Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

In May, we learned that our show won seven regional Edward R. Murrow Awards for excellence in broadcast journalism.

Now that's more than all other public television stations in the country combined.

So today we'll be sharing some of those award-winning stories with you.

Please stay tuned.

(Tom) As we take a look at our Murrow Award-winning stories, meet the artists behind the Atascosa Borderlands storytelling project.

(Jack) In a single afternoon, you could wipe out that entire genetic lineage.

And once that's gone, you can't get it back.

(Tom) See how one local shelter's providing help and hope to women experiencing homelessness.

(Penny) Our volunteers really help us remember our mission and remember that what we're doing is the right thing, even though it's the hard thing.

(Tom) And Borderlands Theater shows us why Art is Vital to the Tucson community.

(Adrianna) Art is a powerful medicine that we carry with us as the sound of our heart beating.

It sets a rhythm for us that keeps us alive.

Photographer Luke Takata and naturalist Jack Dash have collected plants, taken photographs, and recorded oral histories along the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands since 2017.

Well, they've documented myriad people who live and work there to better understand this 42-mile stretch known as the Atascosa Borderlands This story won a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for feature reporting.

Congratulations to producer David Fenster, colorist Emmanuel Joubeaud, and Jim Blackwood who mastered the audio.

(upbeat music) ♪ SERENE MUSIC (Luke) Atascosa Borderlands brings together over 10,000 medium format film photographs, along with about 1,200 botanical specimens.

And the idea is to create a living archive that's dedicated to this area that we refer to as the Atascosa Highlands, which is a series of mountain ranges that run between Nogales to the east and the town of Sasabe to the west.

[Jack] We're attempting to collect physical specimens of every or almost every species that occurs out here, both native and non-native.

And of course it's nice to focus on really beautiful native plants, but you know a non-native plant like this aster growing out of this disturbed area close to the border wall access road is really interesting because these sites of disturbance become vectors for non-native and potentially invasive plants to come into this landscape.

And they act as ground zero for the spread of these non-native plants that will ripple out into the surrounding landscape.

Floristic surveys are really useful, but one of the things that often gets left out of these types of studies is why the ecology is the way that we see it today.

Oftentimes it ignores that human element that has played an integral role in shaping that ecology.

And when you bring in that human element and combine that with the data that you're able to extract from a botanical checklist, you really get a clearer picture of how specific land management practices are creating that ecology that you're looking at.

(Luke) A major part of this project is the oral history interviews that we've conducted.

(VO1) And in those days, of course, the government didn't really have much of a problem with the, you know, immigration problems.

People came and went as they pleased.

(Luke) There's always been a lot of energy and people and plants and animals passing through this area.

And to me, it's becoming less of the borderlands than it is the heartland of the southwest in this part of Mexico because it's where everything's converging.

It's the place where the jaguar and the black bear share the same trail.

(VO2) Then it wasn't until I got out here that I began to realize the history that was out that was out here that I was not aware of before.

I was not taught anything in school about the Buffalo Soldiers.

(Luke) All of those oral history excerpts are brought together with original field recordings and instrumentation by musicians Gus Tammi-Zuka and Patricio Coronado.

And it's really this immersive sound experience where we're taking you into this space.

(Jack) So these are the plants we're looking for.

It's a Coryphantha recurvata, the Santa Cruz Beehive cactus.

It's a state-listed rare plant and in the United States it's only known in any numbers from the Atascosa Highlands.

They're really healthy but they're right above this area where there's all of this erosion from the border wall construction that's really changed the hydrology of this area.

You know, who knows what the fate of these plants will be as the erosion continues to pick up on these rock faces that they grow in.

These are just some of the most beautiful ones I've ever seen up there.

In a single afternoon you could wipe out that entire genetic lineage and once that's gone you can't get it back.

So we should think very carefully about how we interact with these landscapes and how one day can undo millenia of evolution and adaptation in these plant species.

(Luke) This body of work, because of its collaborative, transdisciplinary scope, is accessible to so many more people than it would have been had it just be a flora or a body of documentary photography.

What we have in this project is an opportunity to really bring together people from very divergent, different backgrounds around the same body of work to have conversations with people that they might not otherwise have and to also exchange information across fields in a way that just in our particular time and place feels so important.

(Jack) When you're looking at these landscapes, they are very complex.

They're spaces of natural beauty.

