Meet our Guests: Adriana Lopez

Adriana Lopez

Musician and Educator

El Paso, TX

11/3/21

     Adri Lopez’s powerful voice resounds throughout the city of El Paso. A musician and educator, Adri uses her vocal talent to fight for what she believes in: protecting culture and history in El Paso while spreading el cariño—a word with no direct English translation that refers to a special kind of love with tenderness, something that Adri feels is unique to El Paso and Juárez, its sister city directly across the Mexico border.

     Adri was born and raised in El Paso and has made her way back home after a decade away. In her time away from her home city she heard many narratives about El Paso that weren’t true to her experience. Wanting to correct these false conceptions, she gained an understanding and appreciation for the rich stories and history of El Paso. This experience brought her home—to the place where she feels el cariño.

     Led by her passion for writing, poetry, and especially music, Adri uses her talents to fight. Duranguito, El Paso’s oldest neighborhood is under threat by developers and the city council to be demolished to make space for a new stadium. Adri sees the importance of this place, for its historical value as the oldest part of the city, but also for the diversity of culture that it holds as a place of border and a first stop for many different groups entering the U.S. In the fight to protect Duranguito, Adri, along with historian David Romo, produces music with messages of revolution. Adri and David’s pieces vary in style, but all fall into the musical traditions of past residents of Duranguito, a nod to the diversity of culture that this place holds and that Adri hopes to preserve.

By Katie Wallace

Video credit: Haley Post

Meet our Educators: Mitch Cutter

Mitch Cutter

Salmon and Steelhead Advocacy Fellow, Idaho Conservation League

Stanley, ID

9/11/21 – 9/14/21

“A five-star hotel for salmon and steelhead to come back to”, he says, “but the road is washed out.”

Mitch Cutter—2014 Westie, 2018 SITW Technical Manager, and current Salmon and Steelhead Advocacy Fellow with Idaho Conservation League—is describing habitat that has been restored high up in the Snake River basin for threatened salmonid species like sockeye and steelhead.

Bonneville Power Administration, the entity responsible for the energy generated by the hydroelectric dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers, has spent $18 billion towards mitigation for the disruption of anadromous fish migration due to the dams. Most of this money has been spent on habitat restoration projects in small tributaries to recreate shaded, sinuous streams in reaches that had been straightened, overgrazed, or not taken care of. Mitch does not doubt that this has been successful, however the fish are still not coming back.

This is why Mitch, through his work, advocates for the removal of the four Lower Snake River dams. Mitch works with and for Idahoans; building support for dam removal through coalition building, letters to the editor, and encouraging them to elect politicians who support dam removal policy. He often reaches out to Idaho farmers who currently rely on the navigable passage provided by dams to transport their product to find alternate modes of transport.

Mitch says, “Fish need one thing, and that’s a river”. To restore an economically and ecologically significant population, Mitch and Idaho Conservation League believe the dams must go.

By Katie Wallace

Meet our Guests: Angel Sobotta

Angel Sobotta

Nez Perce Language Program Coordinator and Storyteller

Wallowa, OR

8/26/21

Wearing traditional beaded moccasins, a ribbon skirt, and an intricate necklace, Angel Sobotta welcomes us with a Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) greeting. She greets Semester in the West in the dance arbor at the Nez Perce Wallowa Homelands, a site reclaimed for the celebration and recognition of the first people of the region after they were forced out by the US Federal Government 100 years ago.

Angel is dedicated to reclaiming Nimiipuu tradition through language. “You must rename it to claim it” she says. In her culture, names are a source of guidance—something to live up to. Angel’s Nimiipuu name means “the red glowing part of the sunset.” Both of her names remind her of beauty and grace and have helped to guide her through troubling times. She believes that bringing Nimiipuu language back into the lives of her people can do the same. She refers to the revival of language as a medicine to heal her peoples’ spirits, provide understanding of their culture, and connect to their ancestors.       

Angel shares the story of the sáplis- a symbol sacred to the Nimiipuu derived from the rotation of Hiyumtaxto around Luk’upsmey (the Big Dipper and the North Star, respectively) that creates a map of the sky. Based on the location of Hiyumtaxto, the Nimiipuu know when to harvest and hunt and when to migrate each season. This sacred symbol has been appropriated by other entities—the Nazi Swastika has the same basic shape—and through the telling of the origin of Hiyumtaxto and the sáplis, Angel works to reclaim the symbol and its meaning.

To conclude the morning, Angel led the group in a traditional friendship dance, stepping clockwise to the beat of a drum. Circling around the center of the dance arbor, Angel smiled and shook hands with each student she passed.

By Katie Wallace

Photo credit: Phil Brick