Southwest Flavor Ep. 178 - Janay Arenas, Luke Arenas, Jessica Moats

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

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Ron Arenas (0:13)

Hey, good morning, everyone. Welcome to Southwest Flavor. Happy Thursday to all of you.

We have a great action-packed show for you today. Lots of great guests and our first guest and also our, I guess, co-host this morning is my wife Janay. Good morning.

Janay Arenas (0:31)

Good morning. Good morning. Yeah. We started our morning really early this morning at 4 AM with coffee.

Ron Arenas (0:38)

Always.

Janay Arenas (0:40)

Smell the coffee at the other end of the house.

Ron Arenas (0:43)

Yeah. You have to start your day that way.

Janay Arenas (0:46)

There's a reason why I brought that up. But thanks for allowing me to do this segment on the show because- Sure.

Ron Arenas (0:54)

Well, let's talk about what the segment is going to be.

Janay Arenas (0:57)

First of all, I want to dedicate this episode to my nana, Emerita Aguilar. She was from Sinaloa, Mexico.

History and family and tradition was very important to her. That's where this episode fell into. It's Hispanic Heritage Month. I learned so much through this topic that when I thought about Hispanic Heritage Month, I pretty much thought it was just like food, music, colorful celebrations, festivals. I mean, those are all the beautiful parts of it.

Ron Arenas (1:42)

Sure.

Janay Arenas (1:43)

But it really has some deep roots, and Tucson has deep roots, Arizona has deep roots.

Ron Arenas (1:49)

Pretty much throughout the whole Southwest, this whole Southwest region.

Janay Arenas (1:53)

That's why I specifically chose that because I thought that this topic would fit Southwest Flavor perfectly. Let me ask you, how did you do in history in high school?

Ron Arenas (2:06)

I did great in history. I loved history in high school. So did I.

Janay Arenas (2:08)

I think that's why I like to deep dive into these subjects because last month, we did the episode on tequila. I want to consider this a spin-off off of that one because there's family, there's business, there's traditions all woven together. Same thing. What we're going to find here in this hour, it's same thing.

Ron Arenas (2:37)

Sure. Definitely.

Janay Arenas (2:39)

So when people hear Hispanic Heritage Month, they immediately think of the same thing like I did. The food, the music, the colorful celebrations. Hispanic Heritage is also about the people who raised families, built businesses, worked the land, served their communities, preserved traditions, and created opportunities for the next generation. That all sounds very familiar to us because our families have done that one generation after the next. It's a celebration of where people came from, and a recognition of what they have built and what they are still building.

Ron and Southern Arizona Hispanic Heritage is not something we have to go searching for. It surrounds us, like I just mentioned. It's in our neighborhoods, restaurants, family businesses, the celebrations, the language, the music, probably whatever somebody is cooking down the street right now.

Ron Arenas (3:37)

Oh, yeah.

Janay Arenas (3:39)

Chris was hoping that it was, what did he call it today?

Chris (3:42)

I guess it's National Queso Day?

Janay Arenas (3:44)

Queso Day, so whoever's, and it's free, right?

Ron Arenas (3:49)

I think that's what the National Made Up Holiday is.

Janay Arenas (3:52)

So whoever's making free queso, and let us know, we'll be at your door with tortillas. And my, sorry about that.

This is, and today is, the theme of today is nuestra gente, nuestra fuerza, which means our people, our strength because of what families and communities accomplish together. So a question for you, when you hear the words Hispanic heritage, what is the first memory, maybe even a person, tradition that comes to mind?

Ron Arenas (4:30)

Oh, I don't know. Well, probably, you know, making tamales for Christmas.

Chris (4:37)

Yeah, me too.

Ron Arenas (4:38)

That's always a big, big event, you know, for most Hispanic families, you know. And it's coming up. It's coming up.

Chris (4:45)

If it hasn't already, they're getting ready.

Ron Arenas (4:47)

But I mean, you have multi-generations that, you know, get together a lot of times. It's not just Nana. I mean, Nana's passing down the the the tradition, you know, to her sons or daughters. And then they're passing it down to their sons or daughters. So a lot of times there's multi-generations in that kitchen that are learning and making and making memories together and, you know, sharing those those recipes and sharing stories with each other.