on this, that would be great. But to some each yourself, it’s an event. I know you work on a year round, but it’s it’s focused over the four or five day period in October. But you’re part of the Southwest Folklife Alliance in Kentucky with that relationship because that seems like that’s more of the like not necessarily umbrella organization, but it’s a a more year round effort.
Jessica Escobedo
Yeah, Southwest Folklife Alliance actually puts on this in some years. So Lima’s she’s the program manager. She actually, you know, is out there getting grants and everything to put on these different programs and so many different programs that they’re putting on.
Tom Heath
I thought it was a partnership to summit yourself as a program of the alliance.
Jessica Escobedo
That’s correct.
Tom Heath
I didn’t realize that.
Jessica Escobedo
Yes, that’s one of the programs that’s half that’s full time.
Tom Heath
So it seems like we probably need to do a another show on that for class alliance.
Jessica Escobedo
Yeah, I mean, it’s amazing and everything that they do for the community, like if you’re just part of these different programs, you realize how much they actually do for everybody. And giving back is like a big thing that you’ve done. So it makes me appreciate them and come back every year. Yeah.
Tom Heath
Can you tell me about the Culture Kitchen with that? What that entails is that it’s not another vendor that’s.
Jessica Escobedo
Culture Kitchen like that acts for the families. We’ve brought in families to share recipes and the transfer of food knowledge with cooking demonstrations. So it’s kind of like a stadium. People look in and learn so much about the the culture of it.
Tom Heath
Is that new this year? I think.
Jessica Escobedo
We’ve done that every year, each and.
Tom Heath
Every single.
Jessica Escobedo
Yeah, it’s jointly it’s jointly 18 with the City of gastronomy and creative to some countries. Yeah. So it’s in there. It’s an ad hoc committee. APPLAUSE every time. So it’s like a Big Ten people like a girl. And that’s another volunteer position. That’s for Kitchens Instant.
Tom Heath
It’s an amazing weekend. It’s already second Saturday time and up a second.
Jessica Escobedo
Certified always happens and that and we kind of conflict with a lot of times with the U of a football games is sometimes conflict with family weekend so there’s always competing downtowns fires that.
Tom Heath
That you still manage to we.
Jessica Escobedo
Still.
Tom Heath
Manage to get 140,000 people.
Jessica Escobedo
To slow down. Yeah our struggle is the volunteers are that time but if we make it happen every year so.
Tom Heath
I appreciate your what appears to be a lifelong devotion to the.
Jessica Escobedo
Team.
Tom Heath
They say why and wish you much success this year. We’ll check out and take some pictures and and make sure we capture what’s going on out there.
Jessica Escobedo
Great. Thank you so much for doing this and that. Bringing light to Tucson Meet Yourself.
Tom Heath
This was the 2018 interview with Jessica Escobedo, then the volunteer manager for the Tucson Meet Herself, giving us some history of the festival and event, as well as some of the key players that have made it special over the years. It happens this weekend, the 13th through 15th. If you head over to our Facebook page, we’ll link to it.
Tom Heath
But you can get all the the details of the performers and such from their website, which is Tucson. Meet yourself dot org. My name is Tom Heath. You are listening to Life on the Streetcar in Downtown Radio 99.1 FM and streaming on downtown radio dot org.
Tom Heath
It’s nice as we approach our six year anniversary, which I think is coming up here in a couple of weeks, the amount of information we’ve been able to uncover and archive is fascinating. So the interview that we listen to is recorded in 2018, but back then we were doing multiple segments per show, so only a fraction of what you heard was actually on the air.
Tom Heath
So even though it’s five, five years ago, we have some fresh content for you. And if there’s anything you want to learn about, anything that you think we should be sharing, hit us up on Instagram or Facebook. Tell us what’s out there or ask us what you know, kind of give us a challenge to find something out about something or someone.
Tom Heath
We’d love to do that. Always appreciate that feedback. And then don’t forget to head over to downtown radio dot org and take a look at all the other shows you can listen to here on downtown radio. Like right after me, we’ve got Ted Frizzell ski with words and work and then Ty Logan at the top of the hour with heavy mental.
Tom Heath
Well, we’re going to leave you today with music from one of the performers coming up here at Tucson. Meet yourself, Dan Levinson. He’s going to be performing on Saturday in the evening there on the Huckabee Plaza stage. And I wanted to get a little bit of his music out there in the world. This is from a 2021 album, I’m sorry, 2001 album called A Bare Naked Banjos.
Tom Heath
And you’re listening to Doctor Doctor with Dan Levinson. My name is Tom Heath. I hope you have a great week and tune in next Sunday for more life along the streetcar I.
