Texas Folklife: The Folklorist Next Door

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Atlachinolli: Keepers of the Fire and Water is an early stage archival project by Laura Yohualtlahuiz birthed as part of the Community Folklife Fellowship documenting the contributions of Queer & Matriarchal knowledge and culture keepers in and around the Mexica Chichimeca danza and ceremonial community of Central Texas. Atlachinolli is an offering that documents the legacy and transmission of teachings and storytelling surrounding a trajectory of kinship and community building of Queer Matriarchal trailblazers that have challenged gender norms, patriarchy, and traditional roles in spaces that have typically only documented the contributions of men.

Shoutouts: "All Praise due to Creator, Ipalnemoani, Moyocoyani, Teocoyani and all my healed and healthy ancestors and guides. Tlazocamati to my creative ecosystem for supporting me through this fellowship, especially my mom, who always supports anything I do, my kids, Huitzi & Ketzal, my duality Itzli Ramirez, and my spiritual family, Kalpulli Ayolopaktzin. Gratitude for the homies Chaka & Ever @ DAWA Studios for their support in documenting my elders and peers. Thank you to Alternate Roots, Palacio de Palomas, Tlanezi Teatro Ritual, Chichimetzli Studios, and Reds Body Art for their support producing our community workshop."

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Episode Credits

Producer - Laura Yohualtlahuiz Rios-Ramirez

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Series Credits

Executive Producer - Jeannelle Ramirez

Technical Producer - Lamont Jack Pearley

Support the show

Learn more at TexasFolklife.org 
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts

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Pitaya fruit (Echinocereus stramineus), or the strawberry hedgehog cactus, is sometimes known by the general public as “dragon fruit.” The fruit grows on a plant generally referred to in Spanish as bisnaga — barrel cactus — and my family has identified at least four different types of bisnagas in the area from which to harvest. This podcast focuses on the tradition of pitaya collection in La Junta, a community and cultural region shaped by the meeting of rivers, desert, and families on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. 

Producer: Dr. Koyana Flotte

Special thanks to: Gustavo Martinez & Miguel Medias

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Series credits: 

Executive Producer: Jeannelle Ramirez

Technical Producer: Lamont Jack Pearley

Support the show

Learn more at TexasFolklife.org 
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts

Send us Fan Mail

This project documents how South Asian Texans sustain interfaith devotional music traditions through Qawwali, Bhajan, and Shabad Kirtan in Greater Houston. Using oral history interviews and field recordings, the project highlights how music fosters belonging, continuity, and coexistence within migrant communities.

Episode Produced by Sonny Mehta

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Series Credits

Executive Producer - Jeannelle Ramirez

Technical Producer - Lamont Jack Pearley 

Support the show

Learn more at TexasFolklife.org 
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts

Send us Fan Mail

Las Limpias is a podcast that visits memory and traditions from South Texas. Through conversations with family and cultural practitioners, it examines the practice of limpias, spiritual cleansings rooted in Mexican American traditions, and the cultural knowledge passed down through generations.
Part folklore, part oral history, and part cultural exploration, Las Limpias invites listeners to reflect on the ways people seek healing, protection, and connection in their everyday lives. From family stories and community rituals to questions of faith, identity, and belonging, the podcast documents living traditions that continue to influence contemporary culture while preserving voices and perspectives often absent from mainstream historical narratives.

Episode Credits
Host, Producer, Editor, Story by: Oddett Garza
Assistant Editor: Amanda Goebel
Special Thanks to the podcast guests including: Octavio Garza, Janie Garza, Mary Jane Garza, Alexis Arredondo, Elena Gonzales who generously shared their knowledge, experiences, and traditions.

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Series Credits

Executive Producer: Jeannelle Ramirez

Technical Production: Lamont Jack Pearley

Support the show

Learn more at TexasFolklife.org 
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts

Send us Fan Mail

This podcast explores folklore not as something preserved but as something lived and carried forward. Over fifteen years, I worked closely with a Holocaust survivor who escaped into the woods, joined the resistance, and rebuilt her life through fragments of song, food, and story. By the time she died in 2026 at 99, her story had become part of my own life and the performers I worked with to bring the story to life. 

What she left behind was not just narrative but something that had to be performed, and through that performance the lived experience of folklore came to life. In this series, I speak with the musicians and puppeteers who helped bring her world to the stage. Through music, objects, and performance, they stepped inside memory and carried it forward in real time.

Together, we explore what it means to translate, embody, and sustain someone else’s history, and how folklore continues to move, change, and live through those who refuse to let it disappear.