They're also spaces where people die on a weekly or even daily basis because they are forced into those environments.

And so they really are complex because I can choose to go there.

Other people are forced to go there.

You know, this is a national forest.

We think of national forests as these incredible recreational sites or sites of natural beauty.

And the fact that this landscape is managed by our federal government is both the thing that has preserved in many ways this ecological beauty.

And yet in an era of increasing border militarization, it is also possibly the greatest threat to the continued biodiversity of these environments.

(Luke) A lot of times when we see regions like the Atascosa Highlands represented, at least within a photographic context, it's oftentimes through coverage in traditional news media outlets.

And I think with this project, we've just had an opportunity to go so much deeper in a way that just quite frankly, a traditional news outlet just wouldn't have the access or ability to do.

And I think that richness is a richness that is much more reflective of this physical area in real life.

Sister José Women's Center offers a sustainable future to women of all ages experiencing homelessness.

Through donations and grants, they provide life-altering support and resources to their guests on their journey to housing security.

This story won a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for hard news reporting.

Congratulations to dedicated producer, Özlem Özgür and photographers, Nate Huffman and Danny Sax.

(Woman 1) I had been living in a place for five years.

The owner of my house decided to sell the duplex property.

And the new owners gave everybody in those two places 28 days to get out.

And because I lived from check to check with the full-time job, I made enough to pay bills.

I don't have enough money to find housing now.

I was sleeping three days in my car, two days in a motel room.

You know what I mean?

Working full-time, running out of money.

(Nicola) Unhoused women are a hidden group because they hide to keep themselves safe.

Especially in Pima County.

Over the last few years, it's just skyrocketed.

(Woman 1) I have never been homeless before this ever in my life.

Like I said, I was afraid.

I was sleeping in my car.

I didn't know what to do with myself.

I didn't.

I didn't even know what I did wrong.

I think to myself sometimes it was me.

But I don't do drugs.

I don't drink.

I work five, six days a week.

I'm looking for a second job now.

I'm trying and I still can't find a place to live.

Nobody wants to let me in because I don't got the money.

I'm a 7-Eleven worker and I was working and a customer came in and told me, "You don't have to be sleeping in your car.

You don't have to be doing all this, Christine.

You work too hard."

And they told me about this place here.

And I came up here one morning and I seen the line and I see the people and I cried.

I was scared.

(Nicola) I walk into the center some mornings and I look.

And every chair is full and women are standing and other women are waiting to get in.

It's just unbelievable even though I know it's happening every day.

(Penny) Sister Jose's is a local homegrown organization.

Our founder is Jean Fedigan and Jean's been a powerhouse.

Our creation story starts with Jean out one night on soup patrol.

So they're at the men's shelter one night passing out soup.

And Jean quite innocently asks, "Where do the women sleep?"

And she was met by silence because there wasn't any place.

And she wanted to open up a shelter for women.

And two weeks later, they had a place downtown in a small chapel.

They had a coffee pot and they had blankets and they opened the doors at 8 p.m. And the first women came in.

They would do that during the cold winter months and then they would close.

It just became so obvious to her and to those other volunteers that that was not enough.

How can we help women change their lives so that they can become housed?

[MUSIC] (Nicola) We're serving over 200 women a day, many days.

We've had women here in their late 80s.

We had an 87-year-old woman who was blind.

How can a woman be on the street who can't see who's 87 years old?

(Kevin) There are women's shelters.

I won't tell you where they are.

We want them to be safe.

And there's not enough beds.

We see more and more elderly.

This is a new phenomenon.

As people's retirement and social security, if they have it, is a fixed amount.

And as housing prices skyrocket in this amazing fashion, the elderly get the brunt of that impact.

(Penny) I used to be able to help women find apartments that would be $350 a month.

That would include utilities.

That is impossible today.

(Woman 2) The cost of living has gone so high.

We can't afford it.

So basically because we can't afford it, you know, we do what everybody else does.

We seek shelter.

Well, I'm trying to get a room here because the HUD, especially subsidized housing, is difficult to attain.

(Penny) There's no apartment to rent because the vouchers now don't pay what the market value is of their rental.

So why would landlords even want to do that?

They can get more by trying to rent it to a person who's paying out of their pocket.

(Tia) We currently have a 42-bed shelter where women can come in and they always start with a week-long shelter stay.

They can come in on Tuesdays or Fridays.

