Awasqa Editors’s Organisations
Articles by Awasqa Editors
-
Apache Tribe’s Innovative Approach Lowers COVID-19 Deaths
When the Indian Health Service medical team arrived in Whiteriver, Arizona, the population of the White Mountain Apache Tribe was facing a level of contagion ten times higher than the state’s average. The long distances between homes in this isolated territory was becoming a challenge to be able to control the pandemic effectively. The medical…
-
Kumeyaay People Halt Construction on Border Wall
Members of the Kumeyaay Nation (Ipai-Tipai-Diegueño) launched a call to defend their ancestral territory. For at least 12,000 years, they have been living in a region that expands from San Diego County in Southern California, to the Tijuana-Mexicali region and La Huerta-Agua Sorceress on the Mexican side. They have been around for at least 600…
-
Tlacoculokos in Oaxacalifornia: Decolonizing Art
Tlacoculokos is a collective of two self-taught artists from Tlacolula, Oaxaca, Mexico, Dario Canul and Cosijoesa Cernas, who define themselves as anti-capitalist, punk, and anti-fascist. They were part of the Contemporary Art Specialization Clinics (CEACO) of La Curtiduría in Oaxaca. Heirs to the teachings of the great Mexican muralists, with multimedia and multidisciplinary graphics, they…
-
Sacred Black Hills: An Origin Story that Breaks with Colonialism
UPDATE July 6: At least 15 people were arrested Friday, July 3, as activists blocked a highway to protest Trump’s speech at Mt. Rushmore, to highlight the desecration of sacred lands and as a process of decolonization. For more information, please visit NDN’s website. The Mount Rushmore monument where the faces of George Washington, Thomas…
-
Precautionary Measures against Ethnocide: Strategic Alliances Push for the Protection of Indigenous People
On April 7 a catastrophic oil spill in Ecuador polluted the Coca and Napo Rivers where 27 thousand indigenous and 90 thousand mestizo people depend on for drinking water and fishing. It was a predictable industry-provoked disaster that geologists and environmentalists long warned about: the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant was generating heavy erosion near…
-
Mayan people fight against racism in Guatemala
The Mayan People in Guatemala are mourning and demanding justice for the lynching of the spiritual grandfather and scientist Domingo Choc-Ajq’ij and Aj Ilonel (herbalist and spiritual guide)-who was accused of being a “witch” and burned alive on June 7. Domingo Choc was an expert in traditional medicine known as “Abuelo Domingo” or “Tata Mingo”,…
-
Perú: 11 Years After “Baguazo” Massacre, A Call for Justice
In 2009, right in the middle of the Free Trade Agreement negotiations with the United States, and as part of the government’s strategy to bypass the legislative branch, the president of Peru Alan Garcia, issued a series of decrees that “facilitated” mining and oil extraction in indigenous territories. This, in fact, led to the cancellation…
-
The Right to Voluntary Self-Isolation
Voluntary self-isolation has been practiced for millennia by uncontacted peoples, so as not to be victims of the devastating consequences of Western civilization and progress. Several intergovernmental organizations have recognized this legal right and survival strategy of peoples to protect their land and territory, as a way of protecting themselves against genocide, colonization, and the…
-
#WeCantBreathe: A Call for Solidarity Against a Broken World System
The world is reeling. The indignation of people in the United States is a desperate cry for justice in a society that has finally revealed historical systemic racism and inequity. The deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor under the hands of the police force, is proof of the ongoing social and economic…
-
Irma Pineda: To Reconcile with Mother Earth, We Must Reconcile with Ourselves
We spoke with Irma Pineda Santiago, a Zapotec from Juchitán, Mexico, who speaks Diidxazá and is the Latin American representative for the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. She talks about the effects of the pandemic on Indigenous populations, the recovery of ancestral knowledge—and its practice, in the midst of the pandemic—and the resilience of…