Dogwood

Hi - I attended the U of A graduation this past weekend and was surprised to see tortillas tossed by many of the graduating students during the ceremonies. Could someone please explain the history of this unique event? Thanks!

SamK

Tortilla toss a Tucson tradition - News

Dogwood

Thanks SamK. I am surprised though. I never would have thought of it in racist terms. I just thought of young people celebrating in a wacky southwestern style.

SamK

In my opinion the racism claim is a case of some people being overly sensitive. Tossing hats is a universal graduation tradition, so you can expect that the students will toss SOMETHING. But tossing those hats is somewhat of a safety risk because they are hard. Tortillas are soft and cheap and they fly like Frisbees. And they are common in the Southwest. I think tossing tortillas is the obvious choice for UA graduations.

I've never seen this tortilla-tossing behavior. How much of it goes on during the ceremonies vs. at the very end? I would think it would be very disruptive if kids toss tortillas if/when the speeches get boring!