I t was August, and the vibe at the Southwest Funga Fest was appropri- ately crunchy and certifiably Tucson. Men and women in floppy hats and sandals sold mushroom-filled choco- lates and quail eggs. Stalls peddled mush- room-based soaps, vials of fungal extracts, mushroom-shaped earrings and stickers. In one corner, a woman with pigtails did a headstand for her laughing children. Attendees made a foray to nearby Mount Lemmon to forage for fungi. They listened as a series of speakers discussed the potential health benefits of mushrooms and how to extract their medicinal compounds. Casiana Omick, an elemen- tary school teacher and amateur mycolo- gist, demonstrated how to use dyer’s polypore, a mushroom common to Tucson’s Santa Catalina Mountains, to turn pale white handkerchiefs into a lovely golden yellow. In the evening, they grooved to rock bands and a DJ, bopping along to trippy music with equally psychedelic visual displays. No “magic mushrooms” are dealt here, though. The emphasis is all on health and well-being. One person was missing from the festiv- ities, however — someone as central to Southern Arizona’s mushroom culture as anyone. Hernan Castro is co-organizer of the Funga Fest and the owner of Desert Alchemist, a local company that produces mushroom-derived dietary supplements. In the world of mushrooms, Castro is a big deal. He has an Instagram following of nearly 30,000 and has been profiled by the Arizona Daily Star, the Tucson Sentinel and online magazines such as Border Lore. A self-taught guru of mycology, Castro has lectured on mushrooms at events nation- wide and guided groups of initiates on foraging expeditions into the so-called “Sky Islands,” the mountains that poke up in the desert around Tucson, forming one of the most biodiverse areas in the U.S. But on this day, the only way he was able to enjoy his own event was via a FaceTime call to Omick, his girlfriend, from prison. Since late May, the 38-year-old Castro has been locked up at the Central Arizona Correctional Complex in Florence on what could generously be described as clerical bullshit. A green card holder who came to the U.S. as an adolescent, Castro was snapped up by federal agents on May 31 for one count of “false certification.” The federal government alleges that he lied on a form he filled out with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in an attempt to obtain naturalized citizenship. Castro faces a potential five-year sentence and possible deportation if convicted. Sources say that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has an immi- gration hold on him, meaning if he makes bail or is released on his own recognizance, ICE would seize him and seek his removal from the country he’s known as home for most of his life. That may be why Castro’s attorneys have successfully sought to push back his detention hearing, figuring him safer in federal lockup than he would be in immigration detention. Castro’s case has become a cause célèbre in the Old Pueblo and in the mycology world. There have been fund- raisers at local art venues and a GoFundMe page to raise money for his defense, which has netted more than $34,000 so far. Some of his friends think he was targeted by the feds due to his notoriety, others simply because he is Hispanic. One former federal prosecutor thinks authorities are coming on a bit strong about something relatively minor. In either case, Tucson’s beloved mushroom man is currently locked in a game of chicken with the most powerful government on the planet. And all of the support he’s received is no guarantee that he will prevail. LION’S MANE Castro’s love of mushrooms can be traced back to what, in his words, amounts to a medical miracle. He was born in Nogales on the Mexico side of the border, which was never much of a permanent impediment to his family. Castro came to the U.S. when he was 12 to live with his father, a primary care physi- cian in Tucson. His mother is an attorney in Mexico who visits the U.S. regularly. His younger brother is a biochemist in San Diego, and Castro said that he studied biochemistry at the University of Arizona until his junior year, when he dropped out after his dad suffered a series of debili- tating strokes. Speaking to Phoenix New Times from prison, Castro recalled doctors showing him an MRI of his father’s brain, with dark areas indicating where blood flow had ceased. Those parts were “dead,” the physicians told him. It would never heal. “Once it’s gone,” they said, “it’s gone.” “I didn’t like that answer,” Castro said. “Honestly, it scared me.” The diagnosis led Castro down a rabbit hole of research. He began furiously reading any paper he could find on stroke recovery and nerve and brain regeneration. One mentioned a mushroom called Lion’s mane. “It’s a mushroom that has been used in Japan by Buddhist monks,” Castro said. “They claim that it helped them with meditation, with focusing, and gives them nerves of steel.” Other papers touted the use of Lion’s mane for brain regeneration (Hernan Castro)
