The 51st annual Tucson Meet Yourself festival runs Oct. 4-6 at downtown’s Jácome Plaza.

But organizers prefer to call it the first of the next 50 years.

Festival co-directors Maribel Alvarez and Bryan Falcon want to take the 51st event back to the first one by putting education centerstage.

The folklife festival was founded by Tucson cultural anthropologist Jim Griffin and his wife Loma in 1974 to create an event where “people would understand, you know, cultural diversity at a very experiential level,” Alvarez said. 

The three-day Tucson Meet Yourself represents the city’s cultural makeup through food, music, dance and art every fall in the heart of downtown Tucson. 

Back in the 70s, Alvarez said, before multiculturalism, people lived in enclaves. Ethnicity was something you kept to yourself and within your group of people. Griffin wanted Tucson to “meet yourself” through the cultural makeup of its neighbors. 

The name of the festival, originally with a comma after Tucson, was Griffin’s way of inviting the people of Tucson to come together and meet their neighbors.

In his mind, according to Alvarez, food was the anchor. Food was what would bring people together and it would be an educational experience. 

Hence the nickname, “Tucson Eat Yourself.” 

But the mission of the festival has been overshadowed by the food. 

“The goal is to not ever lose the mission of being a culturally rich, educational space, and not just fun and food,” Alvarez said.

To bring back the educational aspect this year, there will be 18-inch stickers plastered on pavement throughout the festival, asking different questions to get attendees to reflect on their own cultural traditions. 

“Such reflections celebrate our core humanity and reveal the ways we all, despite our differences, seek to embellish ordinary life with beauty and meaning,” the organizers reported. 

Additionally, there will be a new folklife pavilion where people will speak about culture in an intimate space, and a kidlore pavilion for children to experience folklore themselves, featuring a musical instrument “petting zoo,” live performances and crafts.

The Arizona State Museum will have a pop-up exhibit of artwork that calls attention to car culture and adaptations. 

New music from two different Indigenous cultures–Waila music from the Tohono O’odham Nation and Chamame music from Argentina–will come together to share the traditions they both have with the accordion.

Every two to three years, Tucson Meet Yourself collects feedback from attendees on what can be improved. After last year’s survey, Tucson Meet Yourself this year is broadening its accessibility, changing its layout of the food booths to accommodate long lines and selling cold canned water, as well as still giving out free water. 

“Now, the multicultural economy of arts and food is very robust,” Alvarez said. “You can eat a lot of foods that are different in many events, so one of the things we need to do is try to keep our festival as a cultural enrichment experience, not just entertainment.”

Pace yourself, Alvarez advises those coming to Tucson Meet Yourself for the first time. She recommends that those coming for the food try them in smaller portions, and then explore the rest of the festival. 

“Try to go to the folk artists and talk to the native communities that came from the Tohono O’odham Nation,” she said. 

There is more to Tucson Meet Yourself than the food, but the food can lead to connections between strangers. Alvarez has witnessed these encounters herself, when someone asks another what food they’re eating, how it tastes and where’s it from. 

A flavor, a taste, can bring two people into conversation, and we need more of that as a society that is as stressed and divided as we are, Alvarez said, calling the food, cultural and social aspect of Tucson Meet Yourself  “oxygen for democracy.” 

This year, Tucson Meet Yourself has 50 food vendors, 15 of which are new to the event. 

Bollywood Pizza Company, a collaboration between Tucson’s Empire Pizza and Saffron Indian Bistro, opened its food truck in May of 2024 serving Indian fusion pizza, and is coming to Tucson Meet Yourself for its first year. 

The flatbread crust is thinner and a crispier than traditional pizza crust, said Sarah Peterson, who does social media for Bollywood Pizza Company. Like other pizza, Bollywood uses tomato sauce, but offers three different, Indian toppings; chicken tikka masala, chana masala and paneer tikka masala. 

The chicken tikka masala is marinated in Indian spices, the chana masala, a vegan option, is chickpeas with masala sauce and the paneer tikka masala is a type of Indian cheese that’s marinated and vegetarian. 

David Furmanski, a co-owner of Empire Pizza and Bollywood Pizza Company, described  Bollywood Pizza to Peterson as “in your face, it’s bright, it’s fun, it’s exciting… but it’s very welcoming and comforting,” she said.

Also new to Tucson Meet Yourself is Hungry Kepuha serving tradition food from Guam.

It’s owned by Guam native and veteran Anthony Ooka II, who learned to cook when he was a young boy, cooking for his father and uncles. It wasn’t something he wanted to do, he said, but had to do, and then it turned into something he loved because he was good at it. 

Ooka offers four types of chicken plates; his best-selling coconut, the chef’s favorite Chamoru, the sweet-and-savory Filipino and the Kepuhas, the newest addition to the menu. Each plate is served with white rice and a side of Finadene, a soy sauce and vinegar based sauce. 

Tucson Meet Yourself recognizes that it’s not the only cultural game in town anymore; Tucson has dozens of food-centric events including the Fourth Avenue Street Fair, held in the winter and spring. 

But according to organizers, no other Tucson event “celebrates folklife, the things we make, say and do in shared groups, the expressions of community and belonging that we sometimes overlook because they’re so commonplace and familiar.”

“Such expressions make us who we are and magnify the way we are connected,” the organizers said. 

Tucson Meet Yourself is from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4, and Saturday, Oct. 5, and from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 6, at Jácome Plaza, in front of the Joel D. Valdez Main Library at 101 N. Stone Ave. The streets surrounding the plaza will be blocked off to vehicle traffic. 

Arizona Sonoran News is a news service of the University of Arizona School of Journalism.