Linda Ronstadt talks Tucson, Mexico and border fence

*Not long after being awarded the National Medal of Arts and Humanities at a White House ceremony, Linda Ronstadt sat for an interview about life in Arizona and border issues. She says she’s a girl from the Sonoran desert, and her culture is the culture of Aztlán. VL

By Megan Finnerty, The Arizona Republic

It’s always the little things. A comment here. A traffic jam there. A favorite vista changed over there.

And one day, you feel like you don’t belong in your own town.

It was something like that for singer Linda Ronstadt.

She’d grown up on a ranch outside of Tucson, living in San Francisco and Los Angeles for parts of her music career, only to return to Tucson in 1989. She moved to San Francisco in 2000. She has an adopted son and daughter who are in their 20s.

Ronstadt spoke about this in July on “The Diane Rehm Show” just after President Barack Obama awarded Ronstadt the National Medal of Arts and Humanities at a White House ceremony.

The hourlong radio conversation covered Ronstadt’s 40-year career — more than 100 million records sold and an April induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — her struggles with Parkinson’s disease, and then, at the end of the show, her feelings about Arizona politics.

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