Episode Credits

• Producer – Samantha Goldberg Blackthorn

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The Folklorist Next Door Series Credits

• Technical Producer – Lamont Jack Pearley
• Executive Producer – Jeannelle Ramirez

Support the show

Learn more at TexasFolklife.org 
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts

Send us Fan Mail

As Spring returns to South Texas, the winds and rains help our iconic wild flowers break through the soil.  Communities are planning gatherings and activities that connect them with the world around them.  In this episode, we look at some of the ways ecological wisdom, spirituality and cultura have shaped the ways we interact with the return of the la primavera.   With reflections from community organizer, traditional healer and land steward, Helga Garza and Chicano Studies Scholar Dr. Tomás Ybarra-Frausto we gain insight on how flores de papel and tejido de palma have remained important crafts in South Texas for generations.

Episode Credits:

Producer – Beto DeLeon

Interviews

Dr. Tomas Ybarra Frausto
Helga Garza
Dora Alicia Gomez
Lupita Dominguez
Manuel Davila

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Series Credits

Technical Producer – Lamont Jack Pearley

Executive Producer – Jeannelle Ramirez

Support the show

Learn more at TexasFolklife.org 
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts

Send us Fan Mail

This podcast explores how dance, though ephemeral, generates tangible artifacts and living histories worth preserving in San Antonio. Opening with Mona Lisa Montgomery’s poem “Bertita’s Legacy” honoring Berta Almaguer, Montgomery shares her efforts to research Almaguer through interviews, limited archival traces, and rare community-held recordings.

These artifacts like shoes, costumes, instruments, studios, and recordings function as mementos of what communities value. Southside dance studio owner, Sarita Zúñiga emphasizes storytelling, cultural pride, and innovative work that blends genres, while costumes become cherished, reused links to memory and craft. 

Contemporary artist Catherine “Cat” Cisneros discusses scarce documentation, sacred dance spaces, and preserving artifacts such as Vladimir Marek’s salvaged wooden floor. Closing with Gio Bazaldua’s activism-centered “PanzaFusion” and dragtivism, the podcast concludes with two goals: the importance of interviewing elders in the dance community and documenting artifacts to counter cultural reduction and ensure dance legacies endure.

Episode Credits

Producer - Amber Ortega 

"I would like to dedicate this podcast to Dora Ruffner"

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Series Credits

Technical Producer - Lamont Jack Pearley

Executive Producer - Jeannelle Ramirez

Support the show

Learn more at TexasFolklife.org 
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts

Send us Fan Mail

Through the stories of community members from Houston’s East End, this episode explores how culture bearers have sustained relationships with the land through transnational plant-ways, affirming their identities, in the face of colonization, migration, and neighborhood changes over time. Throughout, Alba Donajhi bears witness and synthesizes her own plant life in her accidental homeland.

Episode Credits:

Alba Donajhi Sereno – Executive Producer, Writer, Sound Designer 
Mincho Jacob  – Field Producer

Wisdom Keepers: 
Olivia Moreno 
Laura Veles Drey
Armando Álvarez

Music: 
Fragile by Spoq - Tribe of Noise bronze license

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The Folklorist Next Door Series Credits:

Technical Producer - Lamont Jack Pearley 

Executive Producer - Jeannelle Ramirez

Support the show

Learn more at TexasFolklife.org 
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts

Send us Fan Mail

Born in the working-class neighborhoods of Ponce, Puerto Rico, over a century ago, plena is a genre of music that continues to travel wherever Puerto Ricans gather and build community. Communal in nature, it is played at social gatherings of all sorts – celebrations, funerals, protests, and open jam sessions called “plenazos.” In this episode, we will identify the characteristics of plena as defined by practitioners in the Houston, DFW, San Antonio, and Austin areas, and explore how it has been connecting Puerto Rican communities across Texas.

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Episode Producer: Adam Rosario

Narrator/Interviewer: Adam Rosario

Interviewees: Héctor Matos Miranda, Danny Rodríguez, Enqrique Quiñones Arocho, Joaquín Hernández, Leonard Vázquez

Music:
Opening sequence and instrument demo
percussion and cuatro puertorriqueño: Adam Rosario

Closing sequence (Tamborfest ATX 2026 live recording)
“Bailala” by Rafael Concepción Collazo

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Credits for The Folklorist Next Door Series

Technical Producer: Lamont Jack Pearley 

Executive Producer: Jeannelle Ramirez

Support the show

Learn more at TexasFolklife.org 
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts

Send us Fan Mail

Shrimpers in Port Isabel discuss the historical and cultural influence of the shrimping industry in the Rio Grande Valley. 
Produced by Jeannelle Ramirez with reporting by Kevin Parme. 

Support the show

Learn more at TexasFolklife.org 
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts