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La Corua at Quitobaqutio dies...

9/4/2020

 
This piece of normalized recklessness and profiteering jumped out at me recently.  A July pictorial  in The National Geographic about Trump's border wall captured the essence of why guardian spirits like La Corua and ancient gifts from I'itoi  (O'odham Elder Brother) are meaningless to those who "take no responsibility".

Beautifully written by  Douglas Main  with powerful imagery by photographer Ash Ponder, I share snippets that speak to the heart of the Living Being that is the Sonoran Desert and the decimation of both land and culture that its guardian people, the O'odham, now face. I hope you will follow the link to view and read the whole thing... It speaks to a critical tipping point for an area that exists nowhere else in the world.  When it's gone, it's gone.  And for what?  To make a few white men rich and feed an emperor's vanity. 
A classic, wretched old story... 

White Man's ignorance is a dead-end road. We are already there.
But we are a stubborn bunch.  As long as there is mud in the pond, we will continue to scrape.
Picture
Dusk falls on the pond at Quitobaquito Springs, in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. The pond is at its lowest level in more than a decade, exposing mud flats throughout. Photo: Ash Ponders

Sacred Arizona spring drying up as border wall construction continues


​Midway down a cactus-covered hill in one of the driest parts of Arizona is a miracle: a spring. Water continually streams out of the ground, down a small channel, and into a pond.

Quitobaquito Springs, as the area is known, is one of the only reliable above-ground water sources in the Sonoran Desert. This oasis long provided water to the Hia-Ced O’odham, a tribe indigenous to the area, and records of human use and habitation go back more than 10,000 years. It’s also home to two endangered species found nowhere else in the United States: The Sonoyta pupfish and Sonoran mud turtle.

“The spring is regarded as sacred, a living element provided to all from our Elder teacher,” says tribal elder Ophelia Rivas, referring to the O’odham Creator God.

​But this once-quiet spot within Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is in trouble.
The flow of water, in slow decline since the 1980s, has dropped about 30 percent since March. The pond is at its lowest level in more than a decade, exposing mud flats throughout—a potentially urgent situation for its endangered animal inhabitants.

The pond is 200 feet from the U.S.-Mexico border, and contractors have already dug a six-foot trench for an electrical grid within a stone’s throw of it. Walls are going up several miles to the east of the spring in Organ Pipe and to the west in Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. As construction advances closer to the spring, many people fear that the large quantities of groundwater that contractors withdraw to make concrete for the wall could exacerbate falling water tables and dry up the spring. Quitobaquito is probably fed in part by a regional aquifer that’s already been drawn down by agriculture.

“It’s unbelievable; it’s just horrible; it’s going down and down,” says Christina Andrews, a Hia-Ced O’odham leader, of the spring flow and pond level. She’s visited the spring since childhood, and has never seen it so depleted. “It feels like a violation of innocence.”

​The wall construction uses a lot of water to suppress dust and to mix concrete for the base.
For a stretch of wall built a few miles east near Lukeville in 2008, Customs and Border Patrol estimated construction used up to 710,000 gallons per mile of fence. More may be necessary now, since the new wall is twice as high. To put this number in context, it would take about 70 days for Quitobaquito to produce enough water for one mile of fence.

Border Patrol spokesperson Dyman says that at the moment, the agency “does not calculate the amount of water usage per mile of construction.”
Holding Himdag Together - Leonard Chana

"On Each side the people hold it together, to share M Himadag, O'odham"
- The late Leonard Chana, O'odham artist

(Picture and quote found on Facebook page, O'odham de Mexico.)

​The O’odham intensely oppose construction on this sacred land, which also contains a sizable tribal graveyard that is centuries old.
While nobody lives at the springs anymore, it’s still used regularly for ceremonies and to pay homage to ancestors. Once difficult to access, the spring now has a road running past it. Large trucks and heavy machinery rumble by continually—and soon, contractors plan to build the 30-foot wall, illuminated by lights powered by electric lines in the already completed trench.

The area around the springs was sold without Hia-Ced tribal consensus to the government in the 1950s and became part of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. The O’odham are not only upset about what they see as the desecration of Quitobaquito, but the dozens of miles of fence already put up elsewhere throughout their historic homelands, separating tribal members from their relatives in Mexico. They were particularly outraged when Border Patrol contractors blew up ground in Monument Hill, to the east of the spring in Organ Pipe. The hill contains ancestral graves and a shrine to children.
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There's a fabulous little treasure of a book to learn about the O'odham Children's Shrine, their sacred mountain--home to I'itoi,  Their legends and creation stories, the Yaquis (Yoeme), Native Christianities, La Corua, and other rich stuff:
Beliefs and Holy Places - A Spiritual Geography of the Pimeria Alta,
by James S. ("Big Jim" ) Griffith
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Navidad MPP 2019

12/16/2019

 
Navidad en Arizona
Arizona has been called "America's Meth Lab of Democracy".  Many hot button issues were tried here first and have since gone national-- on steroids. One of them is nativism. Back in 2013, I did a painting called, Navidad Baja Arizona - A Christmas Story.  It was my response to the dehumanization of immigrants dying in our desert, and how women were accused of coming here to have "anchor babies" and game our system. 

Fear and victim-blaming has been a wildly successful political weapon throughout history, especially in Arizona--and each generation to breeds new sets of eager, vulnerable ears. Enter the Trump brand of nativism and by 2019, it's a whole new ballgame. This Christmas, I didn't need to reinvent the wheel-- just add some ammunition and realities we'd rather not think about. I DO want to remember that the Nativity is really about the Human Spirit. Regimes come and go and although the human spirit is ephemeral, it finds a way. Always.

- Linda Magdalena Victoria

Navidad 2019
"Because there was no room for them at the inn."
Detail-A Navidad 2019
Forbidden Christ / El Cristo Prohibido
Detail-B Navidad 2019
Ningun ser humano es illegal / No human is illegal
Detail-C Navidad 2019
"Migrant Protection Protocols": MX police, cartels, gangs.
Detail-D Navidad 2019
Nuestra Señora la Protectora

La Aplicacion (The Application)

10/2/2019

 
Guatemalan mother applies for asylum
Guatemalan child detail
​This may be the last in my series honoring asylum seekers for a while. It is an intimate capture of the bond between parent and child. The process of painting the mother revealed the ancient classic Maya bone structure of her face. What timeless beauty.  I wonder if they are still alive and together. This administration will go down in history for its crimes against humanity.

I must say here that this brutal saga of America's asylum seekers really struck a nerve. When stories started coming out about what "Zero-Tolerance" was doing to families, children, even babies, I absolutely  could not stand it.

I was still recovering from surgery but was determined to DO SOMETHING... ANYTHING. When the plumbing collapsed at the old Benedictine Monastery (Tucson's primary migrant shelter), a dozen porta-johns were brought in and volunteers built outdoor showers from pallets, tarps, and PVC pipes. Plumber's daughter that I am,  I and another lovely Catholic lady cleaned all of them daily, and continued to do so until the Casa Alitas Program relocated to their new location farther south. The asylum seekers were conscientious, and always offering to help me. The physical duresses they suffered were evident in what I cleaned and it was heart-wrenching.  No innocent people, especially children and babies should be treated like this by the United States of America. These refugees, and the countless migrants before them are the ones who have cleaned OUR toilets and worse, in the shadows, for generations for Christ's sake. What is God's name is wrong with us? There were days it was so overwhelming I'd dissolve in my car before I could leave.
​
When that job went away, there were plenty of volunteers and I felt compelled to do something to lift up the humanity of these remarkable "throw-away" people who had suffered so much and come so far. That need gave birth to this series of artworks.
Mother applies for asylum
Original source of photo unknown. I'll keep searching. It is beautiful.

La Rendicion (Surrender)

9/28/2019

 
Surrender
Surrender close-up
This may be my favorite image of border-crossers. I wanted to paint this couple because I think they are utterly captivating. It's not a new image and has been hanging around on my computer for years. I pray they are both doing well. 

Via the photographer:
​"Flor Garcia, 19, of Honduras, holding her one-year-old daughter, Flor Fernandez turned themselves over to CBP after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico near McAllen, Texas, on Thursday, July 3, 2014."
Photo: Rodolfo Gonzalez/AP
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Photo: Rodolfo Gonzalez/Austin American-Statesman

Darlyn Cristabel Cordova-Valle

9/18/2019

 
Darlyn Cristabel Cordova-Valle
<< Return to En Memoriam
Darlyn Cristabel Cordova-Valle
The twelfth soul in my En Memoriam project honoring asylum seekers who did not survive the rigors of the American border (and hopefully my last, at least for a while):

Darlyn Cristabel Cordova-Valle, Age 10
Of El Salvador
Died Sept. 29, 2018 ​of heart complications, 
Nebraska
Darlyn was encountered by Border Patrol on March 1, 2018, a few miles west of Hidalgo, Texas. She complained of chest pain and three days later, was transferred to HHS custody where she remained for about seven months. Darlyn was treated for a congenital heart defect at various hospitals -- including in San Antonio, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona.
HHS spokesperson Mark Weber told CNN Darlyn had surgery complications that left her in a comatose state. She was transported to a nursing facility in Phoenix and later to Children's Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, where she died on September 29, due to fever and respiratory distress.

Darlyn was traveling to the US to find her mom, who had migrated from El Salvador to work and provide for her three daughters nine years earlier. She hoped to be reunited with her mother in Nebraska. Her mother asked that Darlyn be released to her care. The government refused.

Her body was returned to El Salvador.
​
​Darlyn's story HERE. 
Darlyn Cristabel Cordova-Valle
This seems to be the only photo of this fragile young lady out there. (Source: family, web)

Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez

9/16/2019

 
<< Return to En Memoriam
The eleventh soul in my En Memoriam project honoring asylum seekers who did not survive the rigors of the American border:
Claudia Patricia Gómez González, Age 20
of San Juan Ostuncalco, Guatemala
Shot by BP agent, May 24, 2018
Rio Bravo, TX
Claudia earned a degree in accounting but had not been able to find a job in her home country of Guatemala, so she traveled 1,500 miles to the United States, hoping to find a job and a better future.  Shortly after she set foot in Texas, a Border Patrol agent shot her in the head and killed her.

Gomez-Gonzalez's shooting drew international attention after a bystander posted video of the aftermath on Facebook Live, showing her lying on the ground, bleeding. Authorities changed their initial account of the shooting two days later, adding to the controversy at a time when the White House has cracked down on undocumented immigrants.

The deadly encounter ended the journey Gomez-Gonzalez started nearly three weeks before in an indigenous community in San Juan Ostuncalco, Guatemala.

The details around the death of this young Guatemalan woman remain unresolved, as the majority of migrant deaths are. And like many others, a wrongful death suit against CBP on her behalf was filed, a year after her death.

Claudia's story HERE.
Claudia Patricia Gómez González
Claudia Patricia Gómez González
Claudia Patricia Gómez González
Photo sources: Gonzalez family, web
Claudia Patricia Gómez González

Johana Medina-Leon

9/10/2019

 
Johana Medina-León
Johana Medina-León
<< Return to En Memoriam
The tenth soul in my En Memoriam project honoring asylum seekers who did not survive the rigors of the American border.
​Johana Medina-León, Age 25
of El Salvador
Died June 1, 2019
Texas
​Medina's journey to the U.S. had taken months. She had waited for a Mexican transitory visa for more than a month in Tapachula, Chiapas, near the Guatemalan border, Diversidad Sin Fronteras stated. The advocacy group said Medina waited nearly three months in Juárez before she was allowed to make her asylum claim to U.S. immigration officials in El Paso.

​Johana known to friends as "Joa," died at the Del Sol Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, after being detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement for seven weeks. Medina had been a certified nurse in El Salvador but sought asylum in the U.S. because she couldn't work as an open trans woman in the nursing profession in her home country. From April 11 to about May 23, her health deteriorated and she tested positive for HIV. She begged for medical attention that never came. 

In mid-May, she had passed her "credible fear" interview, which determined she would be persecuted if she returned to El Salvador, but Leon wasn't paroled until she began complaining of chest pains and was taken to Del Sol Medical Center. She passed away four days later.

​Johana's story HERE.
Johana Medina-León
Photo sources: unknown, web
Johana Medina-León

Juan de Leon Gutierrez

9/6/2019

 
Juan de León Gutiérrez
Juan de León Gutiérrez
<< Return to En Memoriam
The ninth soul in my En Memoriam project honoring asylum seekers who did not survive the rigors of the American border.
​Juan de León Gutiérrez, Age 16
of Guatemala
Died April 30, 2019
Texas
After 2 years of drought, Juan left an area of Guatemala where children are known to be stunted by malnutrition. He hoped to be reunited with his brother in Miami.

Juan was apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol near El Paso after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. He was transferred to a local hospital after a doctor at a government shelter noticed he was sick. He was released and hospitalized again a day later. Juan was 16 years old when he died of a brain infection.
 
His family had no money--not even to take the bus to Guatemala City where an airplane carrying his body would arrive.

​More of Juan's story HERE.
Picture
Photo: Jimmy Cristian Gutierrez Garcia via web

Carlos Gregorio Hernandez-Vasquez

9/4/2019

 
Carlos Gregorio Hernandez-Vasquez
Carlos Gregorio Hernandez-Vasquez
<< Return to En Memoriam
The eighth soul in my En Memoriam project honoring asylum seekers who did not survive the rigors of the American border.
Carlos Gregorio Hernandez-Vasquez, Age 16
from Guatemala
Died May 20, 2019,
​Texas
Carlos died in Border Patrol custody while trying to reunite with family members in the United States. He was also venturing north to support his siblings, one of whom is disabled. 1 of 9 children from an area of extreme poverty in the Guatemalan Highlands, he was a soccer player, a musician who played bass and piano, and a healthy young man, his family told a Guatemalan television station. 

Hernandez succumbed to the flu, complicated by pneumonia and sepsis, on or near the toilet of his South Texas Border Patrol cell. His body was returned to Guatemala.

​More of Carlos' story HERE. ​
Carlos Gregorio Hernandez-Vasquez
Photo source: Courtesy of family (via web)
Carlos-Gregorio-Hernandez-Vasquez

New Report Shows “Deeply Troubling Failures” by Border Patrol in Boy’s Death, Key Congressional Leader Says
​
ProPublica, Sept. 17, 2021
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Inside the Cell Where a Sick 16-Year-Old Boy Died in Border Patrol Care
ProPublica, Dec. 5, 2019​


Wilmer Josue Ramirez Vazquez

8/31/2019

 
Wilmer Josué Ramírez Vásquez
Wilmer Josué Ramírez Vásquez
<< Return to En Memoriam
The seventh soul in my En Memoriam project honoring asylum seekers who did not survive the rigors of the American border.
Wilmer Josué Ramírez Vázquez, Age 2
of Guatemala
Died May 14, 2019, Texas
Wilmer's mother brought him to the U.S. to get him medical care for a condition that left him unable to walk. Wilmer and his mother Hilda left home in March to make the journey to the U.S.  He became ill in Mexico and crossed into the United States with a high fever and difficulty breathing. Diagnosed with pneumonia and other complications at a children's hospital, Wilmer died about a month later.
​

Wilmer's story HERE.
Wilmer Josué Ramírez Vázquez
Photo source: Vasquez family, via web
Wilmer Josué Ramírez Vázquez

Roxsana Hernandez-Rodriguez

8/26/2019

 
Roxsana Hernandez
Roxsana Hernandez
<< Return to En Memoriam
The sixth soul in my En Memoriam project honoring asylum seekers who did not survive the rigors of the American border.
Roxsana Hernandez-Rodriguez, Age 33
of Honduras
Died May 30, 2018, New Mexico
Roxsana said she had fled Honduras in part because of the discrimination and violence she faced for being transgender. (She was gang-raped by four MS-13 members and contracted HIV. ) She said in an interview, "Trans people in my neighborhood are killed and chopped into pieces, then dumped inside potato bags."

Hernandez was one of roughly 25 transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals who joined the annual caravan of Central American migrants heading to the US border. She crossed at the San Ysidro Port of Entry near San Diego and was later transferred to a CPB facility in NM for transgender detainees. She succumbed to symptoms of pneumonia, severe dehydration, and complications associated with HIV and later died from cardiac arrest.

​Roxsana's story HERE.
Roxsana Hernandez
Photo source: Luc Forsyth for BuzzFeed News
Roxsana Hernandez-Rodriguez

Oscar Alberto + Angie Valeria Martinez-Ramirez

8/24/2019

 
Óscar y Valeria Martínez Ramírez
Óscar y Valeria Martínez Ramírez
<< Return to En Memoriam
The fourth & fifth souls in my En Memoriam project honoring asylum seekers who did not survive the rigors of the American border.
​Óscar Alberto Martínez-Ramírez, 25 yrs.
Angie Valeria, 23 mos.
both of El Salvador 
Drowned together in the Rio Grande River, June 24, 2019
Working at a pizzeria in El Salvador, Óscar  made approximately $350 a month supporting his wife Tania Vanessa Ávalos, and their young daughter, Valeria. The three lived with his mother, Rosa Ramírez, in a two-bedroom home outside of San Salvador. She gave them the larger room, but they wanted more than a life on $10 a day.

Frustrated at being unable to present themselves to U.S. authorities and request asylum, Oscar swam across the river with his daughter. He set her on the U.S. bank of the river and started back for his wife, but seeing him move away the girl threw herself into the waters. Óscar returned and was able to grab Valeria, but the current then swept them both away.

​Oscar & Valeria's story HERE. 
Óscar y Valeria Martínez Ramírez
Image source: Maria Estela Avalos (via web)

Mariee Juarez

8/16/2019

 
Mariee Juarez
Mariee Juarez
<< Return to En Memoriam
The third soul in my En Memoriam project honoring asylum seekers who did not survive the rigors of the American border.
Mariee Juarez of Guatemala
Age: 19 mos.
Died May 10, 2018, New Jersey
​(after being held at ICE detention in Dilley, TX)
After experiencing inhospitable violence in her home country, Mariee's mother, Yazmin Juárez, was faced with the difficult choice of staying in Guatemala and likely facing death or fleeing to the United States to apply for asylum. The decision to embark on such a journey was a remarkably dangerous one with no guarantee of obtaining legal status in the end, but as Yazmin recounted, the crushing instability of their home country made staying put impossible.

When the two arrived at the border in Texas, they were quickly funneled into the U.S. immigrant detention system to wait for their case to be processed. They were both examined by a doctor and found to be healthy. The two were then transferred to a facility in Dilley, Texas where they were crammed into a filthy, crowded cell with sick children. Mariee became sick within a week of their detention with a cough and runny nose and grew steadily worse; contracting a high fever and diarrhea and vomiting. 

Yazmin stood in line for hours, begging the guards for help. When Mariee was finally seen, she was given antibiotics after a quick examination. Yazmin begged the clinicians to run additional tests and allow her daughter to stay in a more sanitary area until she recovered, but she was sent back into their overcrowded cell with the other sick children.

Shortly thereafter, the two were released from custody and allowed to stay with family in New Jersey until their asylum claim could be heard in court. Upon their arrival, Juárez rushed her daughter to the hospital where it became clear that her condition was far worse than diagnosed. Mariee died six weeks later, on the day celebrated as Mother’s Day in Guatemala.

​​Mariee and Yazmin's full story HERE.
Mariee Juarez
Photo source: Yazmin Juárez, Mariee's mother (via web)
Mariee Juarez

Felipe Alonzo Gomez

8/11/2019

 
Felipe Alonzo-Gomez
Felipe Alonzo-Gomez
<< Return to En Memoriam
The second soul in my En Memoriam project honoring asylum seekers who did not survive the rigors of the American border.
Felipe Alonzo Gomez, Age 8,
​of Guatemala.
Died Dec. 24, 2018, New Mexico
Felipe was excited to come to America. His father, Augustin, thought taking Felipe to the U.S. would give him more “opportunity,” and was focused on escaping the poverty of their hometown. Felipe hoped to have his own bicycle.
​
The boy’s mother, Catarina Alonzo Perez, said she spoke with her son the day before they arrived at the U.S. border. “He wasn’t sick on the way; he wasn’t sick here,” she said through her stepdaughter in the Mayan language known as Chuj.
His body was returned to Guatemala.

