Meet our Guests: Antonia Morales

Antonia Morales

Grassroots Activist

El Paso, Texas

11/3/21

Under an eminent domain claim, the city of El Paso has plans to raze a neighborhood and build a sports stadium. The neighborhood, Durangito, is the oldest in the city. The apartment of Antonia Morales, affectionately known as Toñita, is one such building.

      When 92-year-old Toñita moved into her Durangito apartment in 1967, the neighborhood was in a state of economic collapse. Prostitution, robbery, and drugs were the avenues of survival for many of its denizens, until Toñita stepped in as what historian David Romo calls “the real leader of the struggle to save Durangito.” Toñita worked tirelessly to help bring economic security to the neighborhood. Now stadium development is undoing the efforts of her struggle.

While the developers claim the stadium will bring in revenue, Toñita knows better. The same was said of the baseball stadium across town, yet hardly any of its revenue returned to serve the surrounding community.

When in 2016 developers began buying out residents of Durangito en masse, Toñita refused. They threatened to cut her water and power if she didn’t accept their offer of $14,000, she told them to go ahead, she wasn’t leaving.

Recently, Toñita’s act of resistance was documented and circulated on media outlets. With widespread support and visibility, the city cannot make her go quietly. And go she won’t. “I’ve never stopped fighting,” Toñita says. “My life has always been about struggle and fight. And that’s why I’m struggling to save this community.”

By Nicki Caddell

Meet our Guests: Jason Nez

Jason Nez

Fire Archeologist

Navajo Nation

09/26/21

“I’m always looking at signs and putting together stories,” says Jason Nez, kneeling to examine a sherd of Diné pottery patterned with rusty stalks of corn. As an archaeologist, Jason reads complex stories of people and place from the minutia of human markings and artifacts. As a wildland fire crew manager with the National Park Service, he puts his archaeological literacy to uncommon use.

The process of corralling and extinguishing fires leaves its own scars on landscapes. Fire line trenches and vehicular tracks disturb landscapes in the name of park protection but threaten to erase sites of native artifacts should they collide with the path of fire. Thus, Jason proactively identifies sites and develops plans to spare them from damage by fire crews.

Lasting artifacts have been a vital source of power for the Diné and other indigenous tribes whose nativity, as Jason articulates, is constantly questioned. “So when we see these [artifacts],” Jason emphasizes, “it’s our proof that we were here. They couldn’t take us from this landscape because we were able to argue in court that these were our ancestors’ and it’s indisputable. So having enough respect to leave these things here, protects these connections far into the future in bigger ways than we can ever imagine.”

By Nicki Caddell

Meet our Guests: Norman Benally

Norman Benally

Interpreter, activist, sheep herder, and assembly line worker

Black Mesa, AZ / Navajo Nation

9/25/21

Self-proclaimed “old timer,” Norman Benally meets Westies outside his home in Black Mesa on the Navajo Nation in Arizona. His house adjoins a retired coal processing plant. Peabody Energy moved into the region in 1968, mining coal and pumping water from the Navajo aquifer to power cities off the reservation – Tucson, Flagstaff, Las Vegas. For years, many Diné (Navajo) people depended on the coal plant for work and the aquifer for water, yet their proximity to these resources did little to increase their access.

Today, the plant is shut down. A pipeline borders Norman’s house, but no water runs through his faucet. “The politics are as dirty as the coal plant,” he states—not to mention the drinking water. This summer, 86 of his sheep died after drinking from a nearby spring. He holds up a plastic water bottle, “we never drank out of these [until now].”

Before the backdrop of an arid, industrial landscape – his backyard – Norman expounds on the “struggle to maintain a way of life we were raised in,” when any extra cash goes into feeding his livestock, and the local resources “to keep all those AC units running in the Southwest.” Norman has pushed through this struggle. He resisted removal, fought, and remained. Norman’s activism, working as a translator for Navajo matriarchs to speak out against the coal plant and pass down Diné stories, has brought him to locations such as Standing Rock and the United Nations. His story is what he calls “the hard truth.” He intends to continue resisting.

By Neave Fleming