Our center opens at 9 in the morning and women can come and sign up for showers, get a hot breakfast, get emergency clothing, do their laundry, and get a lunch when they're leaving.

They can stay inside throughout the morning just so that they aren't out on the street in the extreme weather.

We also have, after noon, a time where the women can rest.

We give them mats.

They can take naps or they can just hang out inside where it's nice and dark and quiet.

We encourage them to figure out what services they need so that they can end up housed successfully.

Some of the women will move past that week and be in what we call the impact project, which is a longer time that they can stay there and the case managers will work with them to figure out their next steps.

(Woman 1) I would walk in crying and they just made me feel so welcome.

And they're helping me now save up money so I can have that money to put for the applications because the application fees are 3 - 400 dollars just to put an application in and then how are you supposed to pay first month, last month's rent, keep food in your mouth.

You can't do it.

There's no way on one job.

And that's how I ended up here.

(Penny) This is hard work.

It's really hard work.

It's lots of personalities, lots of struggles, unfortunately, a lot of mental illness that we deal with and it can take its toll.

But when we have a new shift of volunteers coming in every day.

And they bring with them their compassion.

All their skills, all their experiences, they show our guests that we are a community who cares about them.

And again, it's those women putting out a hand to other women.

(Judie) I mainly sit at the front desk and take messages for people and greet our guests when they come in and see how we can help them with a meal.

I'm from a very privileged background relative to so many and knowing that there are other women out in the streets makes me feel like I need to give back.

(Woman 1) This is a house full of women and nobody even does any chores.

They do it.

The people here, they come and volunteer for us.

We should be thankful to them.

You know what I mean?

Be thankful because there's nobody out there to open their hands to you when you've got nobody and they did.

I had nobody in they're here for me.

(Nicola) Our volunteers allow us to say yes to so many more women.

(Penny) So our volunteers really help us remember our mission and remember that what we're doing is the right thing even though it's the hard thing.

But it's never so hard that we can't do it.

(Woman 1) They've helped me so much in just two weeks.

I've only been here two weeks and they're offering me a free housing for three months to not pay nothing to save up all my checks so that way I can afford to get in a place and live again as a full person.

You know?

(Nicola) We have to look at going from temporary housing to permanent housing and for a lot of the people we serve it's permanent supportive housing.

(Jennifer) Current expansion plan is we are adding adding more sleeping spaces so we're going to be adding about 13 more beds as well as making some of our current sleeping beds areas larger to accommodate people who are in wheelchairs or walkers or our guests that have pets that need to keep them in kennels.

On top of that we're adding three more showers including a handicap shower as well as two more bathroom stalls.

(Nicola) The funding we receive from the city is really critical so we can support the women that we serve.

(Jennifer) We got a grant from the city to cover the cost of the expansion so we're very very grateful for that.

It is currently ahead of schedule.

(Woman 1) Look what they're building in there to put more women in here.

You know how hard it is to take care of grown women?

A house full of grown women?

All in one room for three months at a time you know what I'm saying?

We're like cats.

[LAUGHS] (Penny) We have to really look at it as a community, as a nation, as to what our priorities are and that we need to really put the focus back on providing that safety net.

(Nicola) We need to decide that we're done having unhoused people because this can't go on anymore.

The numbers can't continue to increase.

We have to end homelessness.

(Tia) And hopefully one day we won't have to be in business anymore because people will be housed.

(Woman 1) And they deal with it every day these women do.

They deal with it every day and they still come here every day with a smile.

So yes I'm blessed.

I am so blessed to have met them.

(IN UNISON) One, two, three, GIRL POWER!

Borderlands Theater is at the nexus of compassion and stories.

The One Nation One Project group invited Marc Pinate and Milta Ortiz to create a project that would make art more accessible to at-risk communities.

This is the story of how the Art is Vital Project came to existence in Tucson.

This story won a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in diversity, equity and inclusion.

Congrats to producers Özlem Özgür, Cáit NíSíomón and videographers Nate Huffman, Danny Sax, and Diana Cadena.

(Lilianna) To know that they're making this musical about immigration, because that's real things that are happening in the world.

So it's almost like journalism at the end of it.

-Wouldn't it be easier if the families were kept together as they once were?

(Marc) Borderlands Theater has really been dedicated to theater about social issues, trying to tell the story of the underdog.

A lot of plays around migrant experience, certainly as the name implies, the experiences of folks rooted in the Sonoran Desert.