More of Felipe's story HERE.
Picture
Photo source: Catarina Gomez (via web)
Felipe Alonzo Gomez

Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal-Maquin

8/11/2019

 
Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin
Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin
<< Return to En Memoriam
The first soul in my En Memoriam project honoring asylum seekers who did not survive the rigors of the American border.
Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal-Maquin, age 7
of Raxruha, Guatemala.
Died Dec. 8, 2018, in New Mexico. 
She and her father traveled 3,000 miles from Guatemala seeking a better life. She jumped when her father told her she could come with him to the U.S.  She thought she might get her first toy, or learn to write. She got her first pair of shoes right before the trip. They were apprehended the night of Dec. 6 at the extremely remote port of entry at Antelope Wells, New Mexico, by Border Patrol agents,  just 2 days before she died. Jakelin died of sepsis.

Jakelin's story HERE.

Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin
Photo source: Maquin family (via web)
Jakelin Ameí Rosmery Caal-Maquin

Navidad Baja Arizona: A Christmas Story

12/3/2013

 
AZ-Nativity
AZ-Nativity-raw
In this homage, it is my intent to reach beyond the political wailing and gnashing of teeth to remind us that the Divine often comes through via the "least of these". The Christmas story has many parallels to the struggles of present day migrants crossing Arizona. It is my way of blending both historical and true-to-life contemporary elements, and of putting a human face on the "aliens" among us. My story goes like this:

The treacherous journey through Mexico and into the Sonoran desert overcomes the pregnant Maria, and she goes into labor. The pollero (coyote) of her group leaves her to fend for herself. She seeks shelter under the spreading branches of a mesquite tree.

Maria sits on her backpack, covered by her jacket. Her bare feet have blisters from many miles of walking. The man Jose is older than Maria and could be her husband, a relative, or a sympathetic fellow crosser. He wears dark clothing and the iconic back-pack with a gallon jug of water. In his right hand is a staff hewn from a mesquite branch, which may also indicate he's made this trek before.

Maria wraps the newborn Jesus in a bordado (hand-embroidered tortilla cloth) -- a memento given by her mother back home for her new life in the E.E.U.U. (United States). Hummingbirds are an auspicious blessing in most indigenous cultures, and three of them visit the baby.

The birth of this tiny human stirs the curiosity of some local desert wildlife... a javelina and her baby and a jackrabbit look on. A bobcat gazes from atop a saguaro behind the mesquite tree. ( Yes, they really do hang out on top of saguaros!) Crawling from the rocks towards Maria's battered shoes is a scorpion - a reminder that life is a precarious journey. (A scorpion logo also appears on many cartel drug packages.)

Instead of a star, there is a Border Patrol helicopter. It is not clear whether it has discovered Jose & Maria's hiding place... 

Navidad en Arizona is part of the vision I seek to portray through art:
a compassion that can stand in awe of what "the least of these" carry -- rather than stand in judgement of how they carry it.

- Linda Magdalena Victoria

Navidad en Arizona Detail1
Navidad en Arizona Detail3
Navidad en Arizona Detail5
Navidad en Arizona Detail2
Navidad en Arizona Detail4

She Comes for Them / Nuestra Señora Viene por Ellos

6/14/2012

 
She-Comes-for-Them
Picture
The Virgin of Guadalupe is Mexico's patron saint and is loved and revered throughout the America's. Here, her tears turn into roses that rain down as a blessing on the deceased. (Roses are a key element in her legend, read more about her here.) Roses are also important to the Yoeme (Pascua Yaqui) cultural belief in the Flower World; their spiritual vision of heaven.

The presence of an owl portends death, according Mexican folk traditions. There is an old saying in Mexico: Cuando el tecolote canta, el indio muere ("When the owl cries/sings, the Indian dies"). The Aztecs and Maya, along with other Natives of Mesoamerica, considered the owl a symbol of death and destruction. 

