Vanguardia with James Garcia

Teatro Dignidad premieres a new work, "Los Que Regresan," by Mexico City playwright Hugo Salcedo, on Nov. 5, about an immigrant family forced to self-deport to avoid detention and family separation in the face of the latest mass deportation wave in the United States. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that as many as 1.5 million people, including immigrants and their families, many of whom are U.S. born, left the U.S. in the first 18 months of the Trump administration.

Our guests are Artistic Director Alba Jaramillo, Co-director Alida Wilson-Gunn, and actor Jose Garcia Davis.

For ticket information, visit www.teatrodignidad.org.

The City of Chandler has appointed Julianna Crespo, a performing arts executive with more than 14 years of experience, as the new general manager of the Chandler Center for the Arts (CCA).

Crespo sat with Vanguardia's James Garcia to talk about the center's new season, her career and vision, and new major upgrades to the arts facility, which celebrates its grand reopening on Saturday, Oct. 24, 3 to 6 p.m.

Admission to the reopening celebration is free.

Crespo takes the helm at CCA after a nationwide job search that drew 240 applicants.

Learn more about the center.

Our guest is Latin Grammy and Grammy Award winner Lila Downs, the daughter of Mixtec singer Anita Sanchez and Scottish-American art professor and filmmaker. Allen Downs.

We've invited her on the show ahead of her concert at the annual ⁠Dia de Los Muertos celebration at the Mesa Arts Center⁠ Oct. 24 and 25.

(Downs performs Oct. 24 at 8 p.m. Jazz-fusion violinist Quetzal Guerrero opens for her at 7 p.m.)

A singer, songwriter, and anthropologist, her work taps into traditional, popular, and indigenous Mexican music. To say that her tastes and repertoire are eclectic is an understatement.

Her newest recording, Cambias mi Mundo (You Change My World), was released in April. It features Portuguese, Cuban, and Mexican influences.

Israel Alexander is a Phoenix-based actor starring as Edgar Allan Poe in the Southwest Shakespeare production of Whispers in the Dark at the Mesa Arts Center, Oct. 15-25. The show features theatrical dramatizations of some of Poe's greatest works, including The Raven. LA-born Alexander, who is Salvadoran American, talks about his career, his craft, and his love of characters "with purpose."

For tickets, visit https://www.swshakespeare.org/whispersinthedark

The Hispanic Research Center and Bilingual Press | Editorial Bilingüe at Arizona State University are marking the sister organizations' 40th anniversaries. Our guests are HRC Director Stella Rouse and Anita Huizar-Hernandez, publisher and managing editor, Anita Huizar-Hernandez. Rouse and Huizar, who also teach at ASU, discuss the HRC's history and mission, its relaunch, and goals for the future.

Formed in the 1960s, Los Changuitos Feos (The Ugly Little Monkeys), a youth mariachi group would rise from the Tucson barrios to achieve international acclaim and spark a youth mariachi movement across the U.S.

But guided by a charismatic and musically gifted Catholic priest, their road to success was also marked by a dark secret that nearly tore the group apart.

Vanguardia talks to the co-directors of a new documentary film about the group seven years in the making, David E. Valdez and Enrique Castillo, and with Wilfred Arvizu the author of the book that inspired the movie, "Bless Me Father for You Have Sinned: The Behind the Curtain Story of Los Changuitos Feos & Their Founding Father."

To learn more about the film, go to uglylittlemonkeys.com.

Our guests are actor-playwright Herbert Siguenza and playwright Carlos Morton, the duo behind Diego Rivera: His Story, a new one-man show about the life of the famed Mexican muralist.

Morton and Siguenza co-wrote the play, which has toured in Europe and across the U.S. You can catch a free performance Sept. 18 at the Central Library in Whittier, California.

The play is set in the aftermath of Frida Kahlo’s funeral and follows the influential painter's life as he grapples with fame, grief and mortality.

Siguenza was recently the Playwright in Residence for the San Diego Repertory Theatre. He is also a founding member of Culture Clash, the most produced Chicano theater troupe in the United States.

As a solo writer and performer, Mr. Siguenza has written and produced Cantinflas!, A Weekend with Pablo Picasso, Steal Heaven, El Henry (Best new play San Diego Critics Circle Award 2014), Manifest Destinitis, Beachtown, Bad Hombres/Good Wives, A People’s Cuban Christmas Tale, It’s A Wonderful Vida, Star of Ocotillo and The Many Sins of Diego Rivera.

Siguenza is also an accomplished visual artist and has exhibited nationally and around the world.

Our panel of activists say federal immigration authorities are running roughshod on the law, but they remain hopeful concerted efforts to push back and expose abuses can turn things around. Our guests are Zaira Garcia of Fwd.us, immigration attorney Emilia Bañuelos, and Vivian Sarafin of Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA). (20 mins.)

The Latino Cultural Festival, organized by TeatroMeshico, celebrates the international roots and richness of Latino/a identity.

Our guests, Theresa Valenzuela and Mario Zapian, talk about what's in store for the event this year.

Now in its fifth year, the festival features poetry, theater, folkloric dances, art exhibitions, live music, and children 's arts activities.

The festival is May 9, noon to 5 p.m., at the Helen K. Mason Performing Arts Center, 1333 East Jefferson St., Phoenix, Arizona.

Admission is free to this all-ages family event.

For information: email [email protected]

The Nash is enrolling for its Jazz Summer Camp at Arizona School for the Arts, a weeklong immersive jazz program for student musicians that runs from June 14-20, 2026.

On our show this week to talk about the summer camp are jazz musicians and camp instructors Corcoran Holt, Clark Gibson and Ashlin Parker.

The camp is open to instrumentalists and vocalists 12 and up. It offers intensive, hands-on jazz instruction led by a nationally and world renowned performers and educators.

Full details on how to register, visit thenash.org/2026-summer-camp

Scholarships

A limited number of partial and full scholarships are available for students under 18.

To get more information, contact Director of Education Clark Gibson at [email protected].