250+ Years of Tucson’s Hispanic Heritage
Celebrating 250+ years since the founding of El Presidio de Tucson.
This story was first published in the 2025 Tucson Insider’s Guide
Like the rich colors and delicate weaving of the traditional Mexican serape, Tucson’s Hispanic heritage is woven into the fabric of everyday life. It is found in the sounds of Spanish and Spanglish, both spoken nearly universally in the Viejo Pueblo. You can find it in our architecture. You can find it in mariachi, cumbia, and banda music–the soundtrack of Tucson. Here in Arizona’s second-largest city, you can eat your way through hundreds of restaurants, food trucks, street vendors and experience amazing cultural festivals like the Tucson International Mariachi Conference and Tucson Meet Yourself (affectionately referred to by locals as Tucson Eat Yourself)
Mexican and Spanish American History lives on in Tucson’s Barrio Viejo
Rows of beautiful and colorful row houses along Tucson’s Barrio Viejo date to the mid 1800s when Tucson was still a part of Mexico. They were built from exposed mud adobe block, featuring high ceilings, stone foundations, canales (roof drainage pipes), and vigas (round roof timbers). Central hallways called zaguanes lead from the exterior door to a patio or courtyard. These hallways are a characteristic of Spanish colonial architecture of this time period. Many of the first streets in Tucson had Spanish names. Language was an important part of the history of the built environment in Tucson.
An 1892 map of Tucson shows many of the streets and their Spanish names.
Barrio Viejo’s style of urban architecture is unique to Tucson. Its vibrant homes are located in the one-mile area of Cushing Street to the north and 18th Street to the south, Stone Avenue to the east and the Frontage Road to the west.
You can book a walking tour of the one-mile Barrio Viejo neighborhood through the Presidio San Agustín del Tucson Museum. The tour begins at El Tiradito Wishing Shrine.
Located within Barrio Viejo is El Tiradito Wishing Shrine. Legend says that in the late 1800s a man named Juan Oliveras married the daughter of a wealthy rancher. Oliveras later fell in love with his mother-in-law and the two fell in love. The rancher, after finding out of the affair, killed both of them and buried their bodies at El Tiradito. El Tiradito is revered by Tucson’s Mexican American community. There, the faithful pray for lost causes and light candles for both the living and the dead.
Urban renewal destroys La Calle, a beloved Mexican-American Tucson community. In the 1960’s, nearly 250 homes in the thriving neighborhood known as La Calle (just north of where Barrio Viejo stands today) were bulldozed as City leaders made room for what is now the Tucson Convention Center. This year, through a partnership between Rio Nuevo, the Tucson Convention Center and Borderlands Theatre, visitors to the Tucson Convention Center grounds can use an augmented reality app to see how Mexican-American, Chinese-American and Tohono O’odham and Yaqui families residents and families of the time lived.
Experience authentic Sonoran cuisine in Tucson
As the first UNESCO City of Gastronomy in the United States, it’s no wonder that Tucson is home to America’s Best Mexican Food. Tucson’s Mexican food scene draws heavily from the vaquero (cowboy) influence of Sonora, giving way to the food corridors along 12th Avenue, the City of South Tucson, and Tucson’s west side. Three of Tucson’s James Beard nominees and foodie rockstars–Maria Mazon, Wendy Garcia and Flavia Briones–draw heavily from the Mexican culinary canon.
Tucson is on the national gastronomy map. It is also the birthplace of folk rock bad-ass and Mariachi legend, Linda Ronstadt. And for that matter, the chimichanga! So when it comes to food and culture, Tucsonans hold on to their Mexican-American roots like a badge of honor. Locals, transplants and out-of-towners lose themselves in 23 miles of tacos, menudo, mariscos, elote. Here, wiping your Hot-Cheeto fingers on your jeans or blissfully diving into loaded bags of Tostilocos like a middle-schooler is just what we do.
Along 12th Avenue, a predominantly Mexican-American community, visitors and locals continue flocking to the O.G.’s of the carne asada taco and Sonoran hot dog–BK’s and El Guero Canelo. Since the early 1990’s these taco shops located across from one another have been serving up staples of Sonoran street food, and most recently, the quesabirria, a recent addition to the Sonoran food canon. Think of a quesadilla stuffed with mouth-watering birria (shredded beef marinated in its savory juices).
In the City of South Tucson, a one-square mile city within a city, you can find a hole-in-the-wall spot called El Torero. There, Michael Hultquist, Jr. is keeping a family tradition alive while experimenting with dishes like spicy tuna truffle hash browns, while serving up classic combo plates and a lineup of piping hot Mexican soups, and even paying homage to local artist Danny Martin, naming a burro after him.
Across from Pueblo High School, home of one of the best youth mariachi ensembles in the country, a spot called Taqueria Porfis serves up tacos al vapor (steamed tacos). Taqueria Porfis started out of a carreta in the border city of Nogales, Sonora, catering to the lunchtime crowd along Ingenieros street. Like all delicious things in Tucson, Porfis made its way up from the border along Interstate 19. You could probably eat ten tacos in one sitting, so bring a friend. For Tucsonans, food brings us together.
Tucson’s version of SXSW: Pueblos de Maiz, Agave Heritage Festival, and Tucson International Mariachi Conference
Tucson is one of four world heritage sites that celebrates Pueblos del Maiz, an international festival celebrating corn, a food source that has been sustaining life in the Sonoran Desert and around the world for millennia. Tucsonans are connected to corn primarily through the corn tortilla, and through traditional Mexican and Sonoran dishes like menudo and pozole that make use of hominy. From tacos to quesadillas to chilaquiles, to entomatadas, to tostadas, and more, the corn tortilla is ubiquitous. It is traditionally prepared on top of a comal (large metal disc) over a crackling mesquite fire by the rapid pat-pat-pat of calloused hands.
This year’s Pueblos del Maíz Festival took place across four days of cooking demos, celebrations, lectures, concerts, and film. It began with a panel discussion with Hispanic food entrepreneurs, among them Ray Flores (his family’s restaurant El Charro is known as the birthplace of the chimichanga). It included collaboration dinners with visiting chefs Jaime Gonzalez from San Antonio, Texas and Chef Nidia Sanchez from Mexico, honoring the ancestral ways of corn. Add to that a Selena tribute band Bidi-Bidi-Banda, the Pueblos del Maíz Fiesta, and a concert by Grammy-nominated, Afro-Cuban Rockstar Cimafunk and you have all the ingredients for one of Tucson’s biggest festivals.
Another popular springtime event in Tucson is the Agave Heritage Festival, celebrating the culture of the agave plant, native to the Sonoran region, which is used to make tequila.
Photo credit: Agave Heritage Festival
Mariachi music is a way of life in Tucson. In 1983, Mariachi Cobre founder Randy Carrillo pitched the idea for a mariachi competition that became the Tucson International Mariachi Conference.
The conference is one of the largest mariachi events in the U.S., later inspiring Linda Ronstadt’s grammy-winning, double platinum album Canciones de Mi Padre when she herself took part in the conference. It is the biggest-selling non-English album in American history.