The saguaro cactus has finished its spring bloom and is ready for the saguaro harvest conducted by the Tohono O'odham Indians in late June. From the saguaro fruit they make saguaro wine, jams, and jellies and have a rain feast in honor of the coming monsoon.

The horned lizard at the bottom does not have any special meaning except that they are a beloved endangered desert critter.

Sonoran Arizona remains America's migrant graveyard.  Nativist immigration policies have become more and more untethered in recent decades in a lust to grow the new industrial for-profit private prison complex. Meanwhile, the American economy still depends on immigrant labor, now more than ever - to feed us, and do the jobs Americans never have, and never will do.

I continue to find ways where I can honor all those who gave up everything for a better life. It is my intent to show here that we can only hope they are being received into a better place than those they knew in their home countries or in our deserts. 

Ca nel nehuatl in namoicnohuacanantzin in tehuatl ihuan in ixquichtin in ic nican tlalpan ancepantlaca, ihuan in occequin nepapantlaca notetlazotlacahuan, in notech motzatzilia, in nechtemoa, in notech motechilia … 

For I really am your compassionate mother, yours and of all the people who live together in this land, and of all the other people of different ancestries, those who love me, those who cry to me, those who seek me, those who trust in me …

Nican Mopohua, 29-31
​Nahuatl version of the apparition of  Nuestra Señora to San Juan Diego.
True indeed.
​Everything I am and do is rooted in love of our land and its people, and our Mother. Her mantle has room for everyone.  And 'She Comes for Them'...
SheComesforThemDetail3
SheComesForThemDetail2
SheComesForThemDetail1
SheComesForThemDetail4
Over the past ten years, more than 4,000 people have died while crossing the Arizona desert to find jobs, join families, or start new lives. Other migrants tell of the corpses they pass—bodies that are never recovered or counted.

Crossing With the Virgin collects stories heard from migrants about these treacherous treks—firsthand accounts told to volunteers for the Samaritans, a humanitarian group that seeks to prevent such unnecessary deaths by providing these travelers with medical aid, water, and food.
Read more: Crossing With the Virgin - Stories from the Migrant Trail
Crossing with the virgin

Mi Adelita - An Interpretation

12/31/2011

 
Mi Adelita
I created this painting styled as an ex-voto; a votive offering to a saint or divinity, given in fulfillment of a vow. (Click on photo to enlarge)

Adelita (la soldadera) stands tall, gazing forward, carrying a young child in a traditional indigenous sling. On her thigh rests a Carabina 30/30— (Winchester 30/30) decorated with a rose and two hummingbirds; both powerful Yoeme (Yaqui) symbols. She is dressed plainly, in a Tehuana style skirt. She shows signs of struggle but is poised and undeterred. She is the enduring Woman Warrior Spirit personified, the unsung strength of the world.

The girl child Adelita carries represents a new generation of life. She could be the child of Adelita, or a rescued child separated from her own natural mother. She sleeps peacefully.

  • Blood on the ground: Mexico’s bloody history and ongoing struggles.
  • Aztec calendar motif: embodies sun & earth deities Tonatiuh & Tlaltecuhtli – both related to sacrificial blood.
  • Border Fence: symbol for all that is ridiculous.
  • Skeletons: ancestors, perished migrants.
  • Rattlesnake: Animal guardian, powerful transformative medicine. Also connected to the Aztec serpent goddess, Coatilcue, and Cihuateteo; one who guards the spirits of women who died in childbirth.
  • Prickly pear cactus: (in this case opuntia var. Santa Rita) Food & sustenance for desert survivors.
  • Mourning Dove w/creosote bush sprig: Desert peace symbol.
  • Banner: In English: “If you want peace, work for justice.” --Pope Paul VI
  • River: Santa Cruz River; without which human settlement in this far corner of the Sonoran desert would not have been possible.
  • La Virgen de Guadalupe: Our Holy Blessed Mother and Empress of the Americas, sprung from the ancient Aztec mother goddess Tonanztin. Some believe that she holds the spiritual blueprint of the U.S. Southwest.

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