UA student Bunny Uriarte, host and creator of a live one-hour variety television show called “”The Bunny Show,”” sat down with Daily Wildcat reporter Stephen Real to talk about her show, school and stereotypes.

How did you come up with the show?

I did an internship in high school at St. Gregory High School and we had to choose a business around town, so I chose Access Tucson, the public TV station, and when I was there I learned that you can take one class and start your own show. So I was really interested in it, and I have always wanted to have a TV show. So that’s how I started it and while I was thinking of what kind of concept I wanted for the show … I was thinking that I want to do something that involves my heritage and my culture, and I realized there is a lot of negative coverage of the media about Mexicans and minorities. So I was like, I want to have a show where I could dispel those stereotypes and restore positive images of the minorities. So that is what this show’s mission is: It is to basically promote minority talent here in Tucson and promote a positive image for them.

How long have you been doing the show?

I have been doing it for three years. It started off as just a desk show in a small studio, and it was just like a talk show. But our ultimate goal was to bring bands and singers into a larger studio so that we could have a variety show. Then we started off with a dance contest called Tejano Dance Contest and that was our first big thing. And then after that, it evolved into a variety show because we found that there was so much talent here in town that needed to be exposed and we found that was a perfect way to do it.

Why bilingual? Was that a personal choice?

Yeah, because we wanted to make it like a Mexican variety show and we thought that Spanish was important, and a lot of the audience that we were trying to reach speaks Spanish so we thought that that would be a good thing to have on the show, because we haven’t seen a lot of shows on public TV that have Spanish in them so we thought we’d reach that audience and make a show that they could relate to.

Do you talk about other issues on your show such as the presidential elections?

We do, but our intention for the show wasn’t to be political, but sometimes it just happens and it’s important to us and we want to share that with people. But we had Regina Romero on – she is on the city council now – she’s come a couple times now to talk about community issues and events. Also Steve Leal – he’s on the city council as well – and comes on and he informs the community of important events like the upcoming elections. He encourages people to go out and vote. But we do talk about those types of things. We’ve a lot of support from the local politicians, especially Regina Romero and Steve Leal. So sometimes we do.

What do you enjoy most about the show?

I would say my favorite part about the show is the human involvement, the human interaction with other people. It’s just a really cool experience to have everyone come together and just work on this together. We dance together, we talk and we have a lot of fun, and I think that it’s important for humans to interact like that. It feels like a community and a family. So my favorite part is just the people and staying connected with them. Also, promoting minority talent who haven’t been promoted. Just meeting all those people. It’s cool because we’ve had people from Sunny Side High School; we had their folklórico on and we formed a strong partnership with them and Tucson High, Pueblo High School. We’ve had so many mariachis and the singers in town come on, and we’ve made a lot of good friends through it. So yeah, it’s a good time.

Do you ever talk about the U of A?

We feel that it’s necessary to have an ambassador from the U of A for the show, because I think that would help with those students who want to come onto the show to show their talents.

So Hispanic awareness is a main focus on you show?

Yeah, just minority awareness and Hispanic awareness. Also Native American awareness because we want to help out those kids as well. We also try to encourage education here on the show like going to college. Sometimes we bring on college students to talk about their experience to inspire the younger kids to go college.

When does your show air?

It airs every 15 days on Friday and it airs live on digital TV, and it’s channel 120 at 6 p.m. to 7 and then it replays on Sunday at 5 (p.m.) on Cox 98.