(Milta) We are part of the One Nation One Project Arts for Everybody happening across the country.

We are part of 17 other cities, so there are 18 of us, all producing an event celebrating the connection between the arts and wellness to communities The Tucson version of Art is for Everybody is an event called Art is Vital.

Our full season has been to expose our community and our patrons to different art activities.

Part of it is a performance of 'Anita,' which is a new musical that we've been developing.

That musical is about an orphan girl that's separated at the border from her parents, she's from El Salvador.

And she goes to a detention center and, you know, never gives up hope.

It's really a play about joy and optimism and community.

♪ There's nothing we won't do ♪ ♪ in the land of the free, hey!

♪ A lot of the times, we hear our stories through the eyes of other people, through a lot of outside sources.

Borderlands Theater kind of cuts right through the middleman, and they go direct to the people who actually live those stories.

♪ SINGING Yeah, now, what should we do?

It's a nice volume to shake the room.

We know that here in Tucson, there's a large native and Mexican-American community.

And those stories often get left out of the larger story of Tucson.

I think what Borderlands Theater is doing is very unique, and that's bring culturally responsive and culturally relevant opportunities for the communities that we're working with.

[SPANISH]: One, two, three ♪ SOMBER VIOLIN ♪ (Oscar) Anita the Musical was a story of separation, it's a story of unification as well.

And many of the community members expressed after the musical that they related to that story that they found a special connection and a meaning behind it.

♪ MEXICAN MUSIC (Melissa) Marc and Milta really wanted us to showcase artwork and artists in the community that could represent the idea of why art is vital.

That open call, it's bringing forward all of these folks, cuz these are up and coming artists.

that sometimes don't even have the space to show maybe the one piece that they've been dedicated to.

(Melissa) All of the art will be present at the Berger Theater.

We will bring them all out and display them in the lobby.

So everyone that comes to the Fiesta will be able to see all the pieces that were submitted.

(Melo) This opens up that space to remind everybody that art is vital and it may be our last true freedom.

♪ GENTLE GUITAR (Oscar) Marc Pinate, the artistic producing director of Borderlands Theater came to us wanting to learn more about our program and how we were working with families.

He presented that through the arts, there's been evidence that people's well-being improves, communities are healthier.

We saw this as an opportunity for families and community members to begin to look into different ways of accessing hope, accessing health and wellness.

(Adriana) Art is Vital event was a very important chapter for me personally.

It had been a while since I was able to be in community.

The intersection of well-being, of art making, and really talking about issues that impact our brothers and sisters here most especially here in southern Arizona.

I feel like art is a good way to express yourself and there's many different forms of art so it's not really like you don't have to fit into one box.

I use my thinking so I can draw whatever I want.

So I use a drawing video so I can draw anything else like, I want and I can keep them and hang them up.

I learned how to draw to learn how to draw Godzilla and Sonic.

And I learned how to draw Venom.

Sometimes I give up and sometimes I don't.

And I try it and I can do it.

[APPLAUSE] [ SPANISH ]: Good evening, friends.

[SPANISH]: How are you?

Shall we introduce the premiere of Anita brought to you by our very own Borderlands Theatre.

(Adriana) Art is a powerful medicine that we carry with us as the sound of our heart beating.

It sets a rhythm for us that keeps us alive.

I transfer those same qualities to art, especially as it relates to health and wellness and ways in which we can nourish our bodies and our minds.

I grew up in a broken family, but art was the only space that I had that I could get to when I needed to.

And so for those immediate reasons for me, that's what comes to mind is that's why art is vital.

As a growing artist in the same situation, I found like-mindedness in groups of other artists.

There's a lot of kids in my school or in any school where they're, maybe they struggle in certain areas, and yet they can come in and sing a song and feel good about what they're doing, or they can act in a play and get over their shyness and develop confidence.

And there's so many things that art does to build the whole child or the whole person.

♪ Go up and get right in your mind ♪ (Tom) To see the full version of this story and dozens of other Arizona Illustrated stories with Spanish language subtitles, go to azpm.org/espanol And to see all seven of our Murrow winning projects, go to azpm.org/Murrow Thank you for joining us here on Arizona Illustrated.

Next week, we'll be re-airing our Spanish language episode, which won a Murrow Award for excellence in innovation for the second year in a row.

I'm Tom McNamara, we'll see you then.