Tucson Murals Project | Dusty Reyes | Substack 20 years of murals in Tucson, Arizona. Click to read Tucson Murals Project, by Dusty Reyes, a Substack publication. Launched 11 days ago.

The Tucson Murals Project is taking shape! ;)

Before the Breakdown What machines, communities, and volunteer organizations teach us about listening as leadership

And here’s where it gets tricky: in groups that value equity, accessibility, or community care, saying no can look and feel like gatekeeping. Sometimes people will accuse you of exactly that. But there's a difference between exclusion rooted in fear or ego, and boundaries rooted in care.

There’s been so much happening in my world (and the larger world) that I haven’t been writing, just handling other business. Today is a day to scrub the floors and allow the noise to dissipate.

I’ve been enjoying the Tucson Oven heating up - annnnd 113* is definitely very hot. Too hot for my Xeroshoes, actually. My feets be burninnnnn.

A City Painted By the Few Unpacking the mural money, aesthetic control, and lack of transparency in Tucson.

From where I sit downtown, I can see two murals by the same artist and now there’s word of a third going up for Tucson’s 250th birthday. I’m not here to bash the artist. But I am noticing a pattern. Over and over, it’s the same people, same aesthetic, same safe choices.

#publicart #tucson

Between light yellow quotation marks, white text reads: "If there is one truth that American history should tell us today, is that the impossible is possible — from struggles against slavery and Jim Crow to the expansion of the right to vote, and beyond." Bolded white text: "We cannot go back in time and erase the damage that transportation infrastructure and policy has caused across generations." White text: "It is not as simple as stitching back together what was ripped apart." White bolded text: "But we can build something new — more durable and more just than what came before." Bottom left, attribution in white text: "Deborah Archer," in light yellow text: "ACLU President." Bottom right, small light yellow ACLU logo. Dark green background.

Bold white text reads: "A new book from ACLU President Deborah Archer." Centered is the front cover of a book, which features a photo of a Black person walking on a shaded street that appears to be under an overpass. On the cover, white text top left says, "Deborah N. Archer," bold yellow text says, "Dividing Lines," and white text says "How Transportation Infrastructure Reinforces Racial Inequality." Below the book cover, white text says, "Any royalties from purchases made through the ACLU store will be donated to the ACLU." Bottom center is a small light yellow ACLU logo. Dark green background.

ACLU President Deborah Archer’s book “Dividing Lines: How Transportation Infrastructure Reinforces Racial Inequality” explores how transportation systems are used to destroy Black and Brown communities in America.

Purchase it now at aclu.org/dividinglines 📖

mind you, this lil scorp was chasing a 6’ tall dude carrying a full garbage bag. he gave no fucks and had exactly one message - GTFO 😂

#talesfromthefloodplain #tucson #brawleywash

Not good news.

strawberries radicalized me. i grew up in the central valley and watched my friends’ parents work all day in the heat to get them to us.

i understood then, viscerally, that we were not paying the real cost of food. corporations and middlemen took the profits and we got the pesticides and workload

every day i wake up thankful for our farm laborers.

Count me in :) your FEC video got me.

I’ve got some medical tests this week otherwise I’d be in Delano. The march is todayyyyyyy.

We just got panels over a section of a canal here on Indigenous land and there’s a sign there that says “First in the western hemisphere!” … they just went up in the last couple years. HOW?? how did it take that long, WESTERN HEMISPHERE?!? 🤣

I was born in ‘84 and I used to wonder why we didn’t cover the California Aqueduct… with anything, not even solar. In such an arid environment I just couldn’t imagine why open air with no protection made sense.

I’ve been waiting to see this my entire life.

I spent the morning working my squat and picking plastic bits, metal scraps, and roofing shingles out of the landscape.

¡Viva Dolores Huerta!

toilets, water and shade were not provided prior to the work of Dolores Huerta, César Chaves and the United Farm Workers UNION. The Delano grape boycott was no joke.

This morning I pray for our food workers - the thousands of people who wake every morning with the goal of putting food on tables. Farm laborers, restaurant workers, and my local burrito makers. You’ve helped nourish and provide for my body in ways I’ll never be able to thank you for.
#foodsecurity

I’m gonna check out this vid on YouTube - Are you familiar with Internal Family Systems? (assuming you are but curious)

👀

Yep, seriously concerning. I’ve been hearing a lot of “up until recently we agreed to ‘such and such’ but it looks like that might be changing.” Wtf… it’s called ILLEGALITY, not changing times. fuuuuhhh

eep. that’s very gross.

heck yeah. thank you.

Immigrant hands pick our food, care for our elderly, build our roads, clean our buildings & deliver our packages. #ConEstasManos

Show your support for ALL workers. March w/us on Monday, March 31 at 10:30am in Delano CA.

RSVP today @ ufw.org/cecday2025 #WithTheseHands
4/4

An unlikely act of protest: Searching the desert for dead migrants Finding hundreds of sites of migrant remains has taken its toll on James Holeman. He doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon.

“We found six sites in September — in six [expletive] hours. You know, we’re incorporating the previously reported sites from previous years into our routes, so we’re stopping by those to check on them — and … almost all the time we’re finding bones,” he said.

- James, my buddy & dude in the photo

petroglyphs on the rocks in arizona

Went for a walk this morning during a storm. It was nice and calm in the wash though :)

📍 tucson arizona

#petroglyphs #picturerocks #oursharedhistory

here’s another one from quintana roo. 😉

dig dig dig

📍 cozumel, quintana roo

#mural #